Dave
The snow had been falling steadily for three days. Dave Flattery decided to work from home, it was just too much to try to drive, even with his four-wheeler. He worked in advertising and could accomplish as much at home as in his office.
The Collectors
His old Suburban clattered over the familiar potholes of the dirt road leading to the compound. Cresting the final hill, Doctor Jameson could make out the three trailers arranged in a circle and the canopy-covered sitting-area off to the left.
Robert Fenwick III
Robert Fenwick III didn't believe in God. It wasn't that he was a humanist or agnostic or, heaven forbid, a commie; he simply could not be persuaded to subscribe to or endorse any ideology.
The Garden at the Center of the Universe
The contract was for 5,000 dollars. Not much, but enough for the way he was living. All he had to do was drive 200 miles east and kill a worthless drug dealer and, of course, any witnesses, like family, friends, or customers.
A Time To Die
After years of soul searching and misinterpreting events based on faulty intelligence and shallow understanding, he arrived at the end of his life a broken, confused and deeply troubled man.
Zol-Tar
Zol-Tar dropped through the interstices of Mind ever more deeply with the same ease as an insignificant gnat might fly through the massive holes of a screen.
Writer's Block #649
Frick and Frack, collaborating scriptwriting team, in the back of a jewish delicatessan, 3:15 P.M., Monday, July third, 1994; New York, New York:
The Crack in the Bottom of the Bowl
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was that confusing. I didn't know if I was coming or going. Melinda, my dog, was in the hospital waiting for a heart donor, it didn't look good.
The Oatmeal Incident
A shot rang out; it happens. The captain of the vessel slumped forward, his
face coming to rest in a simmering bowl of Quaker Oats. The entire back of
his head was gone. That is to say-- vaporized.
Time Shift
Wielding the heavy black rock found protruding from the wall of their cave,
its narrow edge chipped to utter silence, Gorg easily rended the belly of the
long-toothed beast.
Megan's World
Megan put her drink down hard on the glass-topped coffee table. Nobody moved in the hot, stuffy parlor. Through the sliding screen door, the fading light outlined the mountains far to the southwest, dark clouds menacing their jagged ridges and peaks like a pack of hungry hyenas ready to pounce.
True Story
You have to understand what I'm about to tell you is strictly between you and me. You must promise. I have to tell someone before I bust or get killed too. I'll start at the beginning.
Tesselation
Three teams of astronomers poured over sections of a picture of the deepest view into the universe ever seen, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over what amounted to four days of exposure on a single location -- a point, actually -- far off in the distance.
The Day I Died
It's not easy for me to take corporeal form. I can only do it for a brief period of time; the energy outlay is enormous. But I'll try to maintain stasis for as long as possible so I can tell you what I've discovered. Two hundred and fifty seven years ago, I died, or at least it seemed so. Let me attempt to recount the events leading up to it, and those that followed.
MONSTER
It was a dark and moonless night. Quiet prevailed in the rough-scrabble town; its hard-working residents either fast asleep or huddled in the few bars that spotted Main street, their neon lights beacons of refuge from the damp chill. None could have been even remotely aware of what was about to take place.
Charles and the Pencil
Charles scrawled lines on the paper with the unusual pencil he'd found while exploring the storage shack at the back of the rental. It was hardly what you would think of as a writing instrument, it's length -- a foot or more -- and its elongated teardrop shape spoke otherwise. But the small boy saw it that way and so it was.
Homecoming
Frank was sitting on a moss-covered log in the quiet, peaceful forest.
The Bridge
The winter dawn under the heavy sky contrasted his surroundings in shades of grey; shadows and silhouettes squirmed franticaly over the ice underfoot.
Plato's Cave Revisited
He was kidnapped while in dreamland and taken far away to a sunless planet.
At Last...
His being dwelt beyond the confining envelope of space and time we call the universe, once a tiny seed of creator-energy.
In The Beginning...
In the beginning, Mankind pursued a pantheistic spirituality infusing all things -- living and nonliving -- with the qualities of a Supreme Being [shamanism being the oldest form of this].
'The End Of Days' Bar & Lounge
I was sitting alone at a bar drinking bourbon and coke on the rocks, mesmerized by the whirligigs of leaves and trash dancing in the street.
Our Town -- The Other One
It's 3:30 in the afternoon on a chilly drizzly April day in the Northwest. The phone's ringing in the other room; ignore it. Let me pour a glass of Sheraz and get comfortable. I want to tell you about where I've been living for the last half of my life.
