Tyger, Tyger Spring 2009

Poetry Friday Night ...... Brian Buehner One Last Time ...... Austin Jones Heroes ...... Ryan Perry Easter ...... Alex Deats Movement #1: Brisk Air Pt. 1, 2, & 3 ...... Rhett Wilson Easter Eggs ...... Will Ford Stubborn Individualism ...... Brian Buehner Reality’s Dis-ease ...... Matt Younkie Shakespeare Evolved ...... Philip Moore The Sun’s Going to Rise Again ...... Austin Jones Last Man Standing ...... J. Hayden Baseball ...... Nick Beavin Dreams of Basketball ...... David Meyer The Universal Academy...... Brian Buehner A Dark Night for the Heart ...... Tyler Buttleman Basketball Sights and Sounds ...... Chris Lyvers Unable to Break Free ...... Brian Buehner The Feelings of Spring ...... Austin Jones What Could Have Been ...... David Meyer and Chris Lyvers The Noble Steed ...... Alex George and Geoff Banta Sonnet ...... Andy Knight Tough Love ...... Geoff Banta My Bike ...... Zach Alberti For He Has Risen To Save Us ...... Tommy Bardenwerper The Mountain ...... Zack Hibbs Homage to Ms. Roberts ...... Alexander Thompson Homage to Mr. Smith ...... Will Kennedy

Creative Nonfiction The Lover and the Liar ...... Ross Cunningham I Don’t Want to Be Cameron ...... Greg Bone When Time Stands Still ...... Anthony Flaherty Escape from the Lunch Bunch ...... Drew McClure In Search of Adventure ...... Joseph Mattingly

Short Stories The Longest Day ...... Tad Timberlake and Rudy Recktenwald The Silence ...... Adam Thomasson Jim’s Party ...... Rudy Recktenwald

More Stories with Identical Dialogue The Red Dress ...... Michael Moore Falling ...... Jared Allard The Caddy and the Golfer ...... Rory Hopkins

Excerpt from a Novel in Progress Red Dressed Corpse ...... Michael Moore Discovery of a Madman ...... Sam Dicken The Legend of Arathin and Negg ...... James Knoer Red Letters ...... Michael Strong Days out of the Clearing ...... Sam Medley What? ...... Patrick King Hopelessly Into the Dark ...... Kenton Jetton My Life and Death ...... Jeffrey Huber Ashes ...... Ben Randolph

Screenplay excerpts Vampires ...... Pat Scrivener Redbirds ...... Gary Hermann The Corn Huggers ...... Joey Tabler

Meditations inspired by art Discus Thrower ...... Sam Kinney Boy Bitten by Lizard...... Michael Flannigan Casa de Locos ...... David Wigginton Robert Andrews and Wife ...... Nick Ruppelt

Poetry

Friday Night By Brian Buehner

Emotions flow with great electricity, The team is focused and concentrated. With the fierce mentality of a warrior, Huddling they are ready to begin the battle.

The team is focused and concentrated, Connected as one, joined for prayer. Huddling they are ready to begin the battle, Making sure they know their assignments and duties.

Connected as one, joined for prayer, Breaking in unity as the buzzer sounds. Making sure they know their assignments and duties, Shielding the immense roar of the crowd.

Breaking in unity as the buzzer sounds, Heart pounding, adrenaline flowing. Shielding the immense roar of the crowd, Displaying an unparalleled style of attack.

Heart pounding, adrenaline flowing, Executing everything, modestly dominating. Displaying an unparalleled style of attack, Celebrating their hard work and success.

Executing everything, modestly dominating, Standing strong, head held high. Celebrating their hard work and success, The game was over, the season just beginning.

Standing strong, head held high, With the fierce mentality of a warrior. The game was over, the season just beginning, Emotions flow with great electricity.

One Last Time

By Austin Jones Today we gather for the last time, Think of when we all hit our prime, Or think of all the days we wanted to quit, Even when we got hit so hard it felt like our back split, But, for some reason we always came back out together, No matter how bad the weather, It pulls you back like you’re in captivity, But, to you it’s some great activity. You’re my brothers, And I wouldn’t want any others Because we’ve stood together throughout the worst of times.

People think we’ve committed crimes Because we have hardly any losses. Now it’s our time to be the bosses, But, no matter what we will continue to work hard Even if we only need a yard. So, tonight let’s just go crazy. This isn’t the time to be lazy Because it’ll be our last time as a team, And we’ve got the best scheme Because we’re the best from head to toe, So, for one last time let’s go make one hell of a show.

Heroes By Ryan Perry

It’s inspiration, unlike any other, They are all different, there’s yours and mine. You look to them, as kids to their mothers We all have our own; they’re one of a kind. It is everyone, athletes and friends. We follow them; they’re idols to us all. If they fail, we let them make amends. No matter what, we never let them fall. Mine are Ronaldo, Jesus, Woods, and Wade. They can do great things that most of us won’t. It’s what they do, and things they’ve said and made. They have the talent that most people don’t. Heroes, they are what I now look up to. Find your hero, there’s one for me and you.

Easter By Alex Deats

Easter is a time When we come Together with Our Friends And Families. We gather first At Church To celebrate Jesus’ death that freed us from sin. We also come together to celebrate His Resurrection. Easter Sunday is a time of joy for all, young and old. After Mass we Go off with The ones that Are the closest To us and to enjoy Their company while The little ones are Of in the yard finding Hidden Easter eggs. Easter is a time when We come together And celebrate The Resurrection Of Jesus.

Movement #1: Brisk Air Pt. 1, 2, & 3 By Rhett Wilson

The sun holds close the distance, The tide pulls stars so near, The window opens lightly, The shadows of the canopy disappear, Into the night’s nestled semi-sphere. The gentlest discrepancy to skin, Sweet zephyr so divine; warmth akin, Would not choose to stir, but fly, A prophet of the peace that lingers nigh.

No need for rhetoric, Time has pushed its horizons wide, Never closing, staying only to the side, Celestial love radiates from angels, Breeze lifts a memory from the pages, Silent leaves of passion wrapped in hair, Balmy therapy in the warm waves of the air, Bowing baby’s breath; petals on high, The painted sun and Nature’s sigh, Resenting not, the manufactured gray, But holding tight the memory and the blasé, Subservient vapor of benevolent Spring, Rise, dewy love to caress the morning.

The nervous dawn is traveling, The lacerations of worry, The airy symbols of a wan sky, A change in the colored fabric of vitality, A gentle jog to the horizon; is this a new end? Is this one mind to be as the sky on aurora’s eve? Or will the arid tidings of pettiness return for the dust? i shall not be that dust. Returning from the shade of starlight’s curtain, From the open arms of imperishable thought, From the beautiful, strange healing at my grave, Symbiosis and empathy at the world’s mothering hearth, Ability and response form the fan to the winds, i shall not be that dust! Command the clouds, show this ruby creation! The cerulean seas of an eon in the sun, A triumphant advent from the mystic viridian womb, As it strolls to the cliff of reality’s purity, To rekindle peace, Immerse in the embers of love, Bathe in the azure, the crimson, the pearl! i am new, but ancient, i am original, different, incipient! Serenity, this sun is life in truth.

Dearth Pt. II Whatever could be bearable? Where the grass hides, And where the possibilities go to die, Where the earth forces a mumble, And where the winds always sigh, Do the petals you stamp hate you so? A near-figure-eight fold march, Wearing a camouflage contract, What sky could be so red? Whether it be 16 or 47, A familiar grip on reality, Does the grudge you hold hate you so? Many islands in a desert; the trees are dying, Robed exile, no ether; the cased heat, Maroon despair, blackening.

Celeste Pt. I As the craters shine, Marble staircase glows brightly, A generous moon, The night is always a soul, Illuminated by love.

Easter Eggs By Will Ford

Symbol of birth

One little body awaiting Arising into its anticipated rise New to the world, Fresh to its power

The life is squeaking through its boundary. The animal screams out to its mother, afraid

Seeing, Awakening to its first breath of life. The mother’s there comforting her child She’s happy that today has come.

The baby is here, it knows. He knows its home.

Stubborn Individualism By Brian Buehner

Why do you sit alone, Sheltered in the corner, Distant from group conformity, Wondering who is the foreigner?

Are you really an alien, A stranger to the nation, Or is it your stubbornness, Not craving affiliation?

Does this make you feel powerful? Because to everyone you seem weak, Skeptical about trivial ideas and images, Stand up, arise and join the meek.

Do not fear acceptance, You are stronger as a unit. You are the missing puzzle piece, Admire the broken jigsaw--now fill it.

Reality’s Dis-ease By Matt Younie

Stealing up my last only nerve, Stum’blin through my mind’s long lost caves-- Walls splattered with images frayed Lost, lonely I lose my ill mind

Dreaming up scenarios, dream-like Stealing up my last only nerve. Colors gone forever I fear As everything blanks out of here.

Throwing up the last meal I ate, Forgetting my home-like estate Stealing up my last, only nerve-- I lose all hope of getting out

Till the trip at last is over. My twisted conscious comes back to Reality again, overwhelms me, Stealing up my last only nerve

Shakespeare Evolved By Philip Moore

I want to go see a terrific play perhaps an interesting tragedy, but I’m afraid I’ll be left in dismay so I might see a clever comedy.

The Globe Theater is the place to hail the legendary bard William Shakespeare and watch the comedy The Winter’s Tale or a tearful tragedy like King Lear.

I really like to study history so maybe I should see Richard III, but I also enjoy a mystery. I wish I knew one, but I’m not a nerd.

I want to go see a terrific play. Instead, I will watch Macbeth on Blu-ray.

Last Man Standing

By J. Hayden

You worked A lot of miracles Others couldn’t understand. You helped the needy. You helped the un-needy. Others didn’t honor all the things you did so they began to worry-- Worry about who you where and where you came from, Not honoring you for what you did for others and how u helped them. They became jealous, Listened to others Saying you were THE DEVIL. Nobody believed You were sent by God. People turned on you. People wanted you killed. So they crucified you, Not knowing you would Wake up three days later And ascend to Heaven

The Sun’s Going to Rise Again By Austin Jones

The sun will always rise in the east, And in the west it shall be at peace, Just like how we’ll always be together, No matter how bad the weather, Our relationship is like the sun, Burning bright like it just begun, Never gunna go out, not even one time, You’ve committed a crime, You’ve stolen my heart, But, I don’t want it back because I know we won’t part, So, if you’re ever feeling blue, Just remember I’ll always be here for you.

Baseball By Nick Beavin

We all know and love this great game. Baseball is its wonderful name. The sound of the crack of the bat And the stadium they play at

All Americans feel the same. We all know and love this great game: The freshly cut grass and its smell, The stadium, where many dwell.

I never want to leave this place, Feeling of the sun on my face. We all know and love this great game Where many people made their fame.

This is just like heaven to me, Exactly where I want to be. America’s game people claim-- We all know and love this great game.

Dreams of Basketball By David Meyer

Running up and down the new court, I cross into my newfound dream. I run, I jump, cross-over, shoot, I want to make my shot pristine.

Dribble, pass, me shooting the three, Running up and down the new court. Ten Free throws now taking it slow, I hope my rest won’t be so short.

In walks M.J. ready to play, Dribbling as he walks to me. Running up and down the new court, He thinks that he’s fully ready.

I say, “Oh no, you think I’m wrong, But I am sorry to report, I can beat you--you are too old, Running up and down the new court.

The Universal Academy By Brian Buehner

Release yourself my lad, Please come and follow me. Arise from chained confinement, Step out, breathe air, feel free.

God’s eye shines its golden glow, Upon the fruitful lands. Steadily blowing His calm breeze, Refreshing to your glands.

In the dark gloomy dungeons, One focuses on dusty tomes. For what benefit? Only to memorize poems.

This mundane style of learning, Is subservient to nature’s education. One must listen to the professor speak, To receive brain stimulation.

The perched Finch will sing, Her joyous melody. While diligent ants on the ground, Display and teach fidelity.

Nature’s schoolmasters--an endless bunch, In a myriad of looks. All will teach with serene styles, Just listen to the brooks.

So don’t crave false knowledge, From a mind-murdering convocation. Facts of life appear amongst you, Just eavesdrop on Nature’s conversation.

No more calculus or geography, To fill your mind with clutter. Just open your mind and alert your ears, To hear Nature utter.

A Dark Night for the Heart

By Tyler Buttleman

Oh! What elegance is found in this sight. The trees waving as the wind swiftly blows. The peaceful silence of a summer night. The stars in the sky shimmer; the moon glows. Passion burns violently deep in my soul, Although my body is filled with sorrow. My heart still beating with a giant hole. My mind swirls with regrets of tomorrow. I search the sky, gazing at worlds above; Close my eyes; feel the wind blow through my hair. My heart is aching for the one I love, As I rock back-and-forth in the old chair. And suddenly this strange thought comes to me. My love for her was never meant to be!

Basketball Sights and Sounds By Chris Lyvers

Basketball is the very best, A truly wonderful sport of speed and power, It’s played by millions in countries across the entire globe, Nobody does it better than those talented few in the United States, Whether it’s college or professional, the excitement remains above all else, Most explosive athletes in the world are soaring over others with effortless leaps, Rim rattling dunks echo throughout the entire arena droning out the piercing cheers, The constant squeaking of shoes is music to the ears of any observer that is watching, Excitement from enormous second half comebacks that seemed impossible awhile ago, Rushing of the court from the frenzied fanatics in the stands is not matched by any other, Unparalleled strength characterized by the huge men fighting for rebounds down below, Pinpoint no-look passes provide immediate highlights to be analyzed for years to come, Amazing agility from wing players smoothly slicing their way into the lane for buckets, Point guards are crazily hurrying the ball up the floors as if their lives depend upon it, Coaches are deafeningly yelling at the players whenever a costly mistake is made, Buzzer beaters decide outcomes of games and define the careers of many, Unbelievable upsets cause madness to break out from die-hard fans, Half-court shots, other amazements replayed the next day, The swishing of nets is the most pleasing sound, Basketball is the very best.

Unable to Break Free By Brain Buehner

I saw a pigeon today Perched on a street sign, Confused by the avenues of New York, Aimlessly starring far off, Perplexed, Lonely. Then he soared off with other birds, Flying together, No sense of independence, No sense of direction. How did I know, About this hollow-boned, elfin creature? By looking at him, I saw myself, Standing on the corner of Main and 12th, Unsure and unaware of my path, Skeptical and scared about the future. Despondent, following the burly current of city-life, Unable to break free.

The Feelings of Spring By Austin Jones

Snow begins to melt into a small pond, The rain begins to fall, The rain showers during spring is like a bond, It can’t be separated not even by a concrete wall, The birds begin to sing their song, The flowers begin to bloom, It makes you feel like you belong, There is no more gloom, Just happiness to make you jump for joy, It makes you feel like you’re a small boy.

Be careful of what you bring, Because there might be a little rain, But it’ll just bring more flowers, It’s hard to explain, Spring just has these kinds of powers, It makes you have no worries, Because there’s no more snow flurries, And every little thing is gonna be alright, Because when you wake up the sun will give you a little delight, When the birds and the wind make a little chime, That’s when you know its spring time.

What Could Have Been By David Meyer and Chris Lyvers

Nick was a flimsy, weak kid A few weeks went by so fast, Who wanted badly to play ball. The big game was a day away. But the coach would not let him, “I can’t wait for tomorrow, Because he wasn’t very tall. I’m ready for that giant day!” “You will never make a shot On his bed he fell asleep, For when you run you always fall.” And with a smile he did lay.

“C’mon coach, give me a chance, The crowd was raging loudly, I’m better than I was last year.” The game was about to begin. The coach pondered for a while, The players were warming up, Then he yelled out for Nick to hear. Nick was surely ready to win. Telling him the time and date, Then the horn started to sound, The coach said, “You better be here.” Nick said, “I’m going to score ten!”

When poor Nick got home that night, The team went out on the court, Questions arose inside his head. All of the players ready to play. “What am I going to do? Nick slapped his two hands with Fred, If I don’t make it, my life’s dead.” Told him “We’re winning this today.” Right then he looked to his side, The ball thrown up in the air, And a strange man was on his bed. Nick jumped up and pulled it away.

“How do you do, my name’s Ron, Running up, shooting the threes, I can give you that which you seek.” Twenty-four points put up by Nick, “There’s no way, I’m horrible,” Three rebounds and an assist, Nick replied, “Lies are what you speak. That teammate, he was surely quick. They are pros compared to me, Stealing the ball on defense, And my tryouts are in a week.” And then he helped to set a pick.

A smile arose from Ron’s lips, Late in game, his team down one, He motioned Nick to turn around. The game was way too close to call, Ron muttered some crazy words, Nick got the ball, went to shoot, Along with an outlandish sound. And then he shot up an air ball. “A spell I just put on you, He lost the game, down by one And that old coach you will astound.” His teammates still confused he saw.

