Break From Reality. Daily.
They say comatose patients are in a state of suspended animation; that they can hear everything happening around them but are unable to do anything, allowing the body time to repair itself without interruption. I know this to be true because I am currently in that exact predicament, and am cognizant enough to recall portions…
The following is a prequel to my unpublished manuscript, Striving After Wind. It was Saturday and the cloudless dawn gave no indication to the wild fury of the night before. Theodore’s wagon wheels ground slowly through the muddy ruts toward the Evans farm. He’d awakened the undertaker before heading out and convinced him to relinquish…
The following is a prequel to my unpublished manuscript, Striving After Wind. October 1860 Helen Brandt lay on her straw mattress listening to the autumn rainstorm roll across the northern Kentucky countryside. A growl of thunder vibrated the cabin. Outside her bedroom window, lightning flashes revealed the skeletal remains of the surrounding forest readying itself…
Getting Roger inside my house had been the easy part. The ethereal sweetness of a freshly baked lemon poppy seed coffee cake wafting through my kitchen window was all it took. Like every morning after his wife would leave for work, he’d station himself on his adobe-red deck to scratch parts of his body awake….
Lesedi met Amenemhat on the stairs. He beckoned her with an outstretched hand. “Stay with me tonight.” His eyes focused on the floor as he escorted her into the darkness of his bedchamber. “Amen,” she said with a tug to his arm. “What have you done? Tell me what happened.” Moonlight, the sole source of…
She gasped when his fingers traced the outline of her spine down to the small of her back. His hands, rough from years of combat in Pharaoh’s army, scratched against the thin layer of hand-woven flax draping her body. He’d commented once, in the privacy of this domicile, how her ebony skin made the linen…
“Baby, I didn’t mean for it to happen.” Your heart shatters at his words, piercing every inch of your body. They defy gravity, clawing their way up your throat on a river of sour bile. He’s not supposed to be saying this. You of all people should never hear those words—spoken in that order. Four years…
Image by Sara Robertson via Creative Commons The mother and daughter approached the ticket counter, hand in hand, passing a forest of life-sized cutouts of movies that wouldn’t premiere for several months. Glossy cardboard actors clutched each other in passionate embraces. Murderers wielded weapons still dripping of mayhem. Action stars posed, armed to the teeth….
(Image by Imran Schah from Creative Commons) “Looks like Costco done upchucked all over your yard.” My eyes roll at the gravelly voice scratching its way over the chain-link fence separating our yards. Mr. Woods has been standing there, every day for the past month, chiding my family about our preparations. Sometimes he’d just hum…
In photo (l. to r.) the author’s father, sister, and herself at Daddy Date Night 1993 Tina Andrews listened to the excited banter in the gymnasium, her mouth a tight line across her face. The thump of generation-old music beat against her chest amidst the scent of rubber and chlorine. At her table, four teenage…
(Photograph courtesy of Carmelle Tennison) My eyes strain to make out the pair of shadows hovering above me. Irritated, I squirm in the softness swaddled about my body—a vain attempt to recreate the warmth of a watery world I inhabited just a few months prior. I give up trying to make sense of the blur….
Like sci-fi, dystopian, and some romance? Find it here in this excellent story.
