A bowl of nuts dominated the coffee table, a nutcracker standing sentry, ready for service. Three wooden bowls with three types of crackers surround the cheese log, like wise men around The Child. Continue reading
Emergency Delivery
She’d traversed the mountain, her skis crackling and sparking as she streaked down the final slope. Just a few kilometers more across the icy flatlands; she would reach the Hold before full sunrise. Continue reading
Blackguards in Christmas Town
Corky tipped the bill of her cap back and scratched her forehead, staring up the length of the tall pine.
A Cautionary Tale of Temptation & Redemption in Three Acts
Act 1
(A moment of peace, the calm in the eye of the storm.)
Just a few short hours ago, there‘d been a clatter of metal against glass, the whine of motors rotating through a thick sludge, the wet thunk of an awkward body, a snip and rustle of evisceration, the rasp of metal on metal, and a clang of slamming doors.
“I think we’ve done all we can for now.” Karen wipes her brow and surveys the damage. “When are the troops supposed to arrive?”
Lula at Forty
Lula, at forty, was too old to be a whore, and too smart to be a madam. Scratching a living from the arid Oklahoma soil did not appeal to her.
She never did cotton to book learning. At least, not the kind of learning offered at the town’s one-room school house. It squatted at the edge of town like a carbuncle, Continue reading
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.
Cricket and Toad
She strode down the corridor, Gravboots beating a driving rhythm, her Sikshooter clanging warning bells off her generously curved hip. Ready for transport down to the moon, Arizon’, she suspected the Space Cowboy Coalition was playing them for fools. No profit, but maybe an adventure. She’d arranged her own transport.
Valley of the Trolls 