Nick found out his words were true, Nick ran to Ron, dazed and scared, For he easily made the team. But not really sure what to think. “That old Ron was truly real, He asked him what had happened, Not just part of a crazy dream. And Ron replied with a quick wink. Nobody can beat me now, Ron said, “It’s not forever, At basketball I am supreme.” It lasts but thirty days I think.”

The Noble Steed

By Alex George and Geoff Banta

Prince John is the noblest man The Prince says, “This queen will be amazed Who is every maiden’s dream. With my wondrous, handsome beauty.” His journey is to find a queen “To get you to your queen is my Over the hill and through the stream. Mission and important duty.”

If he is to be successful, Passing through cliffs and valleys, He would need a noble steed. Finally there at the scene Prince John mounts his horse and says, Where the great Prince believes that “You are the best there is, indeed.” He marries the beautiful queen.

Prince John says to his noble steed, Riding up the tower steps, “I need your help to get my queen.” Upon his pure-bred, noble steed, The swift, noble steed replies, He greets the beautiful lady, “I will ride through mountain and green.” “To be king, only you I need.”

The two go on their journey The queen says in her decree, To get the beautiful queen. “You are very handsome indeed,” “I will go fast as any steed But to the prince’s surprise, she says, Or thing that you have ever seen.” “Marry, shall I, your noble steed.”

Sonnet By Andy Knight

Obama is our president today. The world right now is in a recession. Hopefully, he can help the U.S.A. He will have to choose with good discretion.

Markets and economies are falling. Dow Jones is in for a bit of trouble. Creditors are going to be calling. If we do not watch they will be double.

We will rise up from this unsteady time.

We will fix our problems and help the world. I’m sure it will work out; it will be fine. We will soon see the future unfurled.

Obama can help us and show the way, But only time can tell, no one can say.

Tough Love By Geoffrey Banta

The Day. The Sad, Bad Day. The Pain That one endures is insurmountable. Any Cruel punishment or a perilous struggle for Something can’t measure up to the horrific Trauma That one Endures For those Who put Upon him The pain He freely Endured. Why? We Ask full of Question. One must Reply with Swiftness.

My Bike By Zach Alberti

I ride my bike from home and back, Every day for forty years, Recently struggling up hills, Fighting for every last peddle.

The way I get from here to there, I ride my bike from home and back. Difficult in my worst of days, But a low-priced ride if I may say.

Now this ride takes its toll on me As I heave home, every night. I ride my bike from home and back. I only stop for some hot bread.

Now my bread is cold, my body weak, Hoping for a final relief. I struggle so for those I love. I ride my bike from home and back.

For He Has Risen To Save Us By Tommy Bardenwerper

Hallelujah! He has risen. Jesus Christ Just Friday Died on the cross He has shown the world that he is the Son of God They took him down from the cross and laid him in the tomb But he is back! For he has risen to save us. The King! Now they listen After they killed. Now they want Forgiveness. So does he for He does what is Just in His eyes, These eyes Of the Lord On Sunday, The Holiest Of all days. He ascended Into heaven With his Father Hallelujah!

The Mountain By Zack Hibbs

The mountain stands guard forever, Silent, still, and impervious, Never shrinking, ever growing, Nothing makes the mountain tremble.

All the winds of the world and yet The mountain stands guard forever While banshees scream, ever constant, Fruitless against the Mountain’s Guard.

Rivers rush by, always present, Trying to ground the stone, and yet The mountain stands guard forever, Gazing with contempt, victorious.

Trees, attempting to dislodge him, Soon find their roots unable To move the smallest rock, and so, The mountain stands guard forever.

Homage to Ms. Roberts (inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) By Alexander Thompson

On the top floor of the Hall of Flaget, There lives a good teacher at all times of the day.

Inside a classroom adorned with equations, Mrs. Roberts teaches chemistry on numerous occasions.

Mrs. Roberts, you see, has the chemical knowledge, To teach us a course that we'll all need for college.

So it happens that now, near an hour a day, We sit in her class learning alpha decay.

Her lab coat is bleached to an Antarctic white, With livid green letters, it's certainly bright.

A warren of mole sculptures graces her desk, Some are quite lovely, yet most are grotesque.

Usually found in her chemical sink, Is an extra-large bottle of diet Coke drink.

The drawers found below hold many surprises, Including some gruesome yet awesome demises.

And over the walls, many posters are spread, With mottos like "Studying will get you ahead."

This adage comes true in a chemistry test, As those who work hard will always do best.

Occasionally we witness a cool demonstration, Prepared by Mrs. Roberts to evoke fascination.

One time we made a big pickle light up, We’ve also made gummy bears burn in a cup.

Mrs. Roberts is also a PowerPoint master; With the aid of her graphics, we learn chemistry faster.

Experiments aid in our learning of matter, Take notes or blow up stuff? I’d choose the latter.

And so it still happens that five days a week, I enter her classroom and become a geek. Homage to Mr. Smith (inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) By Will Kennedy

Mr. Stephen Smith is every student's hero. He's very laid back; he can divide by zero. His school attire is particularly neat. He looks quite professional from his head down to his feet. He thinks his new glasses make him look smarter, But we all know he ought to try a little harder To make us think he has unequaled intelligence, Especially since he speaks random phrases of non-sense. His class is never boring, it's always very fun. At the end of the period, you don't want to be done Learning equations and graphs and Star Wars facts Because we all dread his homework load; for it is never lax. His tests are rather hard, they're difficult to complete Because last year's test-taking luxuries are now obsolete. He teaches the material well, don't get me wrong, But sometimes the tests are just a mite too long. He makes us think that we can do it, When in reality it's an ordeal just to get through it. He always comes through, though, his system's just dandy. He gives as much extra credit as Ms. Roberts gives candy. Five points, ten points, maybe even more Is always offered to boost our sub-par score From that beast of a test I've mentioned before That we wish we could forget once we cross that door. He enjoys his job as a high school math professor, And when all is said and done, he is certainly not lesser Than any of the math teachers here at St. Xavier. Now that I think about it, he is the student's savior From a boring, monotonous day in St. X High School. I must say, Mr. Smith: you really are rather cool.

Creative Nonfiction

The Lover and the Liar By Ross Cunningham

This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m writing with Greg Bone. In the beginning of high school, both of us were confused and lost in the dark realm of understanding women. This excerpt from freshman year details our confusion and embarrassment as we strive to figure out that which even Freud could not fully understand.

ow…now I'm embarrassed.

W At the baseball game today, our team was up to bat. Tommy Grezkowiak and I were talking. He has this girlfriend named Tiffany. She's really really cute. Especially today. She's tan with dark brown hair, and today she was wearing this blue top with jeans.

I would do anything to have a girlfriend like that.

All the baseball team talks about is how their girlfriends are so hot and how they make out with them on weekends. That’s all they ever talk about. . .ever. I don’t even hang out with girls on weekends. Imagine what that’s like—every day of your life, you hear about that party and how fun it was when you’ve never even been invited to a party. So I get the joy of listening to the one missing part of my life and having the one thing I desire most dangled right in front of my face.

I still don’t understand how these guys meet girls if they go to an all-boys school. So I asked Tommy how he met Tiffany. He told me that they met at a mixer. I think mixers are stupid, but maybe I’ll have to start going to them if I want to meet girls.

Then I asked him how he asked her out. He told me that he didn’t want to talk about Tiffany anymore, because they had just broken up. He didn’t seem very sad though. Then he told me the strangest thing. He told me that Tiffany said that I was cute. Can you believe that?? Me! She thought I was cute.

"You should go ask her out," he insisted.

"Uh. . .okay. . .I will. Just. . .just give me a second."

I spent the next five minutes planning out what to say. I had actually added her on MySpace the other day, so I figured she would remember me.

Here is what I devised: I couldn’t just go up and ask her for her number, so first, I would start by saying my name and mentioning that I added her online. Then she would say that she remembered me. And then I would say that I was Tommy's friend and that he tells me that she's single. And she would say yes. And then I would say that we should hang out some time and ask her for her number. And then I would call her and ask her to be my girlfriend, and she would say yes. And then we would make out on weekends and live happily ever after.

Of course, the imagination tends to be a lot different than reality. And this was one of those cases. I was so nervous that my heart rate was up to 200. I know because I counted. But that didn't matter; I had enough guts to approach her. She was with three of her friends, too, but I was feeling particularly audacious today. I walked across the dugout to the other end. She and her friends were standing there, watching the game. She looked incredibly beautiful. It was one of those moments where you start to salivate and don’t even know it. With a drooling face and a queasy stomach, I opened my mouth.

Ross: Hi, Tiffany! Do you remember me?

Tiffany: No.

Ross: Oh. Well I added you on MySpace yesterday.

Tiffany: I still don’t remember you.

Ross: I’m Ross. (The other girls giggled.) So. . .Tommy tells me you’re single?

Tiffany: No. . .Tommy's my boyfriend. We've been dating for four months now.

At this point I realized that Tommy--along with the entire baseball team--was laughing at me.

I looked back at Tiffany, "Oh. . .that’s cool, Tiffany. See you later."

You know those moments you think you're in a dream, because you just can’t believe what's happening to you? This was definitely one of those moments. That feeling refused to abate for the rest of the day.

I leaned back against the fence and watched the game. I wouldn’t dare look at anyone else. Especially girls. I wanted to cry, I really did. I’d been rejected by Tiffany and ostracized by my teammates. I felt like a total fool. It was the worst feeling in the world. Now I’ll make sure that I never have to feel like that again.

Tomorrow I'm going to change.

Tomorrow I’m going to do something drastic.

Tomorrow I’m going to meet my future girlfriend.

I Don’t Want to Be Cameron By Greg Bone

This is an excerpt from the book-length memoir that Ross, my best friend, and I are writing to create a snapshot of our perceptions and feelings in high school.

’m still struggling with the whole picking-up-girls thing. I don’t feel bad about struggling because it’s supposed to take you three years to figure out the whole concept of pick up. I Sometimes, though, events in your life make you question yourself, your abilities, and your determination to do something.

Having someone who’s going through the same situation is comforting. As long as I know I’m not alone in my problems with girls, it’s easier to keep going until I solve it. That’s why when Ross is around, I’m not as lonely as before, and I don’t feel as cut off from the world.

Unfortunately, that’s not happening anymore.

Ross has left me for a girl.

He has a girlfriend named Alexis Wiley. She’s really attractive. I don’t like the fact that she’s attractive. I feel like a failure because I don’t have a hot girlfriend. . . or anyone for that matter.

I know that Ross just got lucky for the most part. It was a fluke that he ended up with a hot girlfriend this early in the game. He met her through his parent’s friends. Nobody meets their girlfriend through their parents, unless you were the son of a monarch back in the sixteenth century and your parents had arranged for you to marry her. Ross does have game, though, and that’s ultimately how he got her. I have to acknowledge that even though it’s really hard to do. Ross is sometimes just so. . .fortunate and I’m just. . .not.

So now I’m the odd man out around those two. I feel like a failure, and I shouldn’t. That’s the worst part, knowing you shouldn’t feel a certain way but you do anyways. I’m more a slave to emotions than I thought. No matter how logically I think things through, it seems like those emotions of failure keep rising up every time I look at Ross and Alexis kissing or holding hands.

It’s hard to be friends with someone who’s so much more . . . fortunate than you are. He always seems to get lucky. I’m not the kind of guy that everything goes right for. I’m not the guy whose parents introduce him to hot girls. I’m just so . . . unfortunate. It’s like Ross is Ferris Bueller and I’m Cameron.

I’m pretty much stalled. I can’t do anything because I don’t have a car or a license. I have to go wherever Ross goes. He’s the only one who’s going to drive me anywhere.

Then Ross talked about the Derby and how awful it had been. That made me kind of happy. I know I should feel bad that Ross had an awful time but if Ross isn’t happy with Alexis, then maybe I won’t feel like a failure.

I’m not going to be selfish though and get all jealous. I’ll just wait until I get my license or until I meet a new girl. Otherwise this drive to keep picking up girls is going to devour me from the inside out.

Last week, I saw this girl in a video store. She was hot, but I never approached her because I was so scared. When I got home, I ran to the bathroom and actually puked because I felt so bad about not approaching her because I had been conflicted with lust and fear. They had both battled inside me for those three minutes and thirty two seconds that I stood there like an idiot wishing I could talk to that girl. Having those two primal urges in conflict is like having both sides of your brain crashing against each other over and over again.

The only comfort I could give myself--the only thing that stopped the pain---was the thought of a second chance. I know I’m going to see many more girls.

I need to focus on that. Not on Ross and his girlfriend, not on what other people think, not on my own fear, but on what I need to do.

But. . .for the first time on this whole messed up journey, I’m alone.

When Time Stands Still By Anthony Flaherty

rom a cancer patient’s perspective, there is no feeling that the glass is a quarter full.

F

My glass is three-quarters empty.

Three quarters empty! I only have one quarter left!

Now I’m not normally an angry person, but I had this incredible urge to hurl the glass and watch it shatter.

So if you run across a cancer patient, never say there’s a bright side to life, and never use the glass analogy. You might get the glass thrown back at you.

To continue on the whole feeling of cancer, I’ll tell you about a child life therapist that once came to my room. His job was to make sure I wasn’t feeling ‘bad.’ That’s a hell of a feat for someone in my condition, but he tried—and failed.

He walked into the room and told me who he was and what his position was. I didn’t care because I was vomiting, but he persisted in talking and watching me gag. After I set the bucket down and cleaned up, he came over and put a piece of paper on the table. “Now on this sheet, I want you to write all the positive things about having cancer on one side and all the negatives on the other. After you’re done, we can work on changing those bad things into good ones!”

My God, the hospital hired an insane man to make me feel better. I played the game, though. I filled up the negative side, front and back, and left the positive column empty and gave it to him.

He asked, “Are you done?”

“Yes.”

“But there aren’t any positive things on the sheet yet.”

At that point I had had enough of that nonsense. After throwing up all day and being in the most excruciating pain one could ever imagine I let go. . .

“What do you think is positive about having cancer? If you can think of one thing, I’ll kiss your rear end at Fourth and Broadway and give you twenty minutes to draw a crowd. If you have colored pencils to have me draw how I feel, forget it. I feel like crap and I don’t want some masochist with a Ph. D. telling me that having cancer could have positives. Now get out!”

He was speechless. Thank God. He had finally shut up. My mother was a little frightened that I got this angry and ushered the therapist out, smiling artificially, as if I was going to yell at her. Finally, I had a chance for nap-time.

The next day, the therapist recommended IV versed (for anxiety) and Zoloft to make me better. Great. Another couple of pills. But what the hell, I’ll do it -- just as long as he doesn’t ever come back.

For three weeks, I watched television and ate next to nothing. I learned to avoid food; if I didn’t, I’d throw up. I was a fifty-five-pound nine-year-old who didn’t have the strength to move. All I wanted to do was sit there and watch the television. There was nothing better to do. I was dying. Then the doctor threw a whammy at me. Two options – eat something or get a feeding tube.

Well, I had a reality check that day. I was dying yet there were so many things that I wanted to do with my life. There were so many things I hadn’t done. There were so many people in my life who I loved dearly and couldn’t do without. My cancer had made time stand still – but time had to move on.

The rest of that month I learned to deal with taking twenty or more pills a day.

I dealt with taking chemo.

I dealt with the fact that there were days that I couldn’t move because of the pain.

I dealt with knowing that I would get sick to my stomach when I ate.

I dealt with cancer--one on one.

Escape from the Lunch Bunch

By Drew McClure

unch Bunch. These two words epitomize the most dreadful extracurricular activity I had ever indulged in. My intolerance for this awful after-school program increased as my L mother prolonged my enlistment into this monotonous, mind-numbing experience. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer. The day-by-day schedule was identical: recess, snack time, nap, leave. On top of that, the games we played were boring, the snacks tasted like cardboard, and we were violently forced to take interminable naps (in which half the time I was unable to even fall asleep). Why do this at school when I can do the exact same thing at home? I just couldn’t understand it. There had to be some solution to the dilemma of attending this ghastly activity every single day of my kindergarten year. But what could be done?

“Hey, Drew, how’s it going?” My best friend Tim held out his hand for a high-five as he pulled out the chair at our lunch table.

“Uh. . .I’m doin’ all right. But, I got a problem. . .”

Tim gave me a confused look. “What is it, Drew?”

“Well. . .you know Lunch Bunch? I can’t take it any longer. I don’t know why we have to do it. I just wanna go home and take a nap and watch Nickelodeon.” A fearful expression grew on Tim’s face as I continued. “We’re gonna run away. I have it all planned out.” I felt like a professional emissary with my ingenious escape plan. I had the blueprints sketched out in my naïve but creative mind, and I was ready to present them to Tim.

Tim gave me a scared look.

“C’mon, Tim. It’s easy. All we have to do is line up in the very back of the line just before naptime, run down the hallway and out the back door, down the street, and go to your house!” I was a criminal mastermind, carefully planning my escape from prison.

