Frank Albert, the man with two first names, stared at his lottery ticket with disbelief. Naturally he was overjoyed, but part of him was also disappointed he didn’t win the money earlier. $700 million dollars. He could have used that when he was a young man, but he was still a virile 70 year old man and had some time to spend it well. There were lots of thin...
The people gathered around the courtyard looked up with rapt attention at the temple, hoping to hear the eagerly awaited news of who would be chosen for the Spring Festival. And they were not just observers, either. Like everyone else in the city, they had places their names into the lottery, to perhaps be chosen represent the god of spring and his consort i...
All of my writing is fiction and the stories and characters are all products of my imagination. They were created for my fun and, hopefully, your enjoyment. Some of the events in the stories are not particularly condoned nor encouraged by the author but are there to create and enhance the story of the imaginary characters and their lives. Comments are always...
"Good morning, Mrs. Stewart. It's good to see you out. How're doin' today?" "Oh, you know, Mr. Baxter. Each day just sort of nudges the one before it. It just all sort of goes on—a bit too long, if you ask me." Clem Baxter watched Louise Stewart from 12A move arthritically down the walk between the two old, red-brick apartment houses facing each other. Cle...
At the foothills of the mountains, surrounded by a dense forest was the small village of Koletis. It was said to be founded in the seventh century by a small band of travelers who were looking for a place to start anew and escape the oppression of their greedy overlord. Over time, they developed trade with other villages in the region, usually just beyond th...
I had been working as a sales manager for a consumer electronics wholesaler based out of Honolulu for several years when a Japanese wholesaler asked if I would head up their sales department in Japan. They wanted to bring western selling techniques and strategies to their organization, especially since we, in the US, were taking market share away from them....
Epilogue Dreams and Visions Silene started casting a movement spell to push Tyrene away from the shadow, and Amber threw up her hands and screamed, "No! Go away!" Amber's unconscious spell forced not just the shadow in front of her away, but every shadow on Destran too. When the shadow's weapon was suddenly pushed back to its nothing realm, the drain on Am...
The light from the twin moons of Luna and Alt-Luna danced in the night sky over the City while, on level 6, Neela walked up the corridor to the one-room dome she shared with her husband. The red light flashing next to the latch told her she had mail waiting inside. "Oh," she thought, "I wonder if our lottery assignments for this year have arrived." Hurriedly...
Chapter 1 The end of the world didn't come like the classic Hollywood films of the 21st century forecasted, death and horror as nature exacted its revenge on the human race for its centuries of mis treatment. Instead the end came like a slow lingering illness, each moment that passed the earth grew weaker and more fragile as the toll finally showed. Nico...
Jennifer came from a very religious family and was our high school valedictorian. Back in the late sixties and early seventies, when all of the other girls were wearing knee-length or just barely shorter, usually fairly tight skirts -- girls weren't allowed to wear pants to school then, unless it was below 20º F -- and miniskirts were becoming popular (but s...