Couple Dancing in Living Room

Michael's Story
Grace and Mosely were walking down the driveway to their home. Both had worked a long day and the refuge of their habitat was calling loudly. Before they reached the door Grace blurted out, "I think I'm pregnant". A wild look appeared on Mosely's face and he had trouble forming the word, "How?" "No, I don't mean how "how", I mean I thought you were on the pill". Grace stopped walking just before the steps of their home, slunk to the ground as the tears burst in floods. "I am…, I don't know… It's not one hundred per cent…" The words barely audible between sobs. Mosely slunk to the ground next to Grace and put her arm around her. "It's OK. I know we talked about careers first but we can do this." They sat there on the ground and absorbed the quiet. Finally as if in agreement they both got up and walked through their front door. Grace cried a few more tears and said, "I'm not ready for this". Knowing she really didn't want an answer, Mosely simply held her.
Grace had purchased a pregnancy kit and the next morning followed the instructions biting her lips as they waited the results.

"It's negative" Grace announced still biting her lips.

Mosely pulled her to his arms and said, "I'm sorry"

"I am too"


Alice's Story
The trip was a long one. If things had turned out differently for him they would not be here. If that manuscript had been accepted, as he was assured it would be, he would have been able to pay off his bills and he would have been able to help send her back to college and buy her a house without having to do what was ultimately done. He never meant to take the money for good. He was going to pay it back; it was just that the bills kept coming and there was so much he wanted to give her and he could not give her anything without money. The city had taken everything away from him. It had taken his money and it zapped his creativity. In the long run, this place in the woods would be the best place for him. He had no choice now; it was this house or jail.

When the phone call came he was prepared and he expected to leave alone for the house in the mountains far away. She would be better off without hi; He wasn't a writer, he wasn't a provider, he was nothing. He told her though, she needed to know where he was and she needed to be able to move on.
She insisted on going with him. She didn't care about any of it. She didn't want money, she didn't care about going back to college she didn't even care about a stupid house.

It turns out she only cared about him.

They made it to the house around dusk.
He felt a calmness he had not felt in a long time.
He embraced her, for the first time understanding things that he wished he could have understood a long time ago.


Mushroom's Story
Tom had pledged that he would wait for Jeanne until his dying day. He knew that someday she would relent, she would change her mind, she was consent to spending one night in his arms. He wasn't stalking her, he knew that would drive her further away than she already was from him. Their paths crossed enough in their normal lives at college that he knew how she was doing and she knew that he wasn't giving up hope. If there were a reason for concern, their mutual friends would have sounded the alarm. Even within those boundaries and her (and their friends) saying anywhere from softly to sarcastically that she wasn't going to give him more than being a buddy, he still held onto the spark of belief that she'd be in his arms some sweet day.

Tom and a couple of dorm friends decided they wanted to go get some coffee on Sunday morning, hoping to shake the ringing in their heads from the party they'd had the night before, and went by Jeanne's room to roust her -- she'd been the belle of the ball and they figured she needed a little caffiene more than the others. She didn't answer the door, which made them a little concerned, so Tom used his driver's license to open the lock. (This was a skill he swore to the others he only used for good, not evil.) Jeanne was laying on the couch, looking like she was in peaceful slumber, but no amount of shaking or prodding was making her open her eyes. The other two ran out of the room to get the RA while Tom stayed with her. He turned on the stereo, and a Tom Petty song was playing.

Two minutes later when the two returned with help (and a slowly growing crowd of students was welling at the doorway, having been been made curious by the frantic dash those two had made and the staunch steps of the RA coming back down the hall with them), this is what they saw. People stood stunned, not knowing what to say or do but watch. It was only by her alcohol poisoning that Tom got his wish... Jeanne was at last in his arms, without objection, and he carried her in a final parting dance.


Tan Lucy Pez's Story
Tom and his new girlfriend, whom he had nicknamed Icy, were just playing around. Tom never meant to use real superglue when he was caressing her.

He just wanted her to stick around for a while...


Mme Janning's Story
The fireplace seemed the only warm element in the house. But it was too far to be seen, to be felt. And, although it was raining outside de house, inside it was pouring but nothing could give the slightest sign about it.

"I wish I had not left that note to her in the afternoon. What is she going to think? Will she understand my words differently? I wish I could see right now those deep eyes, those lucious lips kissing my skin like anyone but she does. I wish... God how much I wish she was with me right now! I hope Monday she will understand, I don't want to loose her. God, give me strenght to tell this woman that it's over."


The rain, heavy rain melting with concealed tears...


"My love, are you thinking of me right now? Are you thinking of me? This birthday is killing me... He was so happy about it. I wish he forgot about his birthday for a day in his lifetime! I am sick of this situation. And I know, I know I must tell him, to put an end to these boring weekends in the countryside. My love, I will try to tell him tonight, no, tomorrow, after the birthday, that it's over. I love you. I love you"

......

"Happy Birthday, John,Happy Birthday!"
"Thank you dear, I love the pajama!"


Weirsdo's Story
"See, honey? It's just like it was when we went to bed. You just had a bad dream." Joanna wrapped her arms round him, but Dale was not entirely soothed. It felt too much like the tentacles in the dream--or whatever it was.
Besides, was it his imagination, or was that ivy trailing a good six inches longer than it had been last night? He was just about to dismiss this notion as fantasy, when he caught sight of the contents of the wastebasket and froze.


My Story
Dora had a doll house that was realistic in all its suburban ranch house detail, down to the bric-a-brac on the living room mantel and the television remote control. She placed a couple of dolls inside, leaving them to germinate with each other. They started dancing. You could look in through the open wall and watch the dolls whirl and glide within their confines. Dora started inviting her friends over to peek into the dolls' mock-up world and watch the interaction. More and more people came to watch. Word got around. Both Time Magazine and the National Enquirer did a feature on "The Dancing Dolls." Camera crews filmed them and doll psychologists toured talk shows speculating on the sublimated passions of the dance as ersatz. Whatever it was, the dolls swirled through the living room, lost in shared motion. There was nothing else the boy doll and girl doll could do. The door to the bedroom was stuck, and the remote control did not activate the television.