Somewhere in the night a trio played jazz music that echoed through the streets. A Clarinetist, a banjo, and keys. Of course that was any street in this neighborhood, that and the crime, which is a peripheral of my life. You don’t work as a PI and not make friends in the underbelly of the city,

I’d been hired for an easy enough job, a wondering husband. It was fairly routine. He had hit all the ...

It’s not like I couldn’t hear them, they had always been there rattling around in various volumes from hushed whispers to raging torrents. It was that they suddenly chose not to be heard. Their quiet choir of voices became softer and softer every day, and yet, in hushed tones I could still hear them, still make out a word here or there. I can’t be sure but I’m quiet convinced it’s my name I seem t...

It’s a silly thing to do as an adult, but most of us have done it. Keep a toy from your childhood. Some parent’s have boxes in their attic of toys their children refuse to take to their own homes but will not allow the parents to throw them away, while others may keep only a stuffed bear or tiger that sits on their pillows once their bed is made. The reasons are almost always sentimental, nothing ...

The singed corpses of burnt trees reached up out of the ground like giant black skeletal hands grasping for anything to pull them out of their graves and littered the landscape before me. Smoke crept along what was once the Forest floor, now only crisp and brittle diet. The permanent overcast sky illuminated the area with no shadows, and showed proof that no animal had returned after what had happ...

I called and he came, the Great Dark One. After so many years, so much study of the ancient scrolls, here he finally was. Here I was, standing on the precipice of tomorrow, looking into the eyes of an ancient god. I’m every fantasy my mind had created I knew exactly how to call to him, beg to him, and plead to him in my humble voice what he would do for me, his loyal servant; but in the reality of...

The crescent moon barely gave off enough light to illuminate the waves crashing on the beach that night, but anyone looking out onto the sand may have seen the odd line dug into the sand stretching from one end of the beach to the other. Had they have been there moments earlier they would have seen the tall man in the long black coat and wide brimmed hat dragging the lifeless body of a young man o...