There is a lull late in the afternoon at Grissom's Gardens, a full service nursery. It is mid-December and the rush is on. Trees, wreaths, poinsettias and all sorts of things are being snatched up for homes and offices. The staff could barely keep up with the brisk business. Chris, the owner, is going over receipts and thought to himself, "We are ahead of la...
The chronological order of my stories is now listed in WifeWatchman's biography. Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas. This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes...
It is a cold and blustery morning in early March as I sit at the kitchen table reading the help wanted ads in the local week end paper. Wrapped in my warmest pajamas, slippers and bathrobe I am still chilled to the very center of my bones. The furnace is out, again. Thank God the girls are away for the weekend, one at an all weekend sleep over, and the other...
It was getting near the 5 pm closing time at the public library in the sleepy little suburb where I worked. Not much happens at this branch on a Wednesday - no noisy story times for moms and toddlers, no early evening rush by readers looking for paperbacks to consume over the weekend. We catch up on re-shelving books, tracking down online requests, vacuuming...
NOVEMBER, 1981 The sun had set early and the snowflakes were flying thick and wet in the headlight beams. It was the kind of snowstorm that completely buries anything not moving. The couple had left the trailer park in San Jose around 2pm, and were travelling north through California's central valley on Interstate 5 to get to Klamath Falls, Oregon until the...
"Ew. Here's another one over here. Can you pick it up for me, Eric?" Deb was not normally squeamish, but picking up used condoms in the park was not her idea of helping the environment as part of the service project. Eric and she had volunteered many times before, food drives, story time with kids, painting and fixing a home for women in bad domestic situati...
Day Three: I had nightmares that night. I don't remember the details, just flashy images. Blood, darkness, violence. You would be forgiven for assuming bad dreams were common place these days with the world the state that it's in, but for me nightmares were always a rarity and a bit of a shock. I lay there in the dark, trying to calm myself and working the...
Set in New Zealand with Kiwi spelling and idioms. * CHAPTER 1 It was Saturday morning and Martin Mora, recently leaving the family nest, looked around his small apartment, if it could be called that: small oblong box was more apt. When he first inspected it, driven down in size by the high rentals being demanded for his idea of an apartment, at six foot t...
Chapter 3: The girls kick it up 3 notches when Ripley's uncle dies and leaves her a small farm. It helps to read the first two stories but this one could stand on its own. As she unlocked the front gate, Ripley still could not believe her uncle Bobby had left his farm to her. Most of the family assumed it would go to one of his sisters. Ripley could only a...
The Christmas holiday break went fast; Katrina and I only had a few extra days to ourselves after coming back from Natasha's house, which we enjoyed immensely. Neither of us left the house nor wore any clothes for those few days, we were pretty much all over each other. Katrina and I had agreed on a date for our wedding, it would be on our one year annivers...