"East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," or so wrote the illustrious Rudyard Kipling in his 'Ballad of East and West.' With all due respect to Kipling, however, the two have indeed met, and have been dancing a complicated exchange of goods, ideas and even people for many centuries now. And this cultural exchange applies to almost all...
Ranting raciest, with posturing and idling, 'filth's only savor but themselves'. Two most noted TV and radio talk show hosts, Lush Limpdic & Shrill Oliely, a convicted drug attic and a hair follicle & eye tuck junkie. Gag Polter and Bat Roberts, the lists, continues with many more intentionally spewing misinformation, purporting, and spouting lies daily to...
Life Back on Earth The trip took even less time that I had expected. Soon Lara and I were on Earth, and back at my old apartment. It looked just as it did before I left, before my attack. My floor safe was closed and undisturbed, but I knew the letters and notes were gone. I discovered that we had only been gone four weeks, not five weeks as I had thought....
Author's Note: This particular episode includes (virtually) no sex. Instead, it serves only to move the plot along. Hopefully, you've been following the story so far, but if not, and you're looking for erotica, you'll probably want to skip this one and wait for Ch. 13. * The Emir's palace stood near the centre of the city, its three golden domes as distinc...
XC War Eric Esterhazy 2046 There were so many other things Eric would rather be doing. For instance, he could be doing something to address the scandalous rate of immigration from the war-ravaged regions of the world: scarred as they were all the way from India to Kazakhstan and from Tajikistan to Azerbaijan. He could be consolidating his position as Treasu...
My wife Helen and I moved to a beautiful new house last summer. It's one of three cottages, converted from a barn set around three sides of a courtyard. It wasn't cheap but we had a large family home to sell and ended up with a huge profit. I'm 52, retired last year from engineering work offshore and now work part time for a consultancy firm spending most ni...
When Sally Grayson became my wife's close friend, I had the feeling that she'd be a bad influence on her. What I didn't know is just how good a bad influence can be. They met when Sally and her husband Tom moved to the area and she joined a small amateur theatrical company where my wife, Carolyn, was a regular on the stage. They discovered they had a great...
It was another rain soaked morning, but the Empress Dowager didn't mind. She rather enjoyed watching the water shoot down to the earth. On this day, though, she had other things to focus on. In the Ruby Palace, the palace she lived in, the Empress Dowager would soon receive a guest. Princess Lagath Brudist Apsalani entered the reception room alone. The Emp...
Chapter 01 Our parents had it better in the 70's than we have it now. The movie, Network, was one of the all-time great movies that I've ever seen. Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, the dialogue, character development, description, imagery, and tension is masterfully done. Every screenwriter needs to analyze this movie for them to s...
[This is a sequel to An Apology in the Morning.] It was late on a Saturday morning when the knock came at the door, not loud but repeated persistently. Ed Friar wasn't expecting visitors, and wasn't sure who would knock like that, but he went to answer the sound without any concern. Barely had he opened the door, though, when Kate Jones pushed through it an...