Her boots crackled across dusty gravel, her lungs sore from moving so fast for so long, and though parched under the white-hot sun, Amy relished the taste of blood in her mouth for its iron resolve and its thin liquidity. Continue reading
desert
Queen of the Night*
Creamy cactus buds, feathered with pink curving petals.
Shy flamingos sparsely shelter in thick, darkly unassuming leaves.
Sun sets, ushering in the cooling desert dawn,
The Queen’s one chance at immortality.
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
A Tale of Two Schmitties (Part Two): Wild Schmitties & Arizon’
There once was a settlement on Arizon’, 20 kliks from a ruined moonbase at the far edge of what the Space Cowboy Coalition called the 66th Quadrant. The planet to which Arizon’ had been attached is as long-gone and forgotten as its name. By all that’s natural and what we believe to be the laws of science, the tiny golden moon Arizon’ should have spun off and disappeared as well. But there she sits, spinning slowly, holding her place in the quadrant, wreathed in pearly-gray clouds.
A transformation is occurring…
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.
Valley of the Trolls 