The red ball sat proudly at the top of the toybox.

It had been the last to be

played with and anticipated it would be the next as well. The other toys grumbled
beneath. At one time each had held the spot of the red ball, but over time they had
sunk deeper and deeper into the toy box.
Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair. They were thick and almost
horizontal, emphasizing the depth of her eyes. She was rather handsome than
beautiful. Her face was captivating by reason of a certain frankness of expression
and a contradictory subtle play of features. Her manner was engaging.
He sat staring at the person in the train stopped at the station going in the
opposite direction. She sat staring ahead, never noticing that she was being
watched. Both trains began to move and he knew that in another timeline or in
another universe, they had been happy together.
There once lived an old man and an old woman who were peasants and had to work hard
to earn their daily bread. The old man used to go to fix fences and do other odd
jobs for the farmers around, and while he was gone the old woman, his wife, did the
work of the house and worked in their own little plot of land.
There were little things that she simply could not stand. The sound of someone
tapping their nails on the table. A person chewing with their mouth open. Another
human imposing themselves into her space. She couldn't stand any of these things,
but none of them compared to the number one thing she couldn't stand which topped
all of them combined.
Sometimes it's simply better to ignore the haters. That's the lesson that Tom's dad
had been trying to teach him, but Tom still couldn't let it go. He latched onto
them and their hate and couldn't let it go, but he also realized that this wasn't
healthy. That's when he came up with his devious plan.
There was something beautiful in his hate. It wasn't the hate itself as it was a
disgusting display of racism and intolerance. It was what propelled the hate and
the fact that although he had this hate, he didn't understand where it came from.
It was at that moment that she realized that there was hope in changing him.
I recollect that my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall
walnut-trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at
noontime, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my
own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and
reverberated by the angry echoes.
There are different types of secrets. She had held onto plenty of them during her
life, but this one was different. She found herself holding onto the worst type. It
was the type of secret that could gnaw away at your insides if you didn't tell
someone about it, but it could end up getting you killed if you did.
It seemed like it should have been so simple. There was nothing inherently
difficult with getting the project done. It was simple and straightforward enough
that even a child should have been able to complete it on time, but that wasn't the
case. The deadline had arrived and the project remained unfinished.