"The cooks will not take such abuse from the swabs!" Chef's face was red, and he slammed his ladle into the round table.

"Your soup is little better than our mop-water!" screamed the chief swabbie.

"My steersmen and engineers can't stay awake, living off …

The day of the Cow Rite had arrived, like a lover who had blacked out overnight and had finally come home from the pub. As the day dawned, a mauve haze like a spill of off-coloured milk on the dairy floor of the horizon, the fields blossomed with daffodil…

Venus, powers in space, wind and light, lit the candles in the room and swung the door open, 20 feet away, "Well, dear sister, the party isn't until the shop is closed tonight. We open right about... now."

Fashionably retro 70s era, her go-go boots clom…

Story is marked as mature

I stared at the blinking cursor on my screen. Like a tapping fingernail upon a counter top I felt it impatiently waiting for me to use it.

"I can't take this silence. You wanna listen to some music?" Daniel reached for his phone, eager to oblige my whims…

What is that truck doing?

The truck was large. The flat bed had fabricated wooden sides. It backed up to the barn, and in full daylight, no less! Surely, my late father would not have allowed strangers to traipse onto his property. Since it was mine n…

When we find each component,

We become So that not water, no flame or air or quake could not break us down.

This is how you make sure you love who you are and you stand within your power.

When you know you are:

Powerful

Solemn

Courageous

Determined

Stand …

Streaking down from the heavens, long tailed comets signaled the end of everything. Tears of blazing light marring the inscrutable face of the sky. Were we ready? It was stupid of me to think about such things now, when it was too late to matter, but I co…

There is no Christmas morning planned this year.

We might not even see a Halloween.

The doom-predictions' date will soon be here,

And our defenseless bones will be picked clean.

.

We can see the waters rising, see the waves;.

They claw and grope and maul …

One of the hardest lessons I've learned is that some things you can control, and some things you can't. With that lesson came the realization that accepting what you can and cannot control will make you happier.

For example, I cannot control the attitude…

I was supposed to feed the wallabies.

Oh, I remembered about an hour later.

It was a slight the wallabies would not forget nor forgive.

I'm convinced they keep a list in their head of each person or creature that slights them in the smallest of degrees…

One night, when I was nine years old, my parents and I were working on packing things into our cart. Then we heard screaming, and saw fire, and smoke.

"Noleka, get down!" my mom hissed, shoving me under the cart.

I couldn't do anything but watch as three …

The train station and my exit from it was all a blur. Signs, taxis, trucks, people in military uniform, all bustled, honked, and swerved off in a great hurry. With my suitcase handle gripped tightly, my feet wandered, senses overloaded, until I found mys…

Dinner was terse.

Another Tuesday night, another dinner hosted by my parents. Generally, I looked forward to our Tuesday nights. My parents were both good cooks. I loved both of them, though it took me a long time to grow up and appreciate them.

Financi…

The flash of… cameras? Visual capture devices, brighter than the lean lines of the universe speeding past in technicolor. The roar of voices like the atmosphere, vivid, orange, and angry.

Amplification.

Alien.

“My name is Champion-”

Human. Translat…

He resists the voices, even as they wrap around him. He fights but is soon overwhelmed. There are simply too many of them. He feels them clawing at his mind, dragging at his psyche, pulling him down into unknown depths -- and suddenly he is very afraid.

…

The creature cautiously waited. The embers sizzled warmly. The creature sat upon the rock it had been using as a pillow and it almost felt like there was a hum inside. A beating held deep under layers of long-cooled magma.

Did it dare light itself again?…

There was a time I dreamed of you

Just a smile and a hug

You sat near me, close

Never will that dream be real

.

I let it go when I said

That I approved

Permission granted for you to move on

.

Away you flew, so fast

So far, the distance grew

With every hea…

She rolls over, the first rays of sunshine dawning in the room. There were flowers in the corner. Simple, blue things. The tye-die in the curtains sent 3, 4, Who knew how many colors blasting over the wall. Art.

She rolls over onto him. In those colors a…

Everyone, at some time, has played the "What if I were immortal?" game. Pondering how it would be to see loved ones grow old and die, or how it would be to live through history being made.

Well, I am immortal. And I don't mean Highlander movies immor…

"I have a hard time trusting people. I just don't want to jump unless someone's there to catch me," I texted.

I waited, the confession making my palms sweat. My phone did not slip from my hands, however. I watched the text box for a response. My heart cr…

Underneath the floor, the adventure commences.

..............................

There are comedies, there are tragedies, and there is Fate - who enjoys a laugh as much as the next man, and has a lot more power to make it happen.

That, and a sort of quiet fuming, was what was on my mind when I stepped out onto the glass concourse. I …

The first day I saw it, it was just a little spot. Right over my left ring-finger knuckle. I thought maybe I had not washed well, or I got some ink on it from work.

The next morning my whole knuckle was green and looking a little fuzzy. I considered a tr…

Malika pushed forward into the village, her blade a blur of blue, flaming fury. It took several moments for the Lesser Dead to notice her, but as she cut them down, they flocked to her in greater numbers.

They never had a chance.

Each and every deathles…