There is no one in the world who is more paranoid than Tim. He was so paranoid that he carried around a hand towel everywhere so that he could wipe the sweat he accumulated on his hands when he was nervous, so it took me forever to persuade him

He finally mumbled, “Well. . .uh. . .okay”. He then starting spitting out a bunch of “what ifs” and “buts.” I kindly ignored him and went on to explain the plan.

Friday, the big day.

From the moment I woke up, I was waiting anxiously for the big escape. It felt as if it would be the best day in my whole life. The day went by faster than ever. Tim and I stayed by each other’s side pretty much the whole day so that we could go over the blueprints I had scribbled out quickly on a piece of scrap paper. Soon there was only a minute left in school. I sat at my desk by Tim who was sweating like a dog while I sat shaking in anticipation of the big moment.

And finally, our call came. . .Ring! Ring! School was over.

I met Tim at his cubby immediately after class. He nervously glanced at me, sweat pouring off his face like a waterfall. I asked him if he was ready.

He replied with a diffident yes, but by the looks of it he didn’t seem ready at all.

We gradually made our way down to the puny cafeteria and sat down in the miniature red, metallic chairs. Our teacher, Ms. Jane, handed out the usual snacks: milk, juice, and Gold Fish. I pretended I was going to eat it but instead handed it off to the fat kid. I knew that would brighten up his day. We finally went outside for a little bit and played on the playground. This was the only time for any freedom in that hell-hole. Soon enough, after a mere ten minutes of fun time, Ms. Jane called for all of the kids to line up. “All right kids, it’s naptime!”

Tim and I placed ourselves at the back of the line which formed just inside the cafeteria doors. Finally Ms. Jane turned around, her back to the group.

“Now!” I whispered.

Tim and I took off, scampering through the hallway like mice in a maze. We made our way around the corners of the hallways. We were almost home free. We turned another corner. The old gym was right ahead of us. We made it through the gym in a flash and dashed out the back doors.

There stood the meanest teacher in all the school, Ms. Potts, getting ready to open the door to come inside. “Where do you two think you’re going?”

I stuttered nervously, “Um. . .um. . .we were just going to play outside with all of our classmates. They’re just behind us. You’ll see them when you go in.”

I was possibly one of the worst liars in the whole world. She peeked inside, and she didn’t see one person coming around the corner. A grouchy expression appeared on her face. She looked down upon us angrily, took us both by the ears, and began to yell into them. She walked Tim and me back to the lunch room.

The teachers notified our parents immediately to tell them what we had done. I knew that I was going to have a major time-out! But, on the bright side, Tim and I got kicked out of Lunch Bunch thanks to my ingenious ideas.

From that day on, Tim and I went down in Lunch Bunch history. To this day we are heroes to all of the oppressed, to all of the other little kids who hate Lunch Bunch. I am proud of that great day. . .the escape heard round the world. . .the day that Timothy Frank Hilliard and Drew Logan McClure defeated the system and got themselves kicked out of hell--or should I say Lunch Bunch.

from In Search of Adventure By Joseph Mattingly

Chapter 1: A Thousand Miles to Albuquerque

In this tongue-in-cheek memoir, the author recalls his journey-of-a-lifetime adventure to the Double H High Adventure Base in western New Mexico. The selection begins as the plane approaches the airport in Albuquerque.

round ten o’clock in the morning, local time, our plane began its approach to the Albuquerque International Airport. I looked out the window as we banked to the right A (after all, I was sitting on the right side) and noted a little green speck on the dusty, brown landscape.

“Hmm,” Mr. Hackneyed, who was sitting next to me, wondered aloud. “A golf course. What else could it be? The only thing out here that they would put that much water on is a golf course, undoubtedly.”

The plane leveled out and, a few minutes later, banked right again. This time, a giant structure that resembled a dusty, brown crop circle came into view.

“Hey, look,” Mr. Hackneyed said. “A crop circle! You know the first thing that comes to mind when I think about a crop circle in New Mexico?” I stared at him for a few seconds like he was out of his mind. “Weird Al. You know him?” Once again, I stared at him, this time, convinced he was a lunatic. “Yeah. Weird Al. A crop circle in New Mexico just seems out of place. Strange. Lunatic.”

I nodded my head in agreement. The crop circle was weird, but what he had just said was definitely weirder. Within minutes, we had landed and were pulling up to the gate. The airline attendant asked us to pull down the window shades so the airline could conserve the air conditioner. That was odd, but it did make a little bit of sense: after all, this was a desert region in the middle of the summer, but it was also just ten o’clock in the morning, and the same plane would be continuing on to Oakland next, probably in an hour or less.

The first thing I noticed when we got off the plane and walked into the terminal was the grunge that covered the floors and the pale pink and green walls. I had expected Albuquerque to be a glimmering, mystical sort of place, but already, the airport was failing my expectations. As always, though, first impressions weren’t always an accurate representation, and I’d later come to discover the true mystical enchantment of Albuquerque and New Mexico. When we got to the baggage claim area, I noticed a showcase filled with Indian artifacts. I was intrigued by the finely sculpted clay pottery and the antique turquoise jewelry. I was soon interrupted by a loud sputtering noise. I turned around and saw the baggage carousel hum to life as travelers’ luggage came rolling out onto the revolving baggage line. I pushed my way up to the front next to the carousel, ready to grab our group’s bags as they came out. When I spotted a bag that belonged to one of the twelve of us (which was not so difficult a task considering most of us had the same gray sports duffle bag, with the exception of Jamaal who had an Army surplus duffle and Brett who wrapped his pack in white bed sheets), I snatched it from the carousel and tossed it behind me to my dad, who put them all in a single stack. After we got all twelve bags, we made our way outside and sat down on a large stone bench.

In the meantime, we embarked on a journey around Albuquerque in search of an adventure to accent our trek that would begin the next day. After a long day on the city bus, it was time for dinner.

You never would have guessed it, but Applebee’s became an icon of our trip: whenever we were talking about food, Applebee’s was always thrown into the conversation. Like any growing boy, everyone was eager to go get food (although I’m not quite sure how this principle still applied to guys who had just eaten a bunch of nachos). Due to having twelve people in our party, one table just would not suffice: we usually took one large booth (where all we boys sat) and a small table a distance away (where the adults sat). Since everything would be paid with a joint crew fund, we were given a spending cap of fourteen dollars to get whatever we wanted in terms of drinks and food. That turned out very nicely when we found the growing boy’s dream come true: a three-course meal for under fifteen dollars. For one sweet price, we could each get an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert (albeit small, but still a dessert!). The food was abundant. I indulged a meal of chicken wings, chicken pasta alfredo, and Key Lime pie in a cup, but in the end, I was stuffed. It had been delicious. We agreed that we would have to come back in a week and have a last supper in New Mexico (this was our “Last Supper” before embarking on our “perilous trip”).

*All names in this selection are fictional.

Short Stories

The Longest Day By Tad Timberlake and Rudy Recktenwald

blustery day loomed over the heads of the anxious children. They looked back and forth with looks of desperation from the windows to the clock. They silently pleaded with this A circular master of time. They eyed the date, October 27, 2009.

“Just one more day until Fall Break.”

“I can already feel the cool air.”

“I can hear the leaves crunching under my feet.”

“No homework!”

The clock neare the time—only a few minutes remaining.

“C’mon clock!”

Eyes widened, and then…nothing.

“What happened? Where’s the bell?”

“Oops!” said the teacher. “I forgot to set my clock back one hour.”

The Silence By Adam Thomasson

ords couldn’t describe how he felt as he watched his whole life end. The two hours he was in the hospital with his wife made the longest day of his life. He tried his best to W hold it together but he couldn’t get his eyes off of her lifeless body. The silence crushed his heart.

He tried not to weep as her casket was buried six feet beneath where he stood. All she had left behind was a little baby girl for him to care for, and all he had left for her was a bouquet of flowers with a note by her grave.

After his wife died, he dedicated every moment of his life to being a good parent. He had to love his daughter enough for both of them, and he knew it was going to be tough for a girl to grow up without a mother, but he was determined to make the best of it. She deserved a good childhood, just like every other child.

He always supported her. He went to every softball game, every father-daughter dance, and spent as much time with her as he possibly could. They were a team.

One night, when his daughter was 17, she asked, “Dad, I want to go on a date next week. Matt’s in my class at school. You’d like him.”

“I have to meet the boy first.”

The girl invited the boy over for dinner. He wore a dress shirt and jeans. He was very clean cut and tall.

He interviewed the boy to make sure he could be comfortable with letting his daughter go out with him. He learned that the boy was a junior in high school, grew up outside the city, and played on the school’s baseball team. The boy was well-mannered and kind. He respected the boy’s maturity and allowed them to go skating. The skating rink was only 30 minutes away. They said they would be back in two hours.

It was hard for him to trust his daughter’s safety in another’s hands, but he had to believe that he taught her well, since she knew the hazards of drinking and smoking. She was also educated her about sex and all the dangers that go along with it.

Being alone in the house was a rare thing for him on a Friday night. He usually did something with his daughter like play a board game. He decided to go see a movie by himself. Walking to the theatre, he couldn’t believe how light it was outside for this time at night. When he arrived at the movies, he noticed all of the couples standing in line. Remembering the times he and his wife used to go to the movies, he walked up to the ticket booth. The movie he chose was about a couple who adopts a sick girl and watches her grow up. It showed all of the caring that goes along in parenting as well as the love in a marriage. Connected to the movie, he smiled as he thought about his daughter. She was grown up in his eyes.

After the movie was over, he walked the long way home. He was in a good mood because he felt that his daughter was safe, that he was handling her first date pretty well and it was still bright outside for considering how late it was.

During his walk he admired all of the trees and the street lights. He enjoyed the soothing breeze that flew around him as he kept his eyes on the stars. After walking through the park, he heard a thundering sound.

He took a step back onto the sidewalk because a car was speeding recklessly. The car didn’t look like it was going to stop at the stop light. There was another car crossing the street, and it looked like they were going to crash.

As the reckless car flew through the light and into the other car, he saw his daughter’s face. The reckless car rammed into the car carrying his daughter. Her car rolled over it without any sign of stopping. He heard her scream.

As the car flipped over and crashed into a tree, his daughter’s screams begin to end. Her car was slammed into a tree, crushed into half of its original size.

The man ran towards the car. He saw his daughter. She was crushed beneath the car’s weight with her arm hanging out the window. He also saw the boy crushed into the dashboard next to a beer bottle. They had both been killed on impact. The man grabbed his daughter’s bloody cut- up hand and held it against his face.

The police showed up quickly with an ambulance, but there were no survivors. The man refused to let go of his daughter’s hand until she was placed into an ambulance and taken away. He stood next to the crushed car as he watched the ambulance vanish into the night.

He repeatedly relives the crash in his mind. Every time the car crashes in his head, it is just as awful as the first. He freezes up when he recognizes her face through the windshield and the smell of alcohol. The worst part is when her cries end.

The silence crushes his heart.

Jim’s Party By Rudy Recktenwald riday April 13th, 2:15AM

I don’t know what to do. I was driving home from Jim’s party. It was foggy outside F tonight and I was driving on a dark narrow road without my bright headlights on. But that doesn’t mean it was my fault! He was wearing dark clothing! I couldn’t have avoided him if I tried. I know I shouldn’t have left him there, but I was scared. I can’t go to jail. I’m only 18. I have a scholarship to Harvard; I’m not a bad person. He’s probably dead by now anyway, and no one saw it happen. But what if he isn’t dead? What if he makes it to a police station and gives them a description of my car? Okay, calm down. There’s no way I’m going to get caught for this. It’s over.

Saturday April 14th, Noon It was on the news this morning. He’s dead. I don’t think I’m going to get caught.

Sunday April 15th, 5:30 AM I keep having these horrible nightmares. I see his face. He’s haunting me. I see a widow and her two small children crying. They keep asking me why I did it. They tell me that he would’ve lived had I not left him there. I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.

Sunday April 15th, 2 PM I know his name now. It was on the news. John Engelmann. One of his children, Sarah Engelmann, is in my senior class. I’ve known her since freshman year. How will I ever be able to face her? The police say that they found chips of paint on and around his body. What if they match it to my car?

Monday April 16th, 3:30 PM She wasn’t at school today. Honestly, I was relieved to not see her. They made visitation announcements over the PA. Should I go? We’ve never been best friends, but we’ve hung out outside of school plenty of times. She sees me in lunch every day and will ask me why I didn’t go. I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should tell someone. No, if I tell someone I’ll never go to college. I’ll never have a life. But now he doesn’t either.

Tuesday April 17th, after school My friends are all going to the funeral home today. If I don’t go, it will look terrible. I’m getting ready now. Wish me luck.

Tuesday April 17th, later That was awful. Sarah’s mother never stopped crying. Everyone was angry at the person who killed him. They were angry at me. Sarah and her little sister sat sadly in a corner of the room. When we went to talk to her, she just said quietly, “Thanks for coming, guys.” She wouldn’t respond to anything else we said. She just sat there staring.

Wednesday April 18th, I don’t know what time it is. . . I haven’t slept Today at lunch Sarah’s best friend wouldn’t stop talking about how angry she was at whoever killed Sarah’s father. She saw on the news that the police were having a hard time tracking the car and the killer might get away. She kept talking about the horrible things she would do the person if she were to find him. She kept talking about what a good guy Mr. Engelmann was.

Later. . . Still not sleeping; I don’t want to see their faces.

The next day… Sarah seemed back to normal today. I guess I look terrible because she kept asking me if I was all right. I lied to her. I don’t know how much longer I can go on lying to her. Should I tell someone? Should I leave? I can’t live like this. I can’t go four more months. I don’t even think going away to college will help me anymore.

Earlier my dad asked me about the dents on my car. I told him I hit a deer. I don’t think he believed me. What if he knows? What if he’s told my mom already? What if he’s calling the police right now? Has he told Mrs. Engelmann yet? That means Sarah knows!

At school today. . . At lunch, Sarah asked me what I was gonna do this weekend. I told her I didn’t know. Then she asked what I did last weekend! She has to know! Why hasn’t she called the cops yet? She’s trying to get me to confess! I told the nurse I was sick. She’s letting me leave. I’m in my car right now in the parking lot. I need to get home as fast as I can. I’m freaking out, I need to think.

Newspaper Clipping, Saturday April 21st The narrow Highway 15 has claimed two lives this week. Last Friday, 43-year old John Engelmann was struck by a car and killed in a hit and run incident. And now yesterday, one week after Engelmann’s death, a young man whose name has not been disclosed was found dead in his wrecked car near where Engelmann died. Police say the young man was probably speeding and lost control of the vehicle on the curvy road. Police are still searching for suspects in the Engelmann case.

More Stories with Identical Dialogue

The February edition included several stories in which writers were challenged to write very different stories using identical dialogue. Here are a few more of them.

The Red Dress By Michael Moore

he stood in the doorway, her figure illuminated by the sun shining through the curtains. Her red dress shifted slightly at her thighs, blown by the wind from the open window. The S wind blew her hair, her blonde locks. It flowed from her shoulders, so alive, moving in the natural rhythm of life. Her red lips were only outdone by the deep blueness of her eyes. Her eyes were so alive, they pierced his soul. But he had seen the ugliness underneath. He glanced at her through the corner of his eye, pretending not to see her. He continued cleaning his gun. He was frightened, not of her, but of what she stood for. She was a thorn in his head, driving further and further into the crevasses of his mind; he was obsessed, a man in love who was being driven mad by the mere sight of her. The glow of her eyes taunted him, as if the blue swirls were swallowing him whole, spinning and dragging him in, drowning him in emotion.

He knew she saw it--its gleaming surface seemed to reach out to her. It was a perplexing partnership—a man and his weapons. They protected lives, and they destroyed them. The man loved the woman, and the man loved his weapon. He kept his eyes off her and glued to the gun. Its gloss-finished handle was smooth to his touch, and its beautiful polished finish reflected the red dress of the woman. He watched her in the reflection as she moved towards him. She moved ever closer, gracefully and slowly, placing her hands on his shoulders. He felt the warmth of her palms through his shirt; it traveled down his spine, causing him to shudder.

He flinched away from her touch, never breaking eye contact with his weapon. Yet he needed to know the truth. “Why are you doing this?”

She said nothing at first. Finally she said, “It’s the best thing.”

His callused hands stroked his volatile companion that lay in his lap. He couldn’t bear to be around her anymore, yet he was still in love with her. . .her memory at least. The pain of her was too much for him to bear, but she kept returning to him. She would come to him not only at night in his dreams but also in his awakened mind day after day. He heard her gentle voice calling for him softly during the night, seducing him to join her. She whispered in his ear when all was quiet; she cried for him, begging to be joined. He felt her hot breath tickle his ear when she spoke. At times he would oblige and follow the hum of her gentle voice; it enticed him closer and closer. It always ended in the same way, however. He would find himself standing in front of his weapon, reunited with it again. He realized what she was telling him, but he didn’t want to listen--he wasn’t ready. He wanted to be together again, but at what cost?

She did not exist--that he knew. He was sure of it. But if that was true, why did the touch of her nonexistent hands still send shivers down his spine? It had been so long, those two years since she had left him.

