One Sunday I was walking by my mother’s hand, on our way to my favorite park in Rome. She was a fantastic woman, raised me all by herself. The park had a big lake in the middle of it and we always sat on the grass next to the big chestnut tree.
I was throwing stones on the lake and tried to make them bounce on the surface. I was ‘rocking’ it that day, until something weird happened. The stone I just threw at the water got fired back at me and fell right back into my hand. I looked around but nobody saw it, except for my mom. We were both stunned.
We never told this anyone, cause they probably wouldn’t believe us. It was something only we shared, it was our magical moment, our secret. It was glad I shared that moment with my mother, cause it brought us closer to each other. From then on I carried the stone with me everyday. It became my lucky stone.
I won a last minute ticket for The Beatles that Saturday. I was so happy! All my friends were already going and now I could join them. The whole week I had been listening to their songs and finally it was the big day. I hadn’t slept all night cause I was too excited! I even had made a banner for John, cause he was my favorite.
We arrived at the concert 2 hours in advance to be sure we would have a good place to see them, but many people thought the same. We were on the 3th row in front of the stage. The stage was rather small but the concert hall was enormous. When John saw my banner he looked at me and for a second he forgot to play. His face turned completely red, but he did like nothing happend. I couldn’t stop smiling during the concert, I felt so lucky. It was a perfect night.
After the concert the band handed out some autographs and I had to be there. I passed everyone in the line to get one. I wanted them to notice me so I lifted my shirt cause I wanted John’s signature right between my breasts. When John saw me his face turned red again, but he definitely didn’t mind. Best day of my life!
One time I ran into an old friend of mine. Ok, we were more than old friends. We started talking like back in the days and I started wondering why I ever left her. So I asked her to join me for a nice picnic in the park and she agreed. We had a lovely chat and time flew by. We noticed no one was left in the park except for us.
Suddenly she took off her clothes and before I knew she was naked. She had beautiful small breasts and a flower-shaped birthmark on the left side of her belly. I never did this before in open air, but I was excited! We went hiding in the bushes, cause you never know. When things really started to hit off I suddenly felt a burning pain on my back. It was so dark I couldn’t see what was going on.
She had no idea either until she felt things crawling on her body too. We quickly ran away and tried to catch some light from the streets to find out what was happening cause we were freaking out. Three tiny animals crawled around on our arms. At that moment, we finally realized we must have been having sex in a nest full of red ants. In the end it was quite funny, but we couldn't lay on our back for another week.
It was my 30th birthday and my husband wanted to surprise me that evening. When I got home and entered the door, there was a path with candles and rose petals that leaded me upstairs to the bathroom. The candles smelled like a cosy winter evening and I heard one of my favorite jazz songs coming out of the bathroom.
He had the whole evening planned out until my pants decided to change plans. Why do I always mess things up? I was so excited about the surprise that I didn’t notice my pants touched one of the candles, caught fire and started to burn my legs. The moment the pain was bigger then my excitement, I cried in pain, and I tried to pull off my pants while storming into the bathroom. There he was, my husband, completely naked sitting in the bathtub with a baffled face, looking at me jumping quickly into the bath to extinguish the fire on my pants. When I finally stopped panicking we looked into each other’s eyes and started laughing. We couldn’t stop for five minutes, laughing away the pain and the awkwardness. He gave me that look he always gave me when I did something stupid and said: “Good one, honey.” I can say, my life was never boring.
The day I turned 15 was a big day for me. It was the first time my parents were ok with me going out to the zoo with my best friend. What could possibly go wrong, they thought. My friend and me took the train at 1 pm and an hour later we arrived at our destiny. Everything went well so far.
My favorite animal was the zebra so we went straight to their barn. Next to the zebras there were these strange animals I never saw before. They had a kinda creepy smile and extremely long claws. Most of them were sleeping, they looked really peaceful. What we didn’t see was that one of the creatures - named sloths apparently - had been approaching us and was hanging on the fence right next to us, about 15 centimeter from the back of our faces.
Before I knew I felt something touching my back. Startled I turned around and saw one of these big claws coming towards my face. He gave me an ugly thick scratch right under my right eye. I think he didn’t want to hurt me, but God that was painful. I had to go to the hospital, cause I needed stitches. After the incident it took a while until my parents did let me go out alone again.
I used to live in Sweden with my sweet wife. She had long blond hair, white as snow. We couldn’t have kids, we didn’t know why, so we adopted an African boy.
For years I worked in a zoo in the reptile section. Loved the animals, but one day while feeding the crocodiles, one of them grabbed my arm and pulled me into the water. I had no chance against a 400 kg mugger crocodile. It was really bad and they couldn’t save my arm. Apparently the reason why one attacked me was because they forgot to feed them the day before.
After that incident I was home for a long time. By then, my son had turned 16. Until then, I always took good care of him and he now returns that favor. I know it mustn’t be easy for them, but I’m so thankful to have such great family, they’re everything to me.
I think I was six years old when I tried coffee for the first time. Not so weird if you know that my parents had a coffee plantation and drank it all the time. They didn’t really care about the fact that children shouldn't drink coffee so I became like them.
Years later when I was 16 I took over the business together with my older brother. We had no other choice, my dad had gone mad and my mother had to take care of him all the time. It did hurt to see him like that, but taking over the business was our way of showing him we cared so much about him. One day we were all sitting at the breakfast table and for a moment it felt like the good old times. All of a sudden my dad started crying. When my mom asked what was wrong he shouted: “ I hate this life!”. While he said it he threw his hot cup of coffee all over my leg. It was really painful, but what hurts the most is seeing my dad like that. You don’t choose your life and I hadn’t had an easy one, but I enjoyed all the good moments we had as a family and I cherished them the rest of my life.
