At the Pentagon, the Secretary of the Navy, Alan Freeman, sat in his office with a file on his desk. It had been sitting there for two weeks, needing his attention. Normally, such a file would never cross his desk. Don't ask, don't tell could and would be handled on the local level. A base commander, ship's captains, anyone but Admiral Alan Freeman; and yet,...
The drama department's bulletin board was plastered with sign-up sheets for auditions. Tristan's eyes flitted over his options, skipping anything directed by undergrads. He had limited time this semester as it was his last year at school and he wanted to build a strong portfolio of successful shows before graduating. He found one bulletin that listed the dir...
Opening night. The play had been denounced in letters to the editor, a TV news segment had run the night before, and a handful of protestors toted signs up and down the sidewalk. That was just what a college with a zero publicity budget needed. The house was almost full. It went without a hitch. Everyone's performance was sharp, tech missed not a single cu...
* Jeff * By the time I made it home after retrieving my car from Mom's garage, I must have already been half asleep. The shadowy, nearly-deserted streets rolled by like a dreamscape, broken by occasional startling white flashes when my headlights picked out drifts of snow amid the darkness. It seemed surreal, like something out of a film noir, or possibly s...
* Jeff * Timothy and I hadn't seen or spoken to one another in more than six years. He still looked fantastic, impeccably dressed, with his beard close-trimmed. He was always fanatical about keeping his facial hair perfectly groomed, I remembered. He looked surprised and amused, and I suddenly realized I was standing almost naked in front of him. "Timothy!...
All was at peace until, the kingdom of Turionia having been obliterated for all time by the heavy hand of the Duke of Gano, Guy and his forces, including Guido—and my channel still twitches at the thought of him—Guido returned to court in Lefkosea. In Guy, Blanche, to her credit, saw a much more formidable and evil opponent than she had seen in Rene. The ga...
“Sean, let’s go out. I’ve got a babysitter tonight and Tom’s working late.” “But Law&Order SVU’s on,” I protested, finishing my beer. The dark brown longneck bottle felt comforting in my hand. “You really need to get out of that basement, baby. Come on, we haven’t been out once since you got home, you can’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself forever.”...
My dream is vivid tonight, I see my father pushing me on a swing, my mother watching us with a smile. I know it isn't real and never was but for a moment I pretend that we were normal and that I had a childhood filled with laughter. The truth is sometimes too hard to bare. I wake to a sharp tug on my wings and the rattling of chains. A guard secures my win...
This is one of a series of stories that revolve around the hand-rolled cigar and the men who use them, smoke them and make them, and it was inspired by the following paragraph- During the same period, cigar smoking had become so popular among gentlemen in Britain and France that European trains introduced smoking cars to accommodate them, and hotels and clu...
Captain Delwin Jackson—Diggs to almost everyone who knew him—opened the only eye he was able to open, seeing first the photo of Tawna and the kids, Jamia and Jeron, that should be in his wallet but, inexplicably was in a frame too big for it and standing on top of a white laminated nightstand next to the bed. Because he heard the heavy breathing, the second...