Tears began to spill down his cheek, and a petite hand with lively red nails wiped them away. She held him close, yet he refused to face her or to even look into her blue eyes.

He felt her breath on the back of his neck, a slow breathing, warming and cooling, warming and cooling. He clicked open the gun’s chamber, spun it, and counted the bullets-- five of them. Each of them golden and beautiful, yet they stood for pain and sorrow. The sixth chamber was empty…the sixth chamber was empty.

He felt her arm slide down his shoulders and then down his arm, softly and gently. Her hands moved from his wrists to his weapon. He spun the gun’s chamber, shut it, and cocked the gun. As she leaned over him, he could feel her hair brushing against him. She then gripped the polished handle and brought it up, his hand still attached to it. Sweat poured from his face, his temples pounded, sending the reverberations of his heart straight to his ears, louder and louder. The swea slipped into his eyes, stinging them and bringing forth more tears. The woman still gripped the gun, moving it up slowly, pointing it at him, at his head, his hand on the trigger. He felt her soft hands move onto his, and a pressure on his finger on the trigger.

“You can’t mean it,” he whimpered.

Her fingers wrapped around him tighter, urging him to pull the trigger. The feeling of her almost drove him to it. He was in love.

“Want me to do this instead?” She slowly peeled his sweating hands away from the handle of the gun. He knew what she was about to do. The woman brought up the shining gun to her own temple. The man trembled as the painful memories seeped back into his mind, filling him with brutal visualizations of their shared past. All the things that happened between them rushed in front of his eyes…all the things.

He remembered when they had met. When he had seen her through the window of the café, sitting there sipping at her coffee. She had looked up, and their eyes had locked onto each other’s. Her beautiful blues held him, he couldn’t look away; he had been caught, his life changed forever. He remembered their wedding night. He had taken her far away where they could be alone. They had lain together at the beach, listening to the sparkling green waves crashing onto the sandy shore, wetting their feet. He remembered how much they had loved each other, and how quickly his feelings had changed. Things had gotten rough for them. Their relationship began to fall apart as had the woman’s pregnancy. They had been torn apart; they had blamed one another for problems neither of them could explain. He had turned bitter. He hadstarted resenting her and hitting her, and she had begun to hate him. The house they built had been brought to shambles under the weight of their guilt and hatred. They were both to blame for this.

He remembered how one night he had heard her crying down in the kitchen, and how he had felt as if his heart had begun to fail, his blood thickening, drowning him in his own filth, filling his lungs with toxic love. To him, she stood for the thing he had lost. She was the reason he was unhappy; it was more than he could bear. He had loved her, yes, but he could bear her no more.

He had sorrowfully walked over to his peeling wooden dresser and slid open the drawer. Inside, there was a loaded pistol. It had shined even in the darkness, as if calling out that it was the answer. His gun. . .his companion. . .his weapon. He had slid open the chamber and peered down at the six golden beauties waiting to be fired. He had crept down the stairs, intent on ending his problems, but what he did only made his life truly and deeply a living hell.

After he had killed the woman, she haunted him always and forever, never leaving the back of his mind. He cast the gun away, five bullets in the chamber. . .the sixth chamber was empty.

She smiled her red lips at him; they truly were vibrant. They were the shade of red that one would only see in the deepest pits of hell. . .which was where the man felt that he was. He looked up at her smiling face.

“Stop that,” he whimpered. His eyes begged her; they pleaded with her for her to leave him forever, never to return.

“Why?” she whispered in his ear, tickling the hair on the back of his neck.

Her voice teased him; it rattled his nerves all the way down to his boney frame, leaving him shaken. She had power over him, of course; after all, she was a woman.

He wiped the sweat from his brow again as she stared at him with her unblinking eyes, her dead eyes, her beautiful blue eyes. She backed away slowly, stroking him as she pulled away. Her hands slid down his arms leaving behind the feeling of death. It was cold, unpleasant. She backed farther. The red dress now seemed to be a drape of fire encircling her pale dead body, burning at the flesh of which he had one loved. Her lips were now bloody and her eyes, her beautiful eyes, turned to ash. She watched him from the shadows as he asked slowly, “How would you like me to do this?”

He pulled his the gun to his head, finally free from her arm. There was only one way out. He clenched his eyes as hard as he could, strained so that all the blood rushed to his head making him dizzy. The final moments of his life seemed to spin; the life he wanted never happened; the wife he loved perished in flames; the child he made, never born--enough-- his heart then stopped and time slowed down to a pulse, as his finger pressed the tempting trigger.

Click.

The sixth chamber. . .empty. Was it never going to end?

Her eyes closed, her lips faded and the flames of her dress were doused. “I’m leaving. Good bye.”

He had breathed the air of a dead man, walked on the edges of Hell with the devil’s daughter and had lived. He had danced with the ghosts in the pale moonlight, sung to the bones of the graveyard’s people, and survived. Laughing he pointed the gun back at his head and repeatedly pulled the trigger. Click after click of the gun drove him mad. It was a rod driven further and further into his heart stretching his soul, and tearing his sanity. This was his darkest hour, being devoured by pain. She was an unstoppable force. . .he was an immovable object, and together, they were no more.

He put the polished gun in his lap and opened it. The sixth chamber was empty, and it was all his fault.

Falling By Jared Allard

he morning after the arrest was the hardest for John.

T He knew he had not committed the crime, but the police didn’t believe him. John hadn’t even known the man who was murdered. In the cold, damp cell, the only comforting thing he had was the picture of his wife, which he carried everywhere. He had barely convinced the police to let him have that. Just then, a policeman came to his cell and told him he had a visitor. It was his wife, Nichole. Her blonde hair cascaded down to her back and her light blue eyes shown brilliantly. He longed to be with her. She gave him her warm smile, like nothing was wrong. They sat down to talk. He knew he was innocent and she believed him, but even her warm smile could not keep him from telling her his plan to confess to the crime. If he confessed now, there would be chance for parole. He was only doing it for her. He did not want to be away from her. If he was convicted, he would be put to death, and he could not let her watch him die.

“Why are you doing this?” Tears began to fill her eyes.

He could no longer look at her. The embarrassment of lying heated his body.

“It’s the best thing.” John whispered softly. He was only doing it for her. She knew he was innocent, but he hoped she would understand. It was hard for him to hurt her. Watching her cry only made the heat of his embarrassment worse. He wanted to hold her, but they were separated by a long table.

“You can’t mean it,” she whispered, tears streaming down her beautiful face.

For a long time he stared into her eyes, wishing he could tell her he was innocent. But, if he told her that he was confessing for her, he knew she would blame herself for his decision. And he could never hurt her. The brilliant blue of her eyes reminded John of the time he and Nichole went out on a row boat on the pond in their hometown.

The pond had shone brilliantly that warm, summer morning. It was not very deep, but Nichole had wanted to go out on it. John didn’t want to rent a row boat; he wanted a nice picnic, just the two of them. But, he reluctantly went and rented a small row boat, put it in the water, and started rowing. Right as they got about half way across the lake, Nichole asked him if he really wanted to do this, talking about the boat ride. Of course John told her he did, but she knew he didn’t. She kept telling him to turn the boat around and go back to shore, but John kept saying it was okay and that he wanted to keep going. The tension between them kept rising until, eventually, they began fighting. Nichole said something then John said something. Finally, Nichole said that if he didn’t turn the boat around, she would jump out of the boat and swim to shore. This blew it for John.

“You want me to do this instead?” John shouted as he began to violently rock the boat.

“Stop that!” Nicole screamed back. But it was too late. Nichole had already lost her balance, and had fallen into the pond. He remembered how he had jumped in after her. The water in the pond was warm. Nichole immediately dunked him back underwater as soon as he came up. When he resurfaced, John could hear Nichole laughing and after a minute he started laughing too.

“Why?”John whispered, barely audible. He wished he was at the pond, laughing with Nichole. He looked up at Nichole and saw she was digging in her purse. He noticed she was no longer crying. She stopped digging for a few seconds, looked up at him, and then slid a small piece of paper across the table to him. It was small, black and white, blurry photograph. At first, John was unsure what the picture was of. Then he knew.

“How would you like me to do this?” Nicole thrust the picture at him. The picture was an ultrasound. Nichole was pregnant. John could barely move. The shock of him going to be a father kept him paralyzed.

Thoughts raced through his head. At that moment, a police officer came into the room and motioned for John to come with him. Nicole stared at John then the officer. John begged the officer for just a little more time with his wife, but the officer said he needed to take John to court now. John wanted to be with Nichole more than ever, but it would have to wait. If he confessed, there would be a chance for parole. He would be with her soon.

He left her alone, with his last words—

“I’m leaving. Good bye.”

John left for the courtroom with thoughts of the future. He was going to be a father. But, Nichole had failed to mention that the baby wasn’t his. The baby’s real father was now dead. Nichole had made sure of that. John could never hurt Nichole, but she could let him take her fall.

The Caddy and the Golfer By Rory Hopkins

ory Patterson reached for his 7-iron.His diminutive caddy, James Bruce, refused to give it to him. Instead he thrust the 3-wood toward him. C Cory frowned; he wholeheartedly disagreed with his caddy. However, he was not only proud of his championship-caliber ability but also his open-mindedness. He decided to see if his caddy had a good reason for refusing the club. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s the best thing,” James said in his thick, Irish accent.

Cory, though angry with his caddy, had to suppress a grin. “You can’t mean it.”

“Ah, want me to do that instead?” James indicated breaking his 7-iron in half so that Cory would be forced to use James’ club of choice.

Cory had no trouble in concealing a grin at this statement. He felt angry and had every reason to be. That club cost over $200. “Stop that!”

James grinned at him. “Why?”

Cory waited a while before answering. Finally, he had an idea. “How would you like me to do this?” Cory got out a black pen and began drawing a fake mustache on James’ face.

James wriggled away and threw his bag on the ground. “I’m leaving. Good bye.”

With that, James stomped away from the grounds and into the trees, fuming the whole way.

Cory watched him for a while, and kept on looking intently at the spot where James disappeared amongst the trees. After about 15 minutes, James reappeared, coming back toward the greens with a slightly humble look on his face. He stopped right in front of Cory.

James had just opened his mouth when Cory held up his left hand to stop him. Without a word, Cory handed over the caddy’s bag, which James accepted. Suddenly, Cory smiled, and held out his hand. James looked at it a moment, then grasped it. Suddenly James yelped in pain. He released his grip quickly and looked at Cory’s palm. He saw… a joy buzzer.

James‘s face was emotionless for a moment, but then he started to laugh. Cory started to laugh with him. They understood each other perfectly. The tense moments were over.

Novel excerpts

The following selections are excerpts from novels in progress.

Red-Dressed Corpse By Michael Moore

This is an excerpt from my novella “Red Dressed Corpse,” which follows an aging detective who tries to prove his worth to society, which has rejected him, by catching his city’s most infamous murderer. Haunted by thoughts of suicide and rejection, Detective Hotland struggles to find his way back into humanity. His drive to catch the killer becomes all the more real when he realizes his own daughter is the murderer’s next victim.

This particular excerpt is the prologue of my novella, which begins near the end, then moves back two weeks to fill in the missing parts of the story. It captures the growing desperation of the protagonist, Detective Hotland, as he tries to find the murderer to save his daughter and to end the killer’s brutal grip on the city as well as to prove his worth to the world.

Igh-towered skyscrapers of the city gleamed in the pale moonlight, shimmering as the rain wetted their lips. Steam rose from the street vents that littered the city, sending up H supernatural puffs of white billowing through the streets. The city reeked of the toxic sludge from the depth of her womb. The boulevards ran with the constant splatter of the raging downpour. The trash-filled storm drains scabbed over, drowning the souls of the whores and homeless that ruled the night. The dim city lights made the stars invisible, driving the pure darkness away. The park trees shuddered with the slow-moving wind. All was quiet. The city slept, yet one man did not.

“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.”

Detective Hotland’s gruff voice echoed in the confessional. The trench-coated Detective sat on one side of the curtain, the cloaked priest on the other, faces hidden from each other. The old confession room sat hidden, behind the altar, shielded from the open sanctuary. Birds fluttered about in the rafters above, shifting around in their nests while feeding their young. The pale moon cast faint shadows through the tall stained-glass windows that littered the cathedral, lightly illuminating the path to the altar.

Detective Hotland made the peeling old wooden chair moan under his weight. He sported many dirty bandages covering his wrecked face, and charred clothes draped his scruffy and bruised body. Dried blood had decorated his busted face and torn garments. The old detective smelled of death and misery. He had traveled to hell and back.

The detective flipped out his Zippo and lit his cigar that he had been chewing on. The smoke flowed into his lungs, flooding them, and he blew the smoke towards the priest, a white cloud. He wanted answers. He would do anything for these answers.

“Father, I’ve never really believed in God or miracles, but right now, I sure as hell could use one. I’m looking for a man, I think you know him.” Detective Hotland swung the Zippo shut and blew out another small puff of smoke.

The priest took a moment to respond taking in a deep breath of the bitter sanctuary air, as if he were asking God himself for the answer. “Detective, miracles are not just something you can bring about; they are not things to simply to be wished for. They are a true gift from God to someone in need because sometimes men need them…sometimes men deserve to have their faith rewarded.”

“Thanks for your help, but I’m not joking around. I need information.” The detective looked up at the priest with sad eyes. It was his darkest hour; he was a broken man. He hadn’t much time left to do what he had to do; he was in a clear moment of desperation. He sighed when he didn’t hear the answers he had been searching for, the answers he had been risking his life for— willing to die for. The detective grew annoyed at the priest’s lack of cooperation.

“You can’t bring about a miracle by your own will, detective, you know that, but I do not believe a miracle is what you are looking for, is it?” the priest asked, already knowing the answer. “You want justice; but know this: God is the only one to judge the living and the dead, detective, not you. The man you are looking for: you won’t find him. He does the work of God.”

“And is that supposed to scare me?” The detective edged closer to the priest, blowing another puff of white smoke into the priest’s face.

“It should.”

Without hesitation Detective Hotland grabbed the priest and lifted him off the ground with all his force, slamming the cleric against the stained glassed window, sending cracks spreading from top to bottom of the huge pane. The priest panted in terror, and the detective spit out his cigar onto the cold floor of the church. It rolled to the base of the altar, igniting a small flame on the velvet altar cloth it lay on. The dying detective used all his might to hold the small cleric against his will, pinned against the stained glass of the window, but the detective was growing tired. He had lost a lot of blood. . .so much blood and so much suffering had already been endured.

“I ain’t afraid of anything—no god, no man, no beast can stop me from finding this sick bastard, and killing him, dead! I have lost everything, Father, and now I have nothing to left—nothing to lose! This man will be judged by me…he will die by my hands. . .I will deliver justice… and no one will stand in my way, not even you, Father!” he screamed.

The priest was powerless against the man who was twice his size.

“Where can I find him?” the detective demanded.

“You’re trying to find someone God wants to remain hidden. You will not find him, you cannot find him, and I. . .I am not going to help you work against Our Lord and Savior.”

“All I need is a name, or a place, or anything for God’s sake.” The cleric’s undying silence angered detective. He pushed the cleric against the cracking glass even harder out of pure anger and desperation.

The pieces of shattered window began to cut into the priest’s back; blood began to soak the white robes of the holy man. He spoke in a voice clouded by the sting of the barbs cutting his back. “Do you think I’m going to give in to some retired detective? I’m a priest, not an informant, and you, you are working against God. Don’t think he’s not watching, detective. Every sin you commit is another brick you place on your staircase to hell!”

“Why are you protecting this murderer?”

“Because it is God’s will,” the priest shouted. His voice echoed throughout the cathedral, causing the nesting birds to take flight.

The large man pushed even harder. “To hell with God’s will!”

“I will not tell you where he is; I never will, detective. It is not you who shall judge him.”

“I’m not afraid to end your life right here, Father.”

“Not afraid? Not even when you know you’re going to spend eternity in hell, suffering and drowning in desolation and grief?”

The detective glared at the priest, “I’m already there, Father! Pain, it’s what I feel as soon as I open my eyes and see that I’m still alive! The world, this world has to come to disown me, and so I have disowned the world, leaving her bruised, beaten, and poisoned by the very vermin of her womb!”

The priest began his last prayer. “Our Father--”

“This world…this nation, it’s all a joke, just a sick punch line, dropped at the slightest bit of terror.”

“--who art in Heaven--”

“The American way of life is nothing, just another cruel fact of life, another corrupt speck in the ocean of fire,” the detective growled.

“--hallowed be thy name--”

“You might as well burn the Star Spangled Banner—it means nothing.”

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done--”

“This country’s already been scorched to ashes by the corrupt and evil men who occupy it. . .men like you, who protect murderers and steal money from the church, men like you, who take children away from their parents, men like you who deserve to die!”

“--on earth as it is in Heaven--”

“And you know what else, Father, the misery and the pain of this—this place, they’ve already brought us into hell.”

