She wrapped her hands around the hand-thrown mug, coffee scent misting the still-cold morning in an exhausted cloud. The metro newspaper lay splayed before her on the kitchen table, moaning headlines and sub-stories of international terror threats, environmental ruin, domestic violence, a floundering economy, and the collapse of another small local non-profit. Continue reading
Flicker(>100 words)
C’mon, cough it up!
Hands on hips, furious, pleading, she is at the end of her rope. “I know you have it. It was here just a second ago, right on that coffee table.”
He looks up at her from their communal couch, brows raised, close mouthed, hands clasped and resting in his lap.
From Behind the Curtain
I see you through the light canopy that enshrouds the bed,
Your cheek a false pink from yesterday’s gathering of early spring blooms.
Sun shines bright through the window panes, warming the edge of your pillow.
A Tale of Two Schmitties (Part One): Tale of the Wild Martian West
Many, many years ago, when the red planet was untamed and sparsely populated–not like it is now, with its towering star scrapers and rumbling freewheelways—Schmitties roamed the plains, and the atmosphere was breathable.
A man could make a fine life for himself as a Schmittyboy. The pay wasn’t great, but the vistas couldn’t be beat.
A Song We All Know
Silence all around, but for the slow creak of frogs from the moonlit marsh, and the crackle and sudden pop from the dwindling campfire. A late night wind twined soothing fingers through the dark pines, but hesitated and hovered above the group gathered below.
A Tale of Two Tunnels
Burt the badger
Burt the badger had problems. There they were, the two of them walking past his new home, the home he had scraped and dug and built over and over because somebody kept dumping dirt into the entrance. It broke his tiny badger heart to see the Pam and her hubby together, laughing and pointing, knowing that he might never have his heart’s desire.
Valley of the Trolls 