I sat in my train seat, watching out the window at a tired five foot five-inch, fifty-year old, 140 pound beauty struggle to get a very overweight wheelchair bound man to the door of the car in front of ours. There she could get help in getting him onto the Amtrak train to LA. I was sensitive to her plight but luckier than she. My wife and her chair are so m...
Sean dosed fitfully. A steady stream of nurses and doctors had come and gone through the day as he started his first course of treatment, leaving him nauseous. Katie had visited him at the end of her shift. There was little time to say anything when they were disturbed by one of the duty nurses. Katie had promised to visit before her shift started. Katie wa...
As a professional photographer, I've spent years building my business, and my reputation. I'm known to be totally professional, and highly proficient in my job. Recently, I was approached by a long time customer who was looking for someone to take some special pictures. She seemed embarrassed to even ask, so I offered her a cup of coffee while we talked. She...
Long ago I began to play a game meant just for me whereby I kept a list of ten things or ten places that I wanted to experience before this lifetime ends. Each time I ticked one off, I moved it to a new list called "dreams realized", and promptly added to the prior list a new wish. Well, Henry Miller (somewhere out there in Louisiana) this one is for you! Af...
The knocking on the door to my tree house/store had been insistent – enough for me to rush the last bit of the way. Being in the backyard garden I had not heard it the first time. Therefore, the second, third, and fourth iterations had become louder and closer together. "Yes, yes! Coming!" I shouted – slightly irritated. I opened the door to find two young...
Jason took a deep breath and tried to clear his head a little. It didn't work. He looked back the way he had come, over the high sand dunes towards the water of the gulf. He could see the glow of the big bonfire and hear the rambunctious noise of the twenty or so college students. The music from the boombox was loud and all - just like he had - had been drin...
It was a world of change. The old rules were being broken every day. There was a time when your husband died and your life was over. The only thing you were good for was cooking, cleaning and watching the grandchildren when they arrived. Maria Theresa was forty-two years old the year Nick died. He pushed a young man out of the way of a falling pallet of box...
This is my first submission, so please be don't be mean, but I do welcome feedback. It was the custom of the village in the valley to offer part of each harvest to the dragon that lived in the mountains and protected them. Once every 10 years all the unmarried women of the village were presented to the agent of the dragon for inspection, a human who wa...
Visits from the Vietnamese Prime Minister the Australian Trade Commissioner and the delegation from John's home state caused local provincial officials to take much more interest in the feedlot. The provincial Party hosted a stream of senior Party officials from all over Vietnam. Many of them had never visited the province before. Ruby told the family that...
(Welcome back to Bridget's world. For thos of you who are unfamiliar with her, Bridget is an Irish tavern girl who became a vampire in the mid 16th Century. Authors make changes to the basic vampire mythos as they like. My changes? The most important one, is that vampires continue to be the person they were in life; soul and all. Although they must drink bl...