“Give us this day, our daily bread--”

“Burn the flag, father; it means nothing. We’re already roasting in hell, and we don’t even know it--”

“--and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. . .but deliver us from. . .evil--”

“Deliver us from evil, Father? How is that possible when the leaders of the Church are as evil and corrupt as the leaders of our nation? God help us all!”

“Go to hell, you monster,” the priest snarled, struggling against Hotland once more.

“After you.”

And with that, the detective lifted the small cleric over his head, struggling to keep his balance. With all his might, he threw the small terrible man against the stained glass of the windows. The priest flew through the beautiful cracked window as if it weren’t there and then down. . .down. . .down to his death.

The Detective, still hazy from all the lost blood, sank to the cold floor of the sanctuary and let out a large breath of despair.

“Almost there. . .almost—“ he slipped from consciousness.

Violent golden flames rose around him as he lay unconscious on the bitterly cold marble floor of the cathedral, so close to retribution, yet so far from salvation.

from Discovery of a Madman By Sam Dicken

gent Glamorous Giant paced back and forth in the lobby of the United States Compromising Documents and Technologies Protection Agency (USCDTPA) office. She A stood five feet, six inches tall with black hair neatly tied up in a little bun on the back of her head. She wore business attire: a navy dress coat, stockings, high heels, and thin-rimmed glasses. Her eyes focused on the worn carpet beneath her feet. The grime had worked its way into the fibers of the rug, and the carpet was mashed down, as if someone had paced pensively or worriedly on a regular basis. Her husband, Mr. Tounger, who was in charge at the USCDTPA, had left a little over a day and a half ago for the Philippines to attend an international security forum concerning aggressive technologies being pursued by several other countries.

Gigi--as her co-workers called her because of the first two letters of her codename--had reservations. Trouble seemed to follow her husband, which is why she preferred it when he remained at the office. Since assistants proved difficult to keep for any length of time, the task of traveling to pick up records or other errands usually fell to either her or her husband. She recalled his grunts from two days ago that had awakened her out of a slight trance.

“Gigi! I told you hours ago that I needed passports and IDs for my trip tomorrow, but I don’t see anything!”

“I’m sorry, dear, I must have—“

“You must have ruined my day again! It’s too late now; I’ll just get them myself. I can’t even rely on my wife to give me a little help.”

With that, he had sat down at a computer terminal. In a few minutes’ time, the printer had run off a few high-quality documents, and Mr. Tounger had finished his last-minute preparations. Without even giving Gigi a proper goodbye, he had left the office and driven to the airport, where a plane had been waiting to whisk him off to the Philippines.

Gigi stopped her pacing and sat down in a worn-out black swivel chair. Lights were flashing on electronic devices, and papers lying in trays awaited her. She checked the messages on her cell phone. She looked at the phone numbers registered under her cell phone’s caller identification system, but she didn’t recognize the one that had left two voicemail messages. She hastily pressed the speed dial button to contact her caller ID, hoping for some information related to the recent events.

“Two new messages. Message one from phone number 006354212169834. Received at 2:35pm Tuesday: Gigi, I’m afraid that I won’t be home for a few more days than was originally expected. We’ve. . .uh. . . how should I put it? Hit a snag, yes; hit a snag. . .with some of the East Asian delegates. I’m going to keep working until we can get an agreement hammered out.”

“Message two from phone number 006354212169834. Received at 6:12am Thursday: Gigi, the weather here is looking fiercely devilish. I heard some villagers screaming typhoon. (Pause) Can you hear that wind? The airport will be shut down for quite awhile, so I think I’ll just stay here indefinitely.”

Gigi tried to return his call. It rang twenty-two times before it switched over to a busy signal for five seconds. Then the line went dead completely. Desperate, she called the operator.

“Operator speaking, how may I help you?”

“Yes, Operator, my husband has left the States on a business trip, and I’d like to contact him. I have his number and have tried to call him myself, but I must be doing something wrong because it’s not working.”

“All right. What’s the number?”

Gigi related the number.

“A few moments, please, ma’am.”

Gigi waited with bated breath.

“I’m afraid that I cannot reach him either, ma’am. That’s all that I can do for you. Have a nice day.”

He hung up before Gigi could ask him to try again. Resigned, Gigi turned back to the resources she had at hand.

Two papers lying in the printer tray concerned monetary funds. She skimmed over these before moving on to the other three papers in the tray, which all seemed to be the same. Three different, anonymous sources had sent her news articles. She read each of them in detail, her eyes widening in consternation over distressing bits. She looked at the titles which read

U.S. SECRET AGENCY CHAIR FLEES TO THE PHILIPPINES

Gigi was aware that he had left the country, but she wouldn’t consider it “fleeing” the country. No, surely this was just hearsay.

U.S. SECRET AGENCY CHAIR SLAUGHTERED IN THE PHILIPPINES

Her eyes were about to move on to the next headline when her mind recognized the meaning of the words. She did a double take and reread the title. Her thoughts raced over the idea of her husband being dead. She couldn’t (and didn’t want to) face that scenario. Grudgingly, she forced herself to read on to the final headline.

U.S. SECRET AGENCY CHAIR CAPTURED IN THE PHILIPPINES

Gigi sat back in her chair, dumbfounded. She breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that if he had been captured, then he was at least alive. Glancing back at the two original sheets, still in the printer tray, she saw that he had accessed the institution’s bank account:

ONLINE BANKING NOTIFICATION BANK STATEMENT FOR THE WEEK OF 08/01 – 08/08

[08/02] TRANSFER #1 – from acct # XXXX-X21 to acct # XXXX-X44 $2,500,000.00

[08/03] TRANSFER #2 – from acct # XXXX-X21 to acct # XXXX-X44 $500,000.00

Remaining balance: $1.52

Thank you for doing business with Seventh-Day Banking Plus. If there are any questions about the statement concerning the transfer of funds from ‘United States Compromising Documents and Technologies Protection Agency’ to ‘Mr. Mark Tounger’, please contact any of our member branches.

Gigi put her head down in exasperation. She needed those funds. The building’s operating costs and leasing fees were due at the end of the month. The facilities were in need of their five-year upgrades soon. She sighed. She would have to petition the government for reimbursement and wait as the government took their precious time before agreeing to lend her the money. She had a feeling that her story about her husband taking the money and running would not go over well with the Treasury Department.

Feeling helpless, she decided to check the weather on the internet. Suddenly she realized that she had no idea where in the Philippines her husband had gone. She had to settle for the national weather map. But even that befuddled her: no indications existed of any severe weather, no storms, not even the slightest bit of wind. Gigi resolved that she could no longer believe her husband himself nor could she believe any reports about her husband. She would have to find out for herself.

From The Legend of Arathin and Negg By James Knoer

e was tense and he couldn’t figure out why. He’d been in countless battles over the centuries but he always felt as tense as if it were his first. . .well, not his first. He could H barely remember, even with his almost perfect memory, back to a time when he was eager for the oncoming slaughter. He could, however, remember perfectly why that feeling for battle abruptly ended, and he shuttered at the memory and then remembered why he tried not to remember that time.

Barely out of range of the Westmen’s siege defenses, the army stopped. The drums silenced themselves, the siege weapons moved to the front until they stopped as well, and the entire world seemed to fall into a deathly silence. Not a single speck dare make the first move. The world took a deep breath as the armies prepared for the test that would decide a great fate. Either the enemy would fail entirely, or one of the world’s greatest nations would fall to darkness and terror.

Suddenly the defenders’ lines rang out in cheers and shouts, both taunting and encouraging. The great flags were waving ferociously on the walls as the cheers echoed out onto the plains beyond. It all ended abruptly with a cry of warning as a massive fireball shot out over the walls, smashing into the city below.

“Fire!” Multiple shouts sounde , but the cries weren’t referring to the flames caused by the enflamed boulders hulling into the city--they were for the dozens of bolts from the ballistae in the towers which launched into the mass of soldiers below. The lines on the ground erupted into blasts of fire from the black powder that ignited on the bolts. The artillery men were careful to only use their limited supply of explosives on the siege weapons, and many of the catapults were destroyed in only the first volley.

Arathin dashed to the closest tower. “Hold your fire!” he shouted to those manning the ballistae. “Hold the explosive rounds for later!”

“When?” one of them shouted.

“When the towers come!”

The artillery men turned to a messenger boy standing stone-like in the corner.

“Spread the Order!” they shouted, and the boy was out in a flash of movement.

The walls could take the beating of the weapons--they were made for that. No matter how hard the rocks struck the walls, the iron monsters of the Northmen were no match for the walls which were barely dented by the onslaught. That was their advantage. If manned adequately, the city walls provided an almost impenetrable defense. The problem was if the walls were penetrated. There were no backup defenses. If the lines failed here, there would be no regrouping. The only option left would be to flee.

Then the towers came.

They were utterly massive-- wide enough to fit twenty men side by side, ten ranks deep, inside, ready to charge out the second the massive doors smashed onto the walls. More than that, though, they were made almost completely of crude iron, making them almost indestructible. Even Impish cannons required a lucky shot to bring the towers down. Their only disadvantage was their sheer size made them easy to count.

It was luck--and possibly a bit of Negg’s Impish influence--that allowed the defenders to get their hands on three cannons. When they fired the first time, the defenders could almost see the united tremor that shuffled though the attacking army.

But the towers weren’t stopping. Arathin saw a cannon ball bounce right off one of the towers before exploding high in the air.

“That’s it, Keria!” he shouted , and she nodded. They ran into opposite towers on the gatehouse. Arathin pushed the men out of the way. “Aim for the wheels!” He eyed it without the aiming mechanism on the tip of the machine. “Loose! ” He took a step back.

One of the men took the little metal nozzle (on the black powder package on the bolt) out. Attached to it was the fuse. He then pinched the fuse right before the nozzle then yanked the nozzle off before letting go completely. The fuse lit, and another man yanked the lever to shoot the bolt. Another bolt joined it, and they both hit the same center wheel on the siege tower directly. Less than a second later it went off, and the wheel shattered.

For a moment it seemed that the other two wheels were sufficiently holding it up.

A monstrous crack was heard as the two other wheels suddenly gave out under the weight. The tower now leaned lopsided, but its base continued to fracture under the weight as it began to tip over. Then, it fell.

The sound of cheering overwhelmed the sound of it crashing into the ground, crushing countless enemies below (not to mention the numerous inside).

The cheering quickly died since it was only a matter of time before the enemy made it to the walls. The problem was that ammunition started to run low. One lookout after another on the wall called for more black powder ammunition, but there was no more.

“It’s about time!” Negg eagerly moved to a defensive posture with his small round shield in one hand and a double-edged leaf sword in the other. a metal cap that had leather coming down to defend his neck in the back.

Once the siege towers were too close for the siege weapons, there was little chance of taking them down. Their true mass was terrifying. One of the towers stopped in range, ready to drop the bridge but waiting until they were all in position in order to create a single swarm that would be much more formidable than dropping one bridge at a time.

Arathin pulled out his sword. It was a traditionally-shaped Elven sword, a curved, single-edged blade that was about three and a half feet in length (even though almost half was just the hilt). It was ornately carved with a line of Elvish text running down the blade and a leaf shaped point at the end of the hilt. It had a whiter tint that separated it from the silvery-gray color most swords had.

Keria drew a similar sword although it was much more basic, having a basic hilt wrapped in a brown cloth. Its blade was a traditional color without any sort of calligraphy on it.

Arathin eyed Keria’s sword, lifting an eyebrow.“Mine’s better.”

“Why is that?” Keria asked, defensively.

“I made mine myself,” Arathin bragged. “And yours is probably stolen.”

Keria grumbled at a voice level that only Arathin could hear, “You know me too well.”

Negg motioned with his rather short leaf sword. “I hate curved swords. Why go through all the trouble of swinging around and slashing and all the fancy stuff when you could just go for a thrust in the gut?”

Keria frowned. “Because everyone else’s arms have a reach that opens a few more options besides the gut.”

“No, you lost that bet and agreed to cut it with the arm length comm—”

“That was six months ago. My time’s up.”

“Wow!” Negg suddenly calmed. “You’ve gone that long without… I’m impressed.”

“As am I.”

The siege tower’s bridge suddenly came crashing down onto the wall, smashing the perforations and thoroughly ending the conversation. The Orcs were the first out and swarmed the battlements in an attempt to unhinge the lines before the actual shock troops arrived. The Westmen’s front lines of spears held firm, effectively halting the first wave that mindlessly threw itself against their spears. Soon there were too few spears remaining to fully hold the line. Swords were drawn, and the carnage began.

Negg sighed as he put his foot on the chest of an Orc and yanked out his weapon.

Out of the tower marched multiple Northmen in full battle armor. A wave of terror rippled through the defenders who began to back off. The relentless onslaught of enemies poured through the towers. Blood poured off the walls into the streets. The shouts of battle became panicking screams as only small pockets of defense remained.

“We’re being torn to ribbons!” Arathin shouted to Mayvak.

Keria joined right behind him. “We need to retreat to the second wall!”

“The second wall will never hold!” Oren shouted from behind Mayvak.

“This one’s already lost!” Arathin shouted.

Mayvak turned to Oren. “Blow the horn and sound the retreat to the second wall. Then tell the women and children to get onto the boats. Run!”

Oren blew three quick breaths through his horn. Its high trumpeting sound was easily distinguishable even amongst the roar of combat. It was quickly followed by others as the retreat was sounded.

As Arathin ran, under the flash of moving legs, he saw a familiar sword. He reached down and scooped it up in a quick, flowing action. It was his leaf sword he’d loaned the boy; it was covered in blood on both the blade and the handle. He shoved it into his belt and continued to run.

Keria was with him, Mayvak was already there and Negg wasn’t far behind (even with his short legs).

The gate to the second gate became a bottleneck as those retreating piled onto each other before they could get through fast enough.

Arathin heard the growl of something; he saw flashes of fur coming into the city through the gate. He roughly grabbed Mayvak’s armored shoulder. “We have to close the gates!”

“There are still men out there!”

“The riders are coming.”

Mayvak hesitated for a moment. “Damn it,” he grumbled. “Shut the gates!” He turned to face Arathin. “If the enemy had any chance of delaying the shutting of the gates and had broken through they’d have. . .we would’ve done it anyway.”

Arathin put his hand on Mayvak’s shoulder once more, this time more gently. “Thus is the manner of being a leader.”

Mayvak gave a halfhearted chuckle, “Now what?”

“How long will the gate hold?”

“Oren?” Mayvak looked around for his second.

Oren quickly appeared out of the organizing crowd of troops that were forming at the gates. There was no chance of success, but they would hold off the soldiers long enough for the population of the city to board the ships. Oren looked even worse than the last time they had seen him. He was completely covered in blood, his helm was nowhere to be found, his right shoulder guard was missing, and his breastplate was dented to the point where it was constricting his breathing.

“How long?” Mayvak asked.

“Less than half an hour for the gate, easily over three for the civilians.” Oren responded with no emotion.

Keria was suddenly at Mayvak’s side. “How many cannons do we have?” Her question was directed toward Mayvak but her eyes looked at Arathin, hinting something.

“A few, why?” Mayvak responded..

A slight crooked smile slowly appeared on Arathin’s face. “We have an idea but you’re not going to like it.”

“As long as it’s an idea, it’s more than I have.” Mayvak’s voice was close to broken.

“Blast the gates,” Keria said. “Collapse the gatehouse, trap them inside so that the only way out is through the siege towers.”

“Then we set the city ablaze,” Arathin finished. “It’ll cripple them for sure. They’ll lose most of their army, and it’ll take days for the fire to die. We’ll be long gone before they could send another wave.”

“Are you mad? We can’t burn down the city!” Mayvak was at first flabbergasted that Arathin would even hint at an idea like that, but then he surrendered. “Thus is the manner of being a leader.” He turned to Oren. “What do you think?”

“I’d rather the city in the dirt than in the hands of them. Either way it’ll be ruined, might as well take a few of them with it.”

“So be it. Remember that this was my order.” He shouted to the men around him. “The enemy is far too great for us to resist. They’ll break through the gates before your families can escape. This is our only choice. We will deliver a blow that will halt this army for the rest of the war. . . I say it so, the city must burn.”

To Mayvak’s surprise, a cheer erupted throughout the ranks.

Oren commanded, “Ready the cannons, aim to the gates, prepare the coals, we’ll close them in then light their funeral pyre!”

Mayvak shook his head. “Never thought this would be the reaction.”

Negg shrugged. “It’s wanton destruction. Who doesn’t love it?”

Arathin gave them a devious smile. “To them, the city is already lost; they want to hear the screams of the enemy for a change.”

Negg elbowed Arathin in the leg. “This might make a number one.”

“Hmm. . .I’d say so,”

“You guys are still doing that?” Keria asked. “I’m going to have to see some updates.”

“Master Elf.” Oren was by Arathin’s side. “Do you need a healer?”

