“Are we there yet?’
Valerie hunched her shoulders and pressed her forehead against the passenger-side window. She hated her younger brother–hated being trapped in the back seat with him on this faux family vacation. Continue reading
Flicker(>100 words)
Cool Water or Writer’s Block?
The firefighter pulled off his helmet, face streaked with sweat and dust from a raging fire, now controlled.
He’d single-handedly saved an even dozen citizens that night. He felt a tug on his pant leg and looked down into the wide eyes of a tiny tot.
“Thanks, Mister!” the child lisped. “Want a TMCoke and a smile?”
“Thanks, but I’d rather have some cool water.”
“Good choice!”
(No. Just…No. Highlight, then delete.)
Cycles of Grief
Relieve your pain now.
Go ahead, let go of it.
You’ve held it close in the curve of your belly,
Feeding your resentment,
Your sense of powerlessness,
Until almost nothing of you remains.
Bequest
It started as a tone, growing in volume and pitch as it resolved itself into a bright streak, slicing silver blue through an opaque night sky. The tone grew to harmonies as dark stars broke free and distributed themselves across the horizon. Continue reading
Blank, Blank, Energy Breakthrough
The room sits at low-tide. Eddies twirl sluggish through muddy gray waters. Slow eyelids blink, sleepy frogs gathered ‘round in a circle. We hope that gathering and moving pen across paper will stir enough energy in this morning’s free-association writing group to stir those eddies into rivulets of free-flowing inspiration. Continue reading
A Light Breath on the Embers
Meaghan drew deep on her cigarette, pinching its stub between thumb and forefinger. She could pull a Houdini and just disappear, but in this case, with this guy, she knew he deserved better. Continue reading
Hotshot Holly (And How She Got There)
Twin-bladed helicopters dumped the bright red slurry (water and fertilizer) on the manically dancing flames, then swooped through the smoky haze to the reservoir, to refill for another drop. Even with no wind, the wildfire gobbled the grassy plain, Continue reading
Valley of the Trolls 