dreamer of fantasy worlds. lover of glutinous desserts.
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He was surprised at how soft its neck was. It was a hot and muggy day in Yinshan, but Hao’s throat was dry and his hands were icy.
By Liliaabout a year ago in Fiction
Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. Shuffling down the deserted street towards her office, Bin made every effort to ignore the aerial performance that bathed her in a soft violet glow. What will you do about it, her parents asked day after day, as though their asking would eventually produce an answer to their liking. The clouds followed her, teasing and taunting, writhing and shifting as they enacted scene after lurid scene from her subconscious, marking her as one of the Unconverted.
I wake, jagged and aching, a half-cut boulder; throw me in the water, I will not rise. Dead weights at my fingertips, salt on my cheeks,
By Lilia2 years ago in Poets
The street sweeper on the corner of Main and Broadway was a lame man. He was hired to sweep the outside of Building 49, a most important building, whose grand entrance was to be impeccably maintained. Before his first day of work, he was warned never to step inside and to stay in the shadows, out of the way of important business. Sweep when it’s empty, they’d said, eyebrows raised pointedly at his right foot.
By Lilia2 years ago in Fiction
“Legend has it,” she would begin in a whisper, “that the masters of old could bring paintings to life.” In the dim candlelight, Mother would set the inkstick dancing with a gentle twirl of her wrist, and the block would spin until dark pools formed in the inkstone well and held the moon outside our small room captive.
By Lilia3 years ago in Fiction
Everything that was peculiar about his childhood could be traced back to Lady Ara. There was the time he’d found himself perched atop a tree. The ground had seemed so far, so solid and certain, but there was no fear when he had leapt with wild glee from the stately cypress. Just the image of her laughing face and the feeling of falling into her open arms. Solid and certain.
Towards the end of February 2020, a mysterious creature, resembling a cloud with small, stumpy legs, made landfall in our home, bringing with it forecasts of snow, rain, and mud over a period of several weeks. Actually, several months.
By Lilia3 years ago in Petlife
The only sounds left in the room were the drip of the IV and the quiet beep of the electrocardiogram machine. An occasional nurse would pad by to peer through the window of the ICU, make a few marks on her clipboard and pad away again. A single clock decorated the pale, rose-colored wall, its hands ticking away the time until nine o’clock, when visiting hours would be over, and the quiet murmur of voices outside would also die down.
The slain soldiers were strewn on the frozen pond like gutted fish, their wounds fresh, their bodies warm. Crimson rivulets snaked their way across the ice, and with the occasional hiss, seeped through areas where the ice had been churned to slush.
Clemens She’s back today. She beckons to me from the water. Slender arms speckled with sea salt, glistening in the golden glow of sunset. Her emerald eyes shine brighter than the stars, glimmering like the ocean around her. Her hair is the color of precious coral, setting the water around her ablaze.
A young woman, mid-twenties perhaps, sits by herself under the shade of a blooming magnolia tree. She leans back slowly, then abruptly springs forward as her yolk-yellow blouse catches on the trunk. She peers with concern at her sleeve, where several threads are now hanging loose, and emits a small sigh at her blunder.
Midway through the Emperor’s 40th birthday banquet, a timid eunuch will enter Qilin Pavilion to announce the arrival of the Empress. Music and dancing will pause, and concubines will sigh, but instead of the Empress’s elaborate phoenix hairpiece and decadent yellow robe, another eunuch will appear, bearing an unassuming box wrapped in brown parchment paper. The eunuch will declare the box to be a special present from the Empress.
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