Justin

Long ago, so long in fact, that centuries seem but brief flicker, there came a wise soul who planted a pen upon the soils of his paper. Scribbling seeds of philosophy, history, and imagination, he was able to give birth to man's most amazing creation...the story. And it's harvest would be eternal.

Neal

Chickamauga

Where once streams ran red, where brothers opposed bled, now bleakly stand proud monuments to bravery and valor.

Heavenly ardor for a righteous cause filled battle cries with,
“God is with us…
no man can stand against us…”

When you positively know you are absolutely right is when you need to pray most deeply and fervently.

Man's worst conflicts result when diplomacy fails, and passion for a cause overwhelms reason.

Neal Parks - 2010

Shawn

Let’s pretend God runs a bookstore, our souls get to choose. Your soul went straight for the fiction section-a little comedy, drugs and road trips. Then, the romance section-reads a bit and gets bored; next, to science fiction and self help (God knows why?) After wandering around a bit, back to the front of the store, to find the magazine rack where your soul finds the fishing and porn sections next to each other.

Jennifer

Mooney joins her paws into the Schuylkill River. An Australian Shepherd mix, she bolts through her own small crashes of soaked sound. We skip stones toward the other shore. Mooney flies at their paths, jarred by their sudden far-off sinking, each slowly reaching smoothed-over rocks in the wet muck of underbeds. Mooney expects more for the fetching. Mooney knows I won’t be around for long, that this is her river.

Jon

The bent sign on the cliff's edge read, WARNING: NO DIVING. We'd been ignoring it ever since we bent it. I dumped my bike with a dusty summer clank and I flung my tee shirt aside. The warning blurred. I was flying. The newspaper said it was fifty feet. I was falling. My arms flailed in vain to keep me upright. A white crash followed. Now my desire to walk up there and straighten that sign sometimes overwhelms me.

Laurie

Matt worked alone, if work you call it. He liked the quiet or rather the drip, drip that told him the water was near. A few more careful steps, and he would have his treasure. He tilted his head to point the light toward the sound. The cave's decayed and rotting teeth beckoned him. Endless salivating had eroded the floor where Matt took his last step. Can a stalactite smile?

Charles

Six AM insomnia, a car outside idles its calm putter of smoke through rusty holes. Crystal dewdrops melt on a spider-cracked windshield. I am late, and nothing stirs outside the morning of Christmas Eve, not even a mouse. With coffee in hand, and a dreamless mind, I drive. The street-lights are frozen to this moment. A moment the boss will never understand, a moment not for sale.

Steve

V held out his clenched fists. “Pick one,” he said flatly. There was no demurring. I chose the left. He opened the right, unfurling his fingers slowly. Inside was a thick blunt bullet. I swallowed. Now the left: another slug though smaller. “You choose well.” V smiled. “If I must kill you, I will use this one. With 22 they can leave casket open; 45 makes big mess.” I nodded. Got up. Left. I would never go back.

Len

He wrote, “I’ll leave the door open.”
I drove imagining risky scenes.
Room 204, door ajar, stifling heat. On the bed his athletic socked feet extended beyond the corner wall.
Useless worries.
After a few minutes, he roused, muttered, and we continued amidst occasional phrases in the stuffy room.
Afterward, still in the dark, we chatted, naked and satisfied, then parted, with plans to reconnect.
Who knows?
I do.
We didn’t.

Francis

When, twittering and flapping and leaping under the scrutiny of its servants, the oracle bird announced the death of the twin poets (their disarticulated bodies were found quickly afterwards), the whole country erupted in anger.
It was like a sandstorm, strong and fast, tirelessly eroding to dust everything -and everyone- that was part of the corrupt regime.
Into this dust cloud the oracle bird willingly vanished.

Holly

Karen looks out the window, again. Nothing. A cat passes the fence, behind bushes. She presses her knees to her ribs. She’s boxing her heart in a slow box. Mom will be gone for some time. She turns to the blue-dark room — sees the vase-clusters. Peeks at the broken vase. Mom said: Dale wouldn’t want these. And it slipped. The lilies are alive, but the edges are dry. Not much longer, she thinks. Then she looks away.

Stephanie

The black cat approached me, all sorts of secrets hidden in his eyes. His legs were cautious, not knowing if I were friend or foe. Or if I were food… As it came closer, I realized just how big it was. A house cat whose head meets my shoulder. I looked behind it, at the horizon. The unearthly glow radiated day and night. An eerie green. If this was the world to come, I didn't want to meet it.
"Here, kitty," I said.

Rita

Christmas eve 11PM, Miles to go, maybe? Stupid GPS, Stupid tire! Stupid cell phone no bars? Oh great now snow! Must walk. Sleigh bells, Red suit Really! Amish maybe? Warm blanket friendly driver going my way. Oddly sleepy. Darkness. Dreams elves, reindeer, toys. Awake! HOME? How? Sleigh gone, distant voice “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.” Midnight Christmas eve home. What a present? I believe!

Ernie

Only three of us were left. I could see across the field how others had been selected stood with pride aglow with lights and tinsel. It was the day before Christmas.
What was to become of me with no home for me to share my branches? The special day was not to be mine. Sadness was gone in a flash when the little boy on Christmas Eve
selected me. The joy in his eyes rekindled my purpose for being. I will be decked.

Patrick

Home flashes on the cell screen; too late for a lie. Cheap room at the Big Surf, Ian’s mom 2 floors up. Neon fires on the counter, white light, and cloaked in unfamiliar dread I answer the call. The hours pause, did I scream at the phone? Get me to a hospital. Tiny crystals danced into milky pirouettes before he was gone. His gaze cut through me like a chrome hornet as the firemen carried me out, a ghost of pre-dawn.

Yana

REGRET

All that was left of the old mansion was a wall with a door. As I walked by, the door creaked open. I glimpsed not a pile of rubble under gray winter sky, but a sunlit garden. The sweet music of a flute wafted on a lilac-scented breeze, beckoning. Enchanted, I approached. But prudence barked: “No! It’s a trick, a trap!” I fled.

The next day the wrecking ball finished its work. Nothing but rubble under gray sky.

Brian

After the war, he didn't say much-always wearing an old wool hat to cover his head. He says,"There's alot going on up there and some of it might get the idea of escaping out into the world of people's opinions." One day, I came upon him hat off, petting a stray dog-the dog slobbering all over where the hat used to be. He says,"She loves to kiss." But I know she's licking the wounds that never seem to heal.

Ralph

“Oh come on Sis, you know there is no such thing as ghosts!”
She just looked at her brother with the same patient but annoyingly judgmental smile he had become used to seeing when they disagreed. She wore her favorite green sundress, the same one she wore ten years ago, when she died.

William

We stand along the banks of the murky shore, the sun descending quickly beyond the horizon. They climb the makeshift tower just off shore. Luminescent clouds bubble up from the horizon and rise to silhouette the couple as they reach their perch. In his dark suit and her white gown, they hold hands, wave slowly, and leap backwards into the dark below. A sound confirms the impact. What a glorious anniversary.

Margaret

I saw your faces through blue smoke, while twirling-round, then upside-down! No more shall I quench your desires, you, my needful, dear admirers! Now what to do? I must ask, since pink-slip followed the knot on my head (...and made the boss fear I'd dropped dead!)
Alas! Now jobless, I pen this, my memoir...The Diary of a Narcoleptic Pole Dancer!