For the first time since the beginning of the battle, Arathin realized his current condition. Oren was obviously referring to the gash on Arathin’s shoulder. His entire left arm was soaked with blood, and so was the side of his armor. He could feel the blood dripping down his face, both from a few of his own scratches and from someone else’s wounds. Blood dripped of his bangs as well. It had been a long fight.

“Master Elf?” Oren gave him a hard look. “Your arm might need to be amputated; it is probably already festering with disease.”

Arathin smiled. “You have a bit to learn about Elves. First, you’ll never see an ill one.” Oren’s eyes widened. “And this will probably heal by the time we reach Arenkail.”

Negg kicked Arathin. “Stop gloating and help me with this bandage.”

Arathin turned and helped Negg tie a cloth bandage around Negg’s arm right below his shoulder. Negg wasn’t much better off. He had another bandage around his leg right above his ankle. His armor had plenty of nicks and dents, but most of them looked repairable. His helm, though, was barely recognizable.

Someone shouted, “The cannons are in place!”

Arathin, Keria, and Negg ran up to the wall. Mayvak and Oren stayed behind to organize the retreat. They wanted it to be as swift as possible, to make sure there was no chance of cutting it close.

Arathin took a short glance at Keria. “Faring well?”

She looked at the blue rags that were all that remained of the dress. “I liked this gown.” Other than that, there seemed to be no other major damage.

Arathin, Keria, and Negg aimed their cannons. “Fire!”

The cannons hit their marks.

The towers collapsed as a shot hit the archway over the gate itself. The gatehouse collapsed.

Mayvak commanded Oren, “Light it up.”

“Loose!” Oren shouted.

Flaming arrows rained down into the city. The thatched roofs caught easily, and the archers continued to fire arrows as far as they could into the city to light any part not burning. In less than an hour, the city would be completely engulfed in flames. Shouts and wails of the Orcs, men, and beasts were already filling the air. There were no cheers from the defender’s side, though. The bloodlust had faded from their systems as they all watched their capital--and for many, their home--burn to the ground.

It would never be rebuilt.

Red Letters By Michael Strong

This is an excerpt from a novella entitled Red Letters. The story takes place in the year 2060 in Boston and later in Russia. It is about a 22-year-old Russian boy who lives and goes to school in Boston. He receives a letter one day from an unknown source. He goes on a mysterious adventure to find the source of the letter and learn more about the history of both his family and his country. This excerpt includes the prologue and parts of chapter two.

he sinews tore away from his bone, splattering blood across the floor and the surrounding iron-forged machines. His knees had been inverted. His enemy threw him into the press T by knocking his feet out in front of him between the two heavy, cobalt slabs. A loud snap came from his legs, and the clink of metal on metal of the press resounded in the hollow, inactive factory, but it was quickly drowned out by a gargling squeal.

“Scream, capitalist pig! No one is going to hear you now!”

The bullet penetrated his skull and interspersed his life-blood among the rubble and across the rust-dirt floor.

********************

It was strange, receiving a letter in 2060. In 2038, the year Alex was born, the U.S. Postal Service had been terminated because of private shipping companies and e-mail, so the letter had to be sent privately. This left little room for its being a mistake or sent to the wrong person. Not many other people in Boston even spoke Russian, and Alex did not know that much because he never put in the effort to learn.

********************

Alex took the exit to Andover, drove the narrow northeast road into his neighborhood, and arrived at his parent’s home. He had not told his mother and father he was coming, so when his mother answered the door, she screamed and gave Alex a big hug. Alex was confused. Why were his parents so joyful?

“Well, Alex, this is very much unexpected,” his father, Vladimer, said.

“What are you talking about? You told me to come home. I’m supposed to be here for the funeral.”

“Funeral?” his mother, Calina, interjected. “Who died?”

Alex’s grandmother , Tatiana, walked around the corner into the kitchen. “Calina, who is at the house now? Always having people over, you two are. How about some privacy and peace once in a while? Vladimir’s got these people from work over here all the time, and you have girls from that silly book club!” She did not notice Alex because her vision was so poor. Her glasses lay on the counter. She put them on. “Alex! Grandson!” She embraced Alex.

Alex was shocked; obviously his grandmother was not dead. He said nothing.

Vladimir asked, “Alex, why did you think grandma… you know. . . died?”

“Dead?” His grandmother joked. “Ha! Well, I’m not dead. I’m still alive whether I want to be or not. Your mother just won’t let me rest!”

Calina rolled her eyes. “Tatiana, you have to keep up with your medications. It’s for the best.”

Tatiana was a stubborn old woman. She would not stop taking her pills. “I think I know what is best for me,” Tatiana said as Calina rolled her eyes again.

“Alex, did someone tell you grandma died?” his father asked.

“I don’t know. . .I got a letter.”

“A letter? Since when does anyone send letters anymore?”

“This person did.”

His mother instructed, “All right, let’s not waste time. You are clearly upset. Read us the letter,”

Alex read the letter, or what little there was to read:

Alexander:

Your grandmother has passed. Your family wishes you to return home. Regards to you and your family.

Nobody spoke for an uneasy moment.

His father broke the silence. “Who sent the letter, Alex?”

Alex read the signature. “Veniamin Svitapolk,”

His father reached his hand toward the old paper. “May I see the letter?” Alex gave the letter to his father.

Vladimir quickly scanned the letter and read the name on the return address, just as Alex had upon receiving it. “Veniamin Svitapolk. . .Have you heard this name before? Do you know him?” Alex saw a look on his dad’s face he had never seen before. It was a look of shock and pain that seemed to come out as fear in his eyes.

“No,” Alex responded, “but it’s familiar.” Alex was confused. He was trying to place the name to a face or description. He thought of his history books in an attempt to connect the name to someone famous, but that did not work. He then scaled down to his family and its history, but could not recall anything.

“Alex, this letter may not have meant to be sent to you.” Vladimir explained.

“Well, that’s obvious!”

Tatiana interrupted as she usually did. “No, no, no, no! And I thought I was crazy! Vladimir, there is no way that that evil man sent that letter!”

Alex asked his grandmother, “What are you talking about?”.

Vladimir responded. “I’m just saying it is a very realistic possibility given the circumstances,”

“What are you talking about?” Alex asked again, this time in a louder voice.

“Alex, I don’t know who this Svitapolk guy is, but Alexander Mironov may not be you,” Vladimir explained.

“What do you mean?”

Vladimer sighed. “Well, there is one person in your family tree that we have not told you about. You know we put a great amount of importance on our family history, but there are some spots of it we do not wish to glorify. In the 1970’s, there was the U.S.S.R., as you know. We have tried to disconnect our family with those Communist leaders, but the Mironov family is too closely tied to it to separate completely. Your mother’s great-great-grandfather was also named Alexander Mironov, and he was part of the KGB. He was a member of the secret police. The organization was said to have tortured, murdered, and extorted many of the Russian people, as you know. The KGB was the most effective secret police force the world had ever seen. Everything about this letter matches up. The name and even the watermark, which is the symbol of the KGB, matches with what I suspect is the source of the letter.”

His mother added, “Alex, we have tried to put him out of our minds. He was a full-blooded Communist,”

Tatiana said with scorn, “A damn scoundrel is what he was!” She turned to her grandson. “Alex, we have a great pride for our country, but we have always taken issue with the Communist Revolution. Our family lived through it, we prospered before it, and some died during the revolution.”

Alex had led a life of relative seclusion and without a broad world-view. Although he had run away from home, he had failed to live long without support. He had to come home. He had not been ready for that kind of challenge; he had failed the test of his manhood. This limited his openness to change and flaw. His culture did not allow blemishes in the family tree. As to all Russians, ancestry was one of the more important aspects to the Mironov family tradition. What he thought was a perfect family had a major imperfection. He felt violated; he felt vulnerable. He felt as if he was in an expansive field without cover.

And an entire nation and culture was charging towards him.

from Days out of the Clearing By Sam Medley

Weldy Campbell, a young man in 1930’s Arkansas, flees from his hometown after murdering his sister’s rapist who happens to be the son of a prominent judge. He spends days travelling with a hobo in a train car and ends up jumping off of the moving train somewhere in Missouri. After an afternoon of walking-- despite exhaustion, blistering heat, and hunger--he rests by the side of a dusty country road until a man passing by in a car stops to help.

ey you! Country bumpkin! You dead?” said a voice followed by a loud honk.

“H

Weldy sat up to find a car sitting idle at his feet with a driver staring at him and leaning out of the driver-side window. The slender man wore a grey brimmed hat on his head, a black tie pulled down from the collar, and rolled-up sleeves revealing his skinny, hairy, and sweat- dampened forearms. He was a wiry man, yet he had an air of coolness about him. “Man, that’s a bad place to take a nap. I damn near took your feet off!”

“Sorry, just got a little tired.” Weldy stood up.

“No need to apologize--they’re your feet, not mine,” he laughed. Noticing that Weldy wasn’t laughing, he ceased his laughter and took on a more serious tone as he leaned further out of the window toward Weldy who was still keeping his distance from the car. “Where you headed? I’ll give you a lift if I’m goin’ your way.”

“I don’t really know, just walkin’ I guess.” Weldy recalled the real reason that he preferred to keep hidden. The fact was that most good, upstanding people don’t like to lend a hand to murderers.

“Just walkin’?” the man said in a surprised tone, “Well, you look like you’ve been just walkin’ for a long time, and if you’re just walkin’ south, then I’m goin’ your way.”

Weldy noticed all of the luggage piled in the two-seater, barely giving the driver himself enough room to move his arms to pull at the stubborn steering wheel. None of the bags seemed to belong to the same set; some of them had stains on the bottom as if the contents had broken and spilt some sort of liquid all over the inside. “You sure you have room for me in there?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind holdin’ a few bags for me.”

“Not at all.”

The man in the car pulled bags and suitcases from the passenger seat and threw them out of the window at Weldy’s feet. Each bag hit the ground with the muffled sound of breaking glass and an odd sloshing.

“That doesn’t sound good. I guess I’ll just have to sip it straight out of the bag,” the man chuckled.

Weldy remained where he was sitting for a moment wondering if it was a good idea to take a ride from a stranger, especially considering the fact that this guy seemed a little unstable, if not just very eccentric, but the idea that he would shrivel up and die of thirst, hunger, or exhaustion in the middle of an empty wheat field without anyone knowing overrode his qualms, so he picked up the bags and walked to the passenger side door and nestled himself in the seat amongst the numerous cases.

The driver extended his hand. “I’m Orson, by the way. Orson Ackerman. You’ve probably read some of my articles and stories in numerous magazines and newspapers,”

“No, I don’t recall your name to be honest, sir, but it’s a pleasure.” Weldy shook the man’s hand.

“Oh. Well, then. . .” Orson said in an irritated manner as he jerked his hand out of Weldy’s grasp and put the car in gear. It lurched forward and began bobbing up and down with the rough country road, the contents of the bags clanging against each other like glasses in the bar of a cruise ship on choppy ocean waters. “We’re headin’ down to New Orleans, by the way. We’ll be making a stop outside of town to meet my connection if you don’t mind. Can’t have a good time at Mardi Gras without the right stuff!”

“I’ve never been to New Orleans, much less Mardi Gras.”

Orson grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure we have a good time.” He reached under his seat and pulled out what looked like a milk bottle full of water, pulled the cork out with his teeth, spit it out, tilted the bottle back all the way, and let out an excited whoop after he pulled it away from his lips.

Weldy was again reminded of how thirsty he was by the sloshing sound of the water in the bottle. “Can I get some of that water?”

Orson laughed as he handed the bottle to Weldy. “Here, take as much as you want.”

Weldy grabbed the bottle from Orson’s hand and began gulping it down until the sting hit his throat and made his eyes water. He spit the mouthful he still hadn’t swallowed out of the window.

Orson began laughing hysterically, doubled over the steering wheel, as Weldy started wiping his tongue off on his shirt. “Sorry about that, figured you woulda' smelled it before you took a swig!”

Weldy alternated between wiping his tongue and spitting out of the window.“Good God! What is that? Paint thinner?”

“Mostly. Comes from Tennessee’s finest backwoods still! Want a little more?”

“No thanks. Got any straight-up water?”

“Sorry, there’s nothing weaker than whiskey in this car.” Orson took another swig of the moonshine as he tried to keep the car steady on the thin country road by steering with his knees. The car began to drift and hit a ditch on the side of the road before Orson pulled it back to the middle of the road, making the contents jostle violently.

“Maybe you should lay off of that stuff, Mr. Ackerman.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I do it all the time. I could drive full of hooch with my eyes closed and still not hit anything!”

Damn. This guy is gonna' get me killed, Weldy thought. The train may have been a rolling sauna, but at least the conductor wasn’t a drunk.

from What? By Patrick King

s I open my eyes, I attempt to readjust to my new environment. The sights and sounds around me are not real – at least they don’t seem real – if anything they’re surreal. The A stench of disinfectant spray is overwhelming. The whitewashed walls are impersonal. A curtain hanging from the wall next to my bed conceals the long desk that houses computers and what seems to be a group of over-talkative nurses, yipping away vigorously like a swarm of obnoxious sorority girls. If this is really a hospital, then they should shut up. I’m in far too much pain to have to bear their conversation.

As if on cue, one of the nurses approaches me with a clipboard. She glances at the blood-soaked bandages covering my chest, then checks her chart. A peeved look tells me she isn’t happy with what she sees. I guess she shouldn’t be – with every beat my heart takes, a throbbing pain erupts throughout my chest, culminating at the entry wounds on my pectoral. As she checks an IV line running into my arm, I wince. A bead of blood oozes out of the site, and she wipes it with a piece of gauze.

“Any chance you could take that out?” I ask her.

“If you don’t think you’re in enough pain, I could. It’s Fentanyl,” she replies coolly.

Her maroon scrubs are tight on her, almost sexy. . . but she’s old, older than me at least. Standing at about five foot nine, the scrappy young redhead appears to be in her early thirties. Her demeanor is good-humored, but hardened at the same time – a lack of makeup and a light wrinkle on her forehead give it away.

“What? What’s that?” I reply.

“It’s for your pain… just think of it as morphine’s big brother.”

“Oh. . .um. . .then you might want to leave it in.”

The pain relief is both needed and welcome.

“No problem, chief.” She hesitates, as if uncertain the subsequent news will be met with relief, fear, apathy, or a mixture of the three. “Your parents are here to see you. They don’t look like they’re very happy, and I don’t blame them. I’d be pissed if my kid wound up in your situation too.”

My situation? How many people know about what happened? It’s a hospital; they should be doing their jobs. Unless. . .

I take a glance toward the nurse’s desk upon hearing my name. I can only make out bits of their conversation from my bed.

“Glasky. . . cocaine. . . shot . . . parents . . .” they say.

Although the desk is too far away for me to make out their exact words, I hear my name. It doesn’t sound like it is being used in a medically professional manner. The nurses continue their chatter; I hold my gaze. When the talking momentarily abates, one of them catches my eye. The nurses suddenly lose the bravado that was so overpowering just a moment before. I turn my attention towards the redheaded nurse speaking to me, who has been tapping her foot idly throughout my hotheaded attempt at a confrontation.

“Well, are they here right now?” I ask.

“Yeah. . .from what I heard they’ll be here in five minutes, and that was three minutes ago. . .so. . .they’re probably in the lobby as we speak.”

Crap.

“Did they sound mad?”

“They didn’t sound happy.”

I sit up in the bed to think. If I tell them why I’m really here, they’ll slaughter me. If I tell them a complete falsification, they’ll find out the truth eventually then slaughter me anyway. I guess it’ll be safer for a mixture of the two. . . but as for how. . . I don’t know.

“Alright. Just tell me when they get here.” I attempt to remain nonchalant.

“Too late – they’re here. Better luck next time.” She grins, looking into the distance.

I follow her gaze to a set of oak double doors at the far end of the hallway, past the nurses’ station, but close enough for me to see the fire in my father’s eyes and the frustration in my mother’s. As they walk briskly towards my bed, I sort through possible excuses. I was robbed; he started it; it’s not my fault. . .yeah. “It’s not my fault,” sounds good. Besides, it’s not like it really was my fault. I have no money, no income, and no truly legitimate, independent financial source. All I have is the coke.

“Stuart!” my mother screams at me.

The nurses at the station turn their heads and giggle, so I scowl at them once more.

“Hi, Mom,” I speak in my patented “sick” voice. I follow it up with a throaty cough for added measure.

“What the hell do you mean ‘Hi, Mom?’” She mocks my patented sick voice with her patented pissed tone.

“I mean what I said. ‘Hi, Mom.’” I maintain an innocent tone.

“Stu, don’t get smart with us.” Dad’s voice is a gruff baritone. Though his attempted ferocity is admirable, I can’t help but laugh; standing at about five foot eight, my plump, jovial father, with his graying, blonde hair is more of a Santa Claus than a Gestapo officer.

“Yes, sir,” I make sure to hang my head down submissively yet believably.

“Damn right, that’s a ‘Yes, sir.’ Now listen to your mother. We’ve been talking, and we have some ideas about how we’re going to handle this.”

