“Stop that, Vermilion. You are digging your claws into my shoulder.”
The small dragon shifted its weight, again, upon April’s shoulders. She dipped her tiny head toward April’s ear and made a soft, friendly hissing sound.
“That’s OK,” April said. “I know you don’t mean to. Just watch out next time, OK?”
Vermilion tapped her tail against April’s back in assent.
I was kicked out of my home by my stepmother during Christmas vacation 1984. I was told I was going to move in with my mother my New Year’s day. This vignette is my experience and my imagining of what was going on in my Dad’s mind at the time. His head was low, his…
When I was in the first grade, I had this recurring dream. So, when it came time to do a writing assignment in class, I wrote about it. It’s kind of cute, so I thought I’d share it with you. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Shea, was impressed. [divider] This dream is sort of a…
I tend to write a lot about fear. The following snippet or very short story was written in October 1984 and explores how our own mind can be our worst enemy.
There once was a time when there were too many people. It was a time when it wasn’t hard to have a baby. Nature tried to solve this problem. There was famine. Drought. Disease. But there were also too many doctors trying to save the babies; a noble, if not self-defeating, endeavor. It was a…
The crunching sound of someone walking along the path broke the silence of the refuge. Silence, of course, defined as a place where no human ear is receiving sound waves. The refuge is a place where nature thrives and the half-way-there souls await their payment. Today, after centuries of only birds singing, animals scurrying and…
About a year ago, I contemplated entering a short story contest about the end of the world. This snippet is all I wrote…fully formed as is. I just found it while cleaning up some papers around my office.