Well I have to say, when I was a teenager I was quite reckless. I didn’t care much about my health and I did whatever I wanted. I really felt bad for my parents though, because I always got in trouble. My first boyfriend was Marcus. He was 7 years older than me. He had deep blue eyes and brown curly hair. He already had a job when I was still in high school.
There were quite some days I skipped lessons to go for a smoke behind the schoolbuilding with him. We had this thing where we put out our cigarettes on each other arms to get an adrenaline rush. It was pretty ugly, but we felt so alive! After 4 months my mother found out. She said if I saw this guy again she would throw me out of the house. When I told him he got mad and said I could go to hell.
For once I was glad I listened to my mother, because It didn’t end so well for him. He became a drugaddict and he lost his beautiful curly hair. I became a successful businesswoman. Sometimes I had a hard time dealing with the daily routine, but when I look at my burn marks in the mirror, I know I’m better of now.
'I hadn’t slept all night cause I was too excited!'
'when I was 16 I took over the business together with my older brother.'
'I looked around but nobody saw it, except for my mom.'
'We couldn’t stop for five minutes, laughing away the pain and the awkwardness.'
'Before I knew I felt something touching my back.'
'Two days later I couldn't get up from the pain.'
'When we were in, everyone started to throw around their underwear.'
'He had deep blue eyes and brown curly hair.'
'After a few weeks I was sure there was something wrong with it.'
'It was so dark I couldn’t see what was going on.'
'I broke almost everything in my body I could possibly break...'
'I had no chance against a 400 kg mugger crocodile.'
I actually couldn’t complain about my life, but somehow I was never fully satisfied. It took me a while to find out what could solve it. One day I was lying in the grass, I looked up the sky and I saw a bird fly by, worriless. From that moment on, I knew, I wanted to be detached from the earth and go out to explore.
I locked myself up in my basement and started building something without knowing exactly what, but I called it “the wing machine”. I used an old kite and some other materials I found in our barn. The first attempt went horribly wrong. After 5 minutes the wings started to break and I almost died. I broke almost everything in my body I could possibly break, but for that short moment, it was totally worth it.
Finally, after 13 attempts, on the hill in my backyard, I spread my wings, detached from the earth and it started to fly. I can’t describe the feeling it gave me. I felt so free and for the first time, I felt complete happiness. I tried for a year to make that damn thing work, but I never gave up and I’m glad I didn’t.
When I was a kid I lived on the street. I was the youngest of 4 children. My mum sold pots she made her own and my dad was always away from home. When I asked my mother where he was, she always said the same: “he is taking care of us”. After a while I stopped asking. I helped as much as I could to sell my moms pots. They were particularly designed for making thee in them, but people used it for everything.
One morning I woke up from a heavy pain in my under belly. I didn’t tell anyone cause we didn’t have money for a doctor or medicines. Two days passed until I couldn't get up from the pain. When my mom saw me she ran off the streets to find help. She knew a doctor, although he claimed to be one and asked him to have a look at me. Apparently I had a very common thing, my appendix was almost exploding and it had to be removed as fast as possible. It was really painful and unprofessional how he did it, but he got it out. My mom had to get a second job to pay the ‘doctor’ off. It became a dirty wound that never healed properly. I was very mad about myself doing this to my mother, but she never blamed me. And later when I had a son I understood why.
When I started college in 1894 I joined the sorority. Every year on a random night, as an initiation ceremonie, the new members had to break into college in their underwear and had to leave their underwear behind. So one Thursday night in the beginning of the semester it was my turn and I was super excited. I think there were more than hundred new members this year. It was not easy to break in with so many girls, but we split ourselves in small groups and tried different ways to get in. It was easier than I thought.
When we were in, everyone started to throw around their underwear. I remember two girls hanging it on the giant clock in the income hall, hilarious! I left it in the upper drawer of the dean, I thought he’d appreciate that. I started talking to some girls that were smoking in the hall and asked for a sigaret. It was quite weird cause I never talked to someone naked. They wanted to put one of the bins on fire cause it was quite cold in there and so they did. It was nice in the beginning cause I was freezing but it escalated quickly. After a minute the whole thing was on fire and the girls started to panic. The only thing we could think of was rolling the bin outside to let it burn out, but then I burned my hands really bad. In the end it worked out and we got the thing outside. We burried the leftovers from the bin under the ground so no one would find out. Most girls already left the school when it happend so we decided to make it our secret. When someone asked about my burning wounds I just said it was from a candle and laughed.
After my father died a few years ago we moved to a new house. My mother had found a new man and she was finally happy again. I was 9 years old when they bought the old villa out of town. It was a huge place made of dark wood and in front of the house there was this old willow tree. I got the big room on the second floor with a view on the garden.
After a few weeks living in our new house I was sure there was something wrong with it. I noticed objects were disappearing in my room and a few days later they were back where I left them. Nobody could explain it. One night I was dreaming about hands that were touching my whole body and when I woke up I could still feel them. I never believed in ghosts, but now I started to freak out a bit. I told my mom, but she thought I was homesick or something.
These weird things went on for years, until I left home when I was 18. I never experienced such things anymore. Only when I visited my mom I felt this weird pressure on my ribs.