At the mentioning of my punishment, the redheaded nurse halts the work that until this moment, she had been diligently completing. I ignore her and listen to my mother.

“I talked to the judge in the thirteenth district – “

“So?” I interrupt.

Dad says, “Stuart, you weren’t running a candy store; what you were doing was illegal, immoral, and more importantly, just plain stupid.”

Mom continues, “And if you thought you could get away with it, you may very well be a lost cause, because anyone who thinks they could make a living off of –“

“Could you please leave?” I ask the nurse, halting my mother in mid-sentence.

Nothing.

As my mother opens her mouth to continue her tirade, I interrupt once more, because this is going to get worse. I can feel it.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but could you please give me a moment alone with my parents?” I ask the nurse, this time more forcefully.

“Oh, of course, sweetie.” She walks out of the room, joining the other nurses.

Though the thin, green curtain hides my room from the rest of the intensive care unit, it’s doing little to muffle this embarrassing conversation. Mom doesn’t seem to care; she continues to rail me. “Anyway, anyone who thinks they can make a living by selling crack-cocaine –“

“Cocaine,” I say, correcting her.

“What the hell is the difference, Stu? An illegal drug is an illegal drug,” my father replies heatedly. “You could sell heroin, crack, cocaine, or weed. A judge doesn’t care; you’ll still go to the same place—jail.”

His rotund frame and angry demeanor are beginning to make him appear less like a Santa Claus and more like an angry walrus. Though the image is humorous in a way, I’d rather not be around either, so I hold my tongue to keep it from being scalded.

He pauses to let my mother pick up where he left off.

“Stuart, we’re telling you all of this because we love you. We love you so much that this potential mortal-wound to your career would be a blow to us as well. We just want to see you succeed and be happy.” The last words come out slowly. An almost indiscernible emphasis is put on the word succeed. “Now I just got off the phone with Stan Gilbert, and he’s agreed to have a talk with you tomorrow morning about what’s happened.”

Stan Gilbert, Stan Gilbert. . .crap. Dad’s talked about him a few times. Practically all of the lawyers around Memphis know each other in one way or another. Unfortunately, Dad happens to be acquainted with Gilbert on a personal level.

Dad glances at my worried face. “Wipe that stupid look off your face, Stuart. You look surprised. There’s no way in hell that you can’t face repercussions for your actions.”

I finally put the question out in the open. “How screwed am I?”

“Very”

My mother adds, “The EMS personnel found the sandwich bags filled with coke under your couch,”

“What the hell were they doing underneath my couch?” I am unable to keep the disbelief and sense of violation from my speech.

Dad says, “Apparently, it’s standard protocol to do a light sweep of the area whenever narcotic use is suspected. Luckily, your idiocy hasn’t thwarted you in every aspect of your life. One of the EMS guys saw a splotch of powder on the carpet near the couch, so it didn’t take much detective work to solve the mystery.” He adds, “And don’t you give me that look. If they hadn’t found that crap, you would have been dead. They could have given you an overdose in the emergency room when they administered your pain meds.”

I sigh. “So what’s going to happen to me?”

“It’s hard to tell right now. Gilbert could take this to court; take you straight to a penitentiary, then take a day off with everything you’ve done to dig your own grave. It wouldn’t be hard. Your own actions have given him a better case than any fancy legal maneuvering could ever have. It’s in God’s hands now. Or,” he continues, “you could catch a break. But you’ve made too many mistakes for something not to come of this. Not getting a job, selling drugs--” he sighs. “Practically everyone you’ve ever been friends with is a junior by now. Jack’s gonna’ have his philosophy degree in just a little more than a year!”

I sneer.

“Say what you want, but you can’t go wrong with a college education. Especially Vanderbilt. What’s there not to like? You can go to parties, meet girls, be away from your mom and me--you can even keep doing that writing crap you love so much.”

I pretend to contemplate the idea.

“So, what do you say, bud? Should I tell Gil you’re seriously thinking about going back to school? I know I said it was a long shot, but if he sees you’re truly committed to turning your life around, we may have something for you here; I might be able to get you a reasonable plea bargain.”

“Think of your future, honey,” Mom says.

“Alright. I’ll think about it. For you two.”

Warm, tender smiles cross their otherwise bitter faces.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow before the meeting, kiddo,” my father says.

“Alright.”

They exit from the room. As I look out the window, I see them walk out of the hospital and make a bee line for the car with cell phones in hand and at the ready.

I sigh. Forget that.

from Hopelessly Into the Dark By Kenton Jetton

he was almost asleep, even though her husband wasn’t yet home. She stopped shifting in bed and checking the clock and settled into a comfortable position. I could smell her from S here, and it was beautiful. Her hair, still wet from the shower, smelled like her coconut shampoo, and even from across the room, her wonderful scent made its way to my nose. And that’s when I decided to cut her neck open.

More thrilling to me than the kill itself was the thrill of fear: hers and mine. She has to see me coming; a silent kill in the dark is no fun for either of us. If there’s no risk involved, what’s the point? Where’s the thrill?

So instead of creeping up on this handpicked victim and silently, quickly ending her fragile life in the dark, I decided to make my presence known. I tapped the wall behind me. She didn’t hear, or at least didn’t move, so I pounded on the wall. She jerked up in bed, scanned the room in her darkened haze, and let out a sigh of relief. The faint light that shined upon her through the window left me in a darker contrast. She lay back down, slowly and softly, so I tapped again, mimicking her gentle grace. She knew I was there.

“Who’s there?” She peered hopelessly into the dark. I swear by now she could hear my breathing; that’s what happens when you realize you can’t rely on your eyes--you start to hear everything. I could see her faint moonlit silhouette as she reached for the lamp next to her bed and turned the switch. A soft light instantly filled the room but barely reached me in my dark corner. I live for the fear in their eyes, and they die for it, each of my victims.

“Who--” She stared at me and her mouth sprang open, but no sound came out. I walked towards her as she curled up, pressing back against her corner bedpost. I drew out my knife, a blade as carefully chosen for this occasion as my victim. I grabbed her right arm. She started thrashing and kicking at me, so I made some cuts to calm her down. “Who are you?” she screamed.

And then I reached for her neck.

As a child I used to kill cats and stray dogs, smash bugs for fun, light bees’ nests on fire, and try to hear the insects’ screams, but I’ve never felt such thrill as when I feel a human life end in my hands, like when I cut her neck open, and made her bed into the cotton roll the dentist used when he took my tooth out: an inundated sack of blood. I could even feel her warmth in the air, but no more smell of coconuts.

from My Life and Death By Jeff Huber

This is an excerpt from my novel, My Life and Death, about Thomas, who has just recently become a werewolf and has begun to look for a cure. Thomas is instructed by Lazlo, an old man who knows just a little too much about supernatural creatures, to head north in a search for a man named Doctor Benton who is believed to have a possible cure for Thomas’ predicament. Thomas is now currently staying at a vampire’s, Ulrich, who has told Thomas that the Church is spreading lies.

he house constantly creaked and groaned, and the curtains swayed slightly as they covered up the glassless window, allowing moonlight to travel in through the spaces the T wind made, creating shadows that danced and played with each other.

The bed Ulrich had given Thomas was fabulously comfortable, and Ulrich had gone to great pains to ensure that his guest was happy, but it was impossible for Thomas to sleep; his mind would not stop wandering and replaying today’s events over and over in his head, thus convincing him Ulrich was crazy.

But the seed of doubt had already been planted; Thomas’ faith in the Church had been rattled on discovering the lies the Church had spread. . .but were they really lies? Thomas had only met one vampire in his life, and though Ulrich wasn’t what he expected, it didn’t mean that all vampires were like him. Maybe the rest really were all blood-thirsty monsters.

“But what does that make me? Am I a monster?” Thomas thought, slowly understanding the truth he was creating.

The Church cannot be trusted, but what about Lazlo? Could the information he had given Thomas be true, or was it a trap? What if he had not gotten lost and arrived at the next town, would there have been a welcoming committee of demon hunters and religious officials there to kill him? Maybe Doctor Benton didn’t exist and was just a ploy to get him to leave? Maybe there was no cure?

Thomas contemplated feeding his restlessness , until he heard a scream. It was monstrous and inhuman and so incredibly high-pitched Thomas had to cover his ears with his hands.

Just as suddenly as the noise appeared, it vanished, replaced only by the pounding sound of blood rushing in his ringing ears and his now heavy breathing. Thomas got out of the bed and walked slowly to the door, ignoring the knot in his stomach and voice in the back of his head saying over and over, “The noise never happened, go back to bed.”

Curiosity fueled Thomas’s actions as he turned the knob to the door and pulled it open, the hinges thick with rust and squeaking as they moved. He stuck his head out and looked down the right side of the hall.

Nothing was there. All was as it should be. The paintings still hung on the walls, the plant was unmoved, and the rug was undisturbed.

The sound of glass breaking and pottery shattering came from the opposite side of the hall, followed immediately by more of the inhuman screams.

The knot in Thomas’ stomach became tighter and the little voice in the back of his head grew louder, screaming at him, “Noises like that can only mean trouble. Get back in your room, close the door, ignore whatever noises you hear next, and go to bed.”

How he should have listened. Thomas walked down the hall toward the source of the sounds, Ulrich’s study. From down the hall came more noises and sounds--the constant flapping of wings, the thunk of something hitting the wall, someone running, followed by more thunks.

Again the voice in his head urged him, implored him to leave, “Don’t go in there; you might not like what you find.”

Thomas reached for the door knob and the voice advised for the last time “Don’t open the door!”

Thomas opened the door, ignoring every bit of his common sense.

from Ashes By Ben Randolph

Red, the muscle of the Chicago mob, has been assigned to fetch millions of dollars from a deceased miser, James Theodore, by any means necessary. He and his two associates have just arrived at Theodore’s house.

wo cars were in the driveway as Red pulled in—a white, spotless minivan and a bronze Cadillac sedan. Red got out of his car, drawing his pistol out of the holster and grabbing a T bag for the money. Tim and Andrew followed. Tim flipped open his double-barreled shotgun and stuffed the shells inside the chamber. The barrels snapped back into place, making a haunting clap that echoed across the countryside. Andrew loaded his machine gun at the same time, cranking the ammunition into the automatic weapon. The rounds rotated into the gun in a seemingly interminable circular pattern, a never-ending cycle that would repeat itself until all was exhausted. Finally the chain of bullets was exhausted, and its link collapsed heavily on the ground. The gun had swallowed all of the chain’s sustenance, and it was now just a carcass.

Red wheeled and crept towards the home, Tim and Andrew behind him. He instructed Tim to crouch under a window on the left side of the house, and Andrew to wait beside the side door on the right. Red circled to the back of the house, pressing himself next to a window that looked into the living room. A bank agent in a heavy navy suit stood talking with a mother and her daughter on the couch. The child wore a white dress with a white sweater draped over her shoulders. She sat playing with a doll. Her mother had fair skin, with long, flowing blonde hair.

“All of this is legally yours, Ms. Theodore,” said the banker.

“This is. . .incredible,” she choked out, tears running down her face, “Hope and I have been living on the street for two years. My father. . .I don’t understand. He never helped me while he was alive. I saw him twice in my entire life. And now he gives me all this? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Death often brings a new color to what is important.”

Red crashed through the window. He cocked his pistol and shot the banker, killing him instantly. He then turned the gun on Ms. Theodore.

“Take me to your father’s safe,” he commanded, his pistol fixed on her head.

“Please. . .we’ve been homeless for two years.”

Tim and Andrew burst in, guns at the ready. Red glanced at them and then returned his gaze to her. “Take me to his safe. Now.”

She started stumbling towards the basement, hyperventilating, using the wall for support.

“Bring your daughter with you.”

She turned and gave Red an imploring stare. He gazed coldly ahead. He motioned with his pistol towards her. “Call her to you.”

“Hope, stay with Mommy.”

Hope walked to her mother’s side, petrified by the violence. They descended to the basement. The walls were bare. The basement was unfinished and empty except for the spider webs clinging to the red support beams that Theodore’s house was built upon.

His safe stood against the left wall. It was his only possession in the room. Red pointed to it. “Open it,” he ordered.

“I don’t know the combination,” Ms. Theodore said.

Red aimed the pistol at Hope. “Open it, Ms. Theodore. Or I will kill your daughter.”

She moved towards her daughter. Red fired a bullet into the wall.

She stopped.

He trained the handgun on Hope again. “Please open the safe, Ms. Theodore.”

She crawled towards the safe, trembling. Her breathing was short and raspy. She clutched the dial with a shaking hand and spun it. With three turns of the dial, the safe unlocked.

Red stepped forward and shot her.

She gasped and then crumpled to the ground.

Red then turned to her daughter with his pistol. He pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped through her white dress, embedding in her chest. Scarlet blood flooded forth. Hope fell to her knees at Red’s feet.

Red moved to the safe. Tim, with a grim smile playing on his lips, followed. Andrew, horrified, lagged behind Tim. Red stooped and grabbed the safe door, but hesitated in opening it. He dropped his hand to his side. Then he turned to Tim. “How much money do you think is in here?”

“Enough for the three of us.”

“You think so? I’m not so sure.” Red swiftly brought up his pistol, and killed Tim.

Andrew bellowed in surprise. He fumbled for a moment with his automatic but then collected himself. He opened fire on Red.

Two bullets hit. They plunged into Red’s arm, throwing him onto the floor. He scrambled into the storage room, slamming the door behind him.

Andrew walked towards the storage room.

“What the hell are you doing, Red? You think you can just wipe out everything?” Andrew backed against the hallway wall, next to the storage room door. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He pivoted in front of the door, kicked it off its hinges with his enormous strength, and fired a round into the room as a precaution. The bullets bounced innocently off the wall onto the floor. He hadn’t expected to hit Red.

Peering through the darkness, he eyed Red’s blood trail. It led to a recessed area in the room, which was full of towering, empty shelves. He crept towards it, his automatic always ahead of him, ready to fire. Stopping short of the shelved area, he fired another probing round of ammunition. Again no results. He took cover against the wall adjacent to the shelves.

“I’ve got you cornered, Red. If you slide your pistol out to me, I won’t kill you. We’ll split the money.”

He heard a low, menacing laugh from the corner. Red’s pistol slid out. Andrew walked towards it and stooped to pick it up.

As he rose, old wood and rusted steel rubbed and groaned together above him. He looked up to see a huge shelf collapsing on him, Red clinging to the back of it, adding his weight.

The shelf crushed Andrew, smashing his bones between its massive weight and the concrete floor.

Red clambered off the shelf, and walked to the safe. He opened it, and his fortune stood stacked before him. He raked it into the bag he had brought.

Also in the safe was a steel box. Red pulled it to the front of the safe. He released its latch and flipped it open. The interior’s top had a mirror on it. Within the box was a letter. He pulled it out and read.

To my daughter:

I write this knowing that you still feel bitter about me. I’ve never done anything for you and know nothing about how your life has gone. I’m sorry. This gift that I now give you does not excuse my failure as a parent. It will be both the first and last gift I give you.

I do not know where my life has gone either. I am an old man now, and I will soon die. I often sit on my porch and try to remember all the things that have happened to me. All my memory shows me is a violent red sky. I try to think about things that I’m proud of, and nothing springs to mind. I have millions of dollars, and I can’t recall one damn thing, good or bad, that happened to me. Getting and keeping those millions is all I’ve cared about for my entire life. And I can’t even take them with me now.

All I have left now is my memory’s single taunt—that deep scarlet sky with wispy, black clouds of regret floating across it like the thin smoke that rises from the ashes of a long dead fire.

Your father,

James Theodore

Red looked up from the letter and glanced back to the steel box where he saw himself reflected in its mirror. Crimson blood was splattered on his face and clinging to his hair. He chuckled wryly and shook his head. He shut the box harshly.

Rising, he strolled to Andrew’s dead body and took his machine gun. He put a fresh line of bullets in the bloodstained chamber and loaded it—winding it inside that crimson-painted gun, turning it in an eternal, everlasting cycle.

Screenplay excerpts

The following are excerpts from full-length screenplays in progress.

from Vampires By Pat Scrivener

KITCHEN. INT. NIGHT

Zoe, a stay-at-home wife, stands over the sink, whistling a classical tune to herself as she washes the dinner plates. She casually wipes the last fleck of sauce from her mouth on the back of her hand.

ZOE Oh, Brian! I never got to ask how work went!

LIVING ROOM. INT. NIGHT

Brian, her depressed telemarketer husband, sits on the couch, casually thumbing through a large, plain-covered hardback book, a few tiny particles of dust drifting from the pages. He looks up from the book.

BRIAN Oh, you know. Same as it always is.

ZOE (OS) Another great advancement in the world of telemarketing?

KITCHEN. INT. NIGHT

Zoe smiles satisfied to herself.

BRIAN (OS) Are you mocking me?

ZOE Of course not! Just think…thanks to you, almost one-hundred people had to step out of a hot bath to sign up for a credit card plan that’ll probably end up ruining their credit score for the rest of their lives.

