The aliens were putting Josh and Jill through the ringer. Communicating in both their own language and perfect English, they’d asked Josh and Jill a hundred questions about themselves and their habits . At the current moment, they’d setup an obstacle course of some kind. It looked like an Olympic decathlon.

“We are testing you to see hock is the finest specimen,” announced Glorp, the translator....

It was a day like any other. I got up nice and early, got some breakfast, fed the kids, warmed up my voice, sang a couple songs, and sat out on my perch watching the morning go by.

It had to be just before the midpoint of the day - judging by the light and the movement of the clouds - when I decided to go off for a little flight. The wings needed a stretch, and the kids would need lunch soon, so...

The doorway was thick. The layers of paint throughout the years had inflated the doorway so that the door constantly got stuck in the humid months.

The door was a gorgeous oak - resealed over the years, but still the original wood from when the house was built in 1880. There were a few scratches here and there on the back side from the family dogs: Bingo (1887-1902), Clark (1920-1936), Chief (19...

In the graveyard waiting still

Sits a shriveled, wrinkled, shrew

Patiently amidst the chill

She sits there waiting, just for you.

From the peasants to the priests,

She does not care your revenue,

Even come the birds and beasts

To where she’s waiting, just for you.

There is none that will escape,

Nor any thing which we may do

To frantically avoid this fate,

She sits there waiting,

Patiently, f...

The page waited, anxiously to be covered with words. It was blank, white and ready to be painted with prepositions, splattered with sentences, rouged with a rough draft fueled by artistic passion.

The page waited and waited, dreaming of what it would become. Would it become a magnum opus of class oppression? A farce that frothed with humor? A declaration of love, a binding contract, a strongly wo...

The cold breeze whistled about Simon, stinging his face like a small swarm of bees. The grey world of the frozen forest slowly faded into darkness the further he journeyed into the cave. All about him long icicles hung all about, catching the light in bizarre ways.

Simon began to think of the frozen cave as a monster, a large frozen ice monster that was swallowing him like Jonah and the whale. T...

I stepped out into the porch and breathed deep. The air smelt like a new start. I was content. I’d successfully left Derek Walters and all that he ignited in me behind. I was free from him here. Finally.

Derek had not only been my best friend in the world for ten years, he’d been my entire world. I Loved him like no one person should ever love another. If he called, I answered; he said “jump” I ...

“I’m just too tired today to conjure up a glass of wine, would you mind doing it for me?” Asked Susan of her friend Stephanie.

“You’re always too tired for conjuring,” retorted Stephanie as she flicked her wrist, causing a glass of wine to appear next to Susan. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you conjure anything at all.”

“Yes you have. You totally have!” Susan fired back. “S...

Thurston Henry Howell sat triumphantly in his office at the back of his small hay and feed store in Kansas City, Missouri. He had just dispatched two letters: one to his fiancée, Ms. Willie Arnold; the other to his lover, Mr. Arnold William. The first was a letter gently ending his relationship with Ms. Arnold, the latter was a letter agreeing to abscond with Mr. William to points elsewhere. Such ...

It was dark inside the elevator. So dark in fact, Oscar couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or not, so he blinked a few times to make certain. Cheryl, on the other hand knew what was happening. Ever level headed, she instantly began groping about the pitch darkness for her purse.

As Cheryl started to rummage about in her purse, Reality began to wash over Oscar like a tsunami. He possessed a debi...