Linoleum

III At the airport, I caught a bus to the Detroit depot where I boarded another headed north through Saginaw and Bad Axe. We should have lived in Bad Axe I thought, and my thoughts made me sad as I took a seat behind the driver. The best thing about riding the bus was that the people who ride the buss had money problems or health problems; otherwise, they would drive themselves. Therefore, they kept to themselves and allowed the other passengers the freedom to remain silent. Bao had told me…

Isn't it weird knowing that, you can notice the demons of others, the beast that hangs around you, in fact, even at school, I see people’s own beast’s as I brush past the students and teachers as it hangs on their shoulders, or pulls them by their hair, grasping it so tight, they can’t break free. I notice the ugly beast of depression wearing my friend’s faces thin, the subtle beast of anxiety steer them away from me, the small beast of anger beating on their heads as the beast forces them to…

Time stands still, frozen like New York in the wintertime. And all I can hear is the fast da dum da dum of my palpitating heart. Adrenaline spikes in waves through my clammy body. I look straight at the brown wooden door in front of me and pretend it is the audience. Taking a deep breath of the musky air, I envision myself bold and confident. My voice loud and clear, the words of my testimony flowing like a rushing river without a stutter or voice crack. The silence breaks as I feel a light tap…

Being the Hallmark afficionado that I am, I am definitely a fan of the daily show Home & Family. Even though I don 't consistently have the opportunity to watch all the segments every single day, there are some names embedded in my memory and various segments that are genuinely memorable. And "Renegade Kitchen" is decidedly one of those. Then again, I am the cook in my household, and it is something I have continuously enjoyed doing for my family and friends. Recently, I caught up with Dan…

I entered a large lobby with beige walls that had a flower-patterned wallpaper strip running horizontally in the middle of the wall. This pattern surrounded the lobby and ran all the way down the hallway accompanied by white linoleum flooring. The lighting was very fluorescent and not very bright. To my left was a card table with a sign-in book for guests to sign and list who they were visiting. There were two signatures. To my right was an open room with a few Halloween decorations…

In the novel, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer, multiple lead characters go through an event or change in their life which leads to a loss of innocence. Through physical & mental beatings, sex, rape and teen pregnancy characters develop a hardened and altered character to the one previously know. Characters grow up before our eyes as they move from a sheltered and known life to situations that are both foreign and dangerous. Characters discover the side of the world that is cold,…

showing she favours male space. In comparison, the kitchen, her mother’s domain, is limited to one short sentence, “I hated the hot dark kitchen in the summer, the green blinds and flypapers, the same old oil tablecloth and the wavy mirror and bumpy linoleum” (Munro 4). The protagonist recognizes a difference between the space her mother and father both occupy, but does not understand that it is in the home, not outside that is the intended sphere of her future. Munro uses a myriad of figurative…

His alarm sounded at 5:30am and the shrill sound echoed off the walls of the sparsely furnished apartment. He rolled out of bed and trudged towards the kitchen, the cold linoleum floor feeling uncomfortable under his bare feet. The man wasn’t what you would call good looking. He was slightly overweight with greasy, unkempt hair. His face was round with uneven stubble and little cuts around his jaw and chin. His eyes looked mean and glassy, adding to his…

With my blue speckled backpack slung across my shoulders, I padded silently down carpeted stairs and into the linoleum-tiled kitchen of my house. I was usually the first to wake up on school mornings, but this morning my mom stood over a sizzling stove, her brown hair still loose from last night. “What’s this?” I ask, setting my bag down near the table. “Well, I know you have that test during your Spanish class today,” she starts, moving her spatula to scrape eggs onto a small plate. “And you…

patient’s bed, the group of women in white aprons and pink button-up dresses whispered amongst themselves and avoided the gaze of the fuming lead nurse in front of them. Maria yanked the wool blanket off the patient beside her and threw it onto the linoleum floor. “Who admitted this man? He shouldn’t be here.” I rose on my tiptoes, struggling to get a glimpse of the patient. A Naseeri Arab man. Uncovered, he shivered and curled two bony fingers around a handful of bed sheet. His threadbare…