LIVING ROOM. INT. NIGHT

Brian settles back onto the couch, returning his focus to his book.

BRIAN Yep. (Beat) Definitely mocking me…

He flips through a few more pages, before his stomach growls. He looks up from the book.

BRIAN We have any desert?

KITCHEN. INT. NIGHT

Zoe sets her now-clean plates on the countertop to dry before pacing to the refrigerator and opening it with her foot.

ZOE Um, no, we don’t. What did you want?

BRIAN (OS) Ice cream?

ZOE No, we definitely don’t have any of that…

BRIAN (OS) But. . .ice cream.

ZOE I said I’m sorry, Brian, we don’t have any.

BRIAN (OS) Ice cream. . .

LIVING ROOM. INT. NIGHT

Zoe walks into the living room, her hands on her hips.

ZOE For the last time, Brian, we---

Brian smiles at her, his eyes as wide as he can get them; he is obviously pleading with her.

BRIAN Ice cream. . .? Zoe exaggeratedly rolls her eyes and groans.

ZOE Fine, I suppose I could run out and get some for you. (Beat) Guess it would make up for the whole back thing.

Brian’s smile widens.

ZOE But I swear, if you’re asleep when I get back. . .

She gestures at him with her index and middle fingers, imitating a snake bite, before quickly walking out through the kitchen to the front door.

FOYER. INT. NIGHT

The front door is a worn, wooden one, with a silver-colored doorknob. Beside it stands a small table, on which sit Zoe’s purse and Brian’s wallet and keys.

Zoe steps quickly to the front door, grabbing a light leather jacket from off the doorknob and pulling it on. Her feet are still bare. She opens the door and quickly steps out into the night.

Both the purse and the wallet sit untouched.

FOYER. INT. NIGHT. THIRTY MINUTES LATER.

Zoe opens the door and quietly slips back into the house, covering her left eye with her hand and holding a tub of ice cream in the other. She pads through the kitchen, lowering her hand from her left eye, which appears to be perfectly fine, save for a very dilated pupil. She sets a small, glinting lump of metal on the counter as she passes through. It is a black-stained .38 bullet.

LIVING ROOM. INT. MIDNIGHT

Brian is asleep on the couch, snoring quietly, the book lying open on his chest. Zoe walks to the couch, waving the ice cream like a trophy.

ZOE I’m so sorry it took me so long. I got hungry myself, so I dropped off for a bite to. . .

She notices that he is asleep and sighs quietly. She sits down lightly beside him, lifting the book off his chest and skims the page.

Written at the top of the page are the words “She Walks in Beauty.”

ZOE Byron, huh? She ruffles his hair softly.

ZOE I guess I’m mad, bad, and dangerous to know aren’t I?

She snaps the book shut and lays it back on Brian’s chest, before popping the lid off the tub of ice cream . She begins to eat it with her fingers.

from Redbirds By Gary Hermann

Redbirds is a screenplay about a less than mediocre basketball team. They start to unexpectedly win games as they go further into the tournament. At this point in the screenplay, they are on the verge of greatness as they are one of only eight teams left in the tournament.

INTERIOR. GYMNASIUM.

The students file into the gym for the pep rally. They form a sea of red around the bleachers. Coach Williams, Brian, Caleb, and Franklin are standing outside the door.

FRANKLIN You know nobody even cared about this team until we started winning.

BRIAN Hey, would you have honestly come and watched us? I know I wouldn’t have.

CALEB I couldn’t even get my parents to come watch us. They wouldn’t even admit to people I was on this team.

BRIAN My Dad would put a brown paper bag over his face before our games.

COACH WILLIAMS Hey, that was a long time ago, guys. We’re on the verge of the greatest tournament run in the history of the state.

Todd walks past, giving high fives to all of them, and then walks out onto the court holding a microphone. The crowd begins to go crazy.

TODD Redbirds, Redbirds, Redbirds…

The crowd soon joins in. Todd motions for the crowd to quiet down.

TODD (CONT’D) Yeah, you know we’re about to have everyone’s favorite team run out here in a minute.

The crowd breaks out again in applause. TODD (CONT’D) First I gotta say some things to you guys. I truly want to thank you all for coming to these games and supporting this team. It has been a wild ride. You guys believed in this team and got them to believe in themselves. We need you guys at the rest of these games. This is gonna be these guys last home game, let’s make it special.

More applause from the crowd.

TODD (CONT’D) O.K., O.K., here they are your St. Jude Redbirds!

The crowd cheers emphatically as the team walks out onto the court.

TODD (CONT’D) We’re gonna call the seniors up one by one to say something to you all. Let’s start with Caleb.

The crowd claps. Todd gives Caleb the microphone.

CALEB Thanks guys. So uh…yeah. I ‘m not really sure what to say. Ummm, I don’t know I’m speechless. I can’t say enough about this team, the fans, the coaches, our families, everyone. It’s been great; I won’t let you all down. Thanks.

The crowd cheers again as he gives the microphone back to Todd.

TODD Next up I need to see Brian Davis up here front and center.

Brian walks up and takes the microphone.

BRIAN Beat the Cougars. That’s the task at hand. Here in our own gym in front of the best fans around. This is what we worked for. Let’s make it happen!

He gives the microphone back to Todd and walks off. The crowd again claps.

TODD O.K., I know this next guy probably doesn’t want to say anything but Franklin come say something on behalf of the team.

Franklin takes the microphone, the crowd applauds.

FRANKLIN It’s been fun. Let’s keep winning.

He hands the microphone back to Todd and walks off. The crowd goes wild.

TODD There is one last guy I have to get up and speak to you guys. A great teammate, friend, student, athlete and leader, we wish you could get out there as we make our title run. Brady…

The crowd takes part in an extended applause. They continue to cheer and yell such things as “We love you Brady”, and “You the man” as stands waiting to speak.

BRADY Thanks guys, thanks, thank you. It’s great the enthusiasm I hear in this room right now. I just wanna thank the few people who stuck by us, even when we weren’t winning games. I wanna thank you guys for your concern. You know I’ve been hearing all kinds of stuff; win it for Brady, and whatever else. No, I don’t believe that, do this for yourselves. Do this for the cougars, so they never underestimate us again. So they have to watch us as we hold up that trophy. I have had to hear so much about how great they are, so what, you know who else is great. The Redbirds are…and we are gonna show them on Friday!

Todd walks up next to him. They shake hands and begin a chant of redbirds. This goes on for a while, and then the crowd gets quieter.

TODD One last guy has to talk, the master motivator, Mr. Coach Williams.

Coach Williams walks up to applause and takes microphone.

COACH WILLIAMS You know there’s not a lot to say after that speech. I have loved every minute of coaching this season, even when times were tough. We are so close to our goal, and the outcome is entirely up to us. I’m gonna let Todd come up here again and say whatever else has to be said.

Todd takes the microphone.

TODD We’re actually gonna let the cheerleaders come out here for a minute. So let’s give them a big hand.

The room goes silent. The cheerleaders come out to cheer. They are a much unorganized group of less than beautiful girls. They start a victory chant and no one joins in. As they are doing a cheer an overweight girl falls. Todd begins to talk after the number is over with.

TODD Wow thanks girls that was-wow. I mean what can I say about that performance? Really guys, thanks, that was awesome. Well, we gotta end this thing now so let’s close it out properly. R-E-D-B-I-R-D-S.

______

from The Corn Huggers By Joey Tabler

Buck is an Oklahoma teenage farm boy. One day when he was plowing the fields, he takes a break in the shade of the trees. There he finds a crashed government secret. He goes into town the next day to go to church.

TOWN SQUARE DAY

Three men in black suits, and wearing sunglasses, are standing in the center of the square looking around at the crowd bustling to and fro. GREG is one of the three men in black suits.

MAN 1 Does it look like any of these people would know where it is?

MAN 2 No, these are all citizens of the town. We need to find someone from the rural areas nearby.

Greg points toward the church, which is just letting people out from mass.

GREG What about those dirt-sacks over there? Those flee-bitten mangy farmers probably come from out in the country side to go to Church.

MAN 1 Good thinking sir.

GREG Right, now stop your brown-nosing and go arrest one of them for littering or something.

CHURCH EXT. DAY

Buck and his family have just gotten out of church. They are standing in front of FATHER GIUDO.

FATHER GIUDO May God live in your hearts.

BUCK Bye Father.

Buck and his family walk away from the church towards the town-square.

MOM Now Buck we are going to look around, we need a couple things for the farm. Meet us back here in an hour or you will have to walk home.

Family walks off towards the shops while Buck starts toward the hardware store. He hears a loud crash coming from an alley way leading out of the square. When he enters the alley, he is jumped by Greg and his men. Man 2 lifts Buck up into the air by his armpits. Buck struggles in the air legs flailing madly in the air.

MAN 2 What about this one, boss? He looks like a dirty little corn-hugger.

GREG Yes, he certainly does…

BUCK Put…me…down!

GREG Then you’ll just have to answer some questions for us, boy!

Buck then kicks Man 2 in the crotch. Man 2 gasps and drops Buck, who roles to one knee gets up and starts sprinting for the trees at the edge of town. He almost makes it out of the alleyway when Man 1 trips him and he falls to the ground. Man 1 lifts him up and slams him against the wall.

GREG You’ve got a little fight in you. Well, you’re going to answer our questions, and then you can fight in jail all you want because you just assaulted a government agent.(beat) Now then, on your patch of mud, have you in the last two years or so seen anything thing strange?

Buck stares at him in the eyes and spits at his feet. Greg jumps back avoiding the spit. He takes out a knife.

GREG Since you’re not cooperating, we’ll just have to give you a little incentive.

He takes Buck’s immobile arm, and rests the knife on it.

GREG Well boy, have you seen anything strange in your lands? BUCK I’ve seen three dumb government buffoons assault a minor.

GREG I’m warning you boy! If you don’t talk I’ll slice open your dirty little arm!

BUCK What the hell do you think I am? The only thing I do every day is tend crops! What the hell do you think happens? Every once in a while I step in a cow pie! Is that strange to you?

GREG I know you’re hiding something! Talk or I’ll slice your arm like a ripe peach!

BUCK Oh, well the other day these aliens came and abducted a couple cows, and then after that Bigfoot came and had breakfast with us.

Greg’s eyes darken and he slices open Buck’s arm. Buck winces, then bellows as he lifts up his legs and kicks Man 1 in the chest, breaking his hold and sending him to the ground. Buck lands on his feet and takes off running in the direction of the forest. Greg looks at his bloody knife.

GREG And now we know how to find it.

He turns around and kicks man 2.

GREG Come on you lazy goons get up and get the dogs; this blood will help us find him.

CHURCH EXT DAY

Buck runs up to the church. He runs around to the back and starts banging on the door.

BUCK Father Guido! Open up!

He continues to bang on the door.

FATHER GUIDO What? Who’s there?

BUCK Father Guido, its Buck, open up!

Father Guido opens the door and lets Buck in.

CHURCH INT. DAY

FATHER GUIDO What is it? What’s wrong?

BUCK Some men are after me!

FATHER GUIDO Were they wearing dark black suits and sunglasses?

BUCK Yeah, do you know them?

FATHER GUIDO Yeah, those bastards took money out of the collection basket.

BUCK They attacked me and questioned me if I’d seen anything strange. When I didn’t answer, they cut my arm.

He holds his arm up for Father Guido to see.

FATHER GUIDO They just dumped the whole basket into their coat pockets. (Beat) I’m sorry did you say something Buck?

BUCK Yeah, those men attacked me in an alley.

FATHER GUIDO What for?

BUCK They wanted to know if I had seen something.

FATHER GUIDO Did you tell them anything? BUCK I said he was a damn government goon.

FATHER GUIDO Well that explains why they took my collection money.

BUCK Do you mind if I stay here for a while? I think they’re after me.

FATHER GUIDO No, Buck I don’t mind but you’ll have to help me with some priestly duties.

BUCK Like what?

FATHER GUIDO Like disposing of the old communal wine. Actually, I’ll take care of that, you just bring it to me.

BUCK Where is it?

FATHER GUIDO It’s in the room behind the altar.

Buck gets up and walks to the room.

ROOM BEHIND THE ALTAR INT DAY

Buck enters room and turns on the lights. He walks toward the wine which is on a table on the side of the room. He walks across the room.

CHURCH EXT DAY

Greg and men are walking towards the church. Man 2 is holding the leash of a bloodhound. They walk around to the back and look in a window. The room is dark then the lights come on. Buck walks across the room until he is out of sight.

GREG Hey, isn’t that that kid? To be continued…

Meditations

In the style of art historian Sr. Wendy Becket, students were challenged to write meditations inspired by great works of art.

Meditation on Myron’s Discus Thrower By Sam Kinney

Look at Myron’s Discus Thrower. It is a Classical Greek sculpture made of marble around 400 B.C.E. Notice the muscles, which the man has gotten through hard work. Notice how the muscles are clearly defined on the man’s arms, legs, and chest. Notice how the man is practicing or competing with determination in order to get better. Notice also how his form looks so graceful. It looks like the man has practiced his throwing many times and perfected each aspect of discus throwing.

Many times in our lives we want to get better at something we do. Whether it is sports or memorizing something in school, the only way to get better is to practice. If someone wants to be able to run faster, he or she must run hard every day. Also if someone wants to learn something, he or she must review it many times. With hard work and determination, people can get better at whatever they want. People must have the diligence to complete what they have started if they ever want to become better at what they enjoy doing.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Dear God, please help us become better at whatever we do by giving us the determination to work through hard times and improve on what we do. Amen.

Meditation on Caravaggio’s Boy Bitten by Lizard By Michael Flannigan

Caravaggio’s Boy Bitten by a Lizard is an oil on canvas painting that was painted around 1595. Notice the lizard biting the boy’s middle finger. Notice the elements of still life surrounding the boy. Notice the expression on his face while being bitten. Notice all the different emotions you can identify in the young boy’s face. He is scared, surprised, anxious, fearful, and terrified just to name a few. Notice though how he has the expression of learning a life lesson by experience.

Sometimes life can bite, and in this painting, life can literally bite. Sometimes life only bites a little while other times it can seem to take a whole chunk out of you. Whenever life does get you down, you should always try to get something positive out of it. Take for example this painting. The boy experienced the pain of being bitten by a lizard, but now he has comprehension not to try and touch a wild animal. Furthermore every time life bites we need to follow the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” You cannot avoid bumps in the road of life, but you can rise up from them and that is what defines success.

Dear God, Let us realize that neither we nor life is perfect, and bumps in life are an everyday occurrence. Helps us to be able to realize the importance of a failure; that we might be able to seize the opportunity to learn and grow from the experience. Help us to be strong in all our choices. Amen.

Meditation on Goya’s Casa de Locos

By David Wigginton

Consider Goya’s Casa de Locos oil-on- canvas painting from 1815. Goya depicts an insane asylum of society in his time. Goya has a very pessimistic perspective on human nature, claiming that humans are inherently evil. Goya strips these figures of all humanity and dignity in this painting. The figures possess no trace of individuality at all; their faces are blurred and skewed preventing any noticeable sense of an individual. Also Goya illustrates many of the figures naked to exemplify the notion of losing one’s dignity. These men are publicly humiliated by being placed in the middle of the public eye.

While Goya maintains a rather radical stance on the idea of humans being inherently evil, his painting conveys a valuable lesson to the viewer. Goya stresses the loss of humanity and dignity in his painting. One of the worst experiences one can face in life is humiliation and loss of dignity. No one wants to be belittled by anyone; our confidence gone, our humanity vanquished, our dignity stripped. One feels powerless in a situation like this, and most likely we will all experience this difficult situation. We need to be examples for others around us and stand up for those who are persecuted in society and cannot stand up for themselves.

Dear God, we ask you to provide us the audacity to stand up for the unfortunate members of our society, as well as giving everyone the dignity and respect all humans deserve. Amen.

Meditation on Gainsborough’s Robert Andrews and Wife By Nick Ruppelt

Thomas Gainsborough painted Robert Andrews and His Wife Frances in 1748. In this painting, a man and his wife are together next to a large tree. Notice the people’s elaborate clothing. Also the man is holding a gun and has his hunting dog standing next to him. Look at the expressions on their faces. Both characters seem to be at peace and without worries. The paintings background presents a scene with serene nature that runs for miles with trees and fields. Finally, the sky is a light blue with white, fluffy clouds scattered throughout.

We all need to take time and admire nature. Whether you are hunting or taking a hike, actions like these allow humans to appreciate the world. By traveling into nature, we can eliminate some stress from our hectic lives. God created the world to be pleasing to the eye and to be serene. We need to take time to appreciate what God created for us. By taking time out of our days, life can be easier on us. Just as the people in the painting are doing, we need to find places like this one. Gainsborough knew what society needed so he painted this painting.

In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Dear God, help us to appreciate the world you created. Allow us to realize what is truly needed in life. Also help us to spend time in nature and relieve us of our daily stress. In your name we pray. Amen.