Rosa went upstairs to check on Karen to find her on her knees in her bedroom apparently playing with someone who wasn’t actually there. Having been a nanny for many years Rosa didn’t see any harm in the fact that a nine-year-old had an imaginary friend, it has been something she had seen on a number of occasions and if no good ever came from it before then Rosa was unaware of that no good. Karen’s father had passed away a...

‘Forgive me father for I have sinned...’ Father Joe usually took confession on a Friday evening and on one certain Friday in particular his first confession would also be his last of the evening. This one confession stunned him so to the point that he would not be able to continue on taking more. It would take him to his own past and also have him question his future. ‘...Twenty-five years ago, today I killed a boy and I...

The worst thing about being an executive of any business in a time of recession is when it is decided that the necessary cutbacks are to be job losses, especially when one of the unfortunate employees is a friend or even a neighbour or even someone who is both. This morning I had to let Arthur Dempsey go. Arthur is in his late fifties, even though he is well experienced and very dependable, he is not as quick or as cheap...

If you are going to become a butterfly and learn to float through the air, then you first must be the caterpillar and learn how to crawl. One can't simply just be a butterfly. Be the caterpillar, keep your head down, work hard, and dream big then one day, one day if the universe allows it, the time will come where you will open your wings and you will take to the skies. Big Bill was not always so big. His memories stretch...

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result so maybe I am insane for no matter how I protest my innocence I am still going on trial, and my trial begins today. Insanity is the state of being seriously mentally ill, it can be described as extreme foolishness or irrationality but no matter what description or definition can be given, none of it helps me. I am innoc...

'I am finally gonna get to come out your way.' Paul smiled as the words appeared on his computer screen, still, even though he liked what he read, he didn't quite believe the words and it would take a moment or two for him to adapt to the statement as being something of fact and not an empty promise or a promise that may not come to be, but this was something which was actually going to happen whether Paul is ready for it...

Greg and Sam had never met prior to the day they accidentally collided with each other. There had been no malice, intent, or even any real force in the collision but for something which had been so accidental, it had been enough to knock both men off their feet. Sam felt quite woozy, but he did, however, manage to get up quite quickly while quite oddly there was absolutely no movement at all from Greg. It took a moment or...

The first time I saw her, she was crying while sitting on a wooden bench by the brick work entrance to the local town park. Being as large as it is, the park has five points of entry, the largest of which is that brick work entrance, also known as the Village entrance, as it is the closest the park comes to the town village. Ten feet to her left stood an old-fashioned streetlamp no taller than twelve feet high. Ten feet t...

Baby… Oh, baby… My sweet baby… You’re the one… To understand the way forward, the road to the future, one must go back in time… It can be said that love can sometimes be strange as it can also be said that love is eternal though what can be stranger or more strange than anything ever associated with love is to be caught in a loop with a part to play to keep love in order, for one particular relationship to ever come about...

Rick and Martha drove up to the hilltop that they frequently used to go to in the days from when they were courting. It had usually been quite dark and mild on nights when they would have gone up there all those years ago as it also is on this particular evening. Yeah, it has been some time since they last came here. Recent reminiscing has brought about this special trip to a special place that holds so many special memor...

There is a certain vagueness, a feeling of ‘not being there’ that is heavily associated with dreaming, whether that be daydreaming or night-time dreaming or even with nightmares; you know that feeling, you’ve experienced it yourself. It comes more so in the waking moment than in the dream itself. You know you have had a dream and that it was only that, just a dream and nothing more. I only really fully remember one dream...

Alex Jeffries wrote fiction for a living. His own personal paranoias were a known constant source of inspiration for his writings. Within his own life and according to himself, there were conspiracies everywhere, and everyone was out to get him. Even in death, his paranoia had to be catered to, for Alex feared being buried alive more than he feared anything else and when he was to be buried, he wanted to ensure that he wa...

'Hey, you're home early,' speaks Pedro as he greets his beautiful fiancée with a brief kiss on the lips as she returns home. 'Yeah, got a half-day I wasn't expecting,' speaks Monica with a smile. 'You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, now would you?' 'What? Who me? Nah ... not at all, c'mon, let's go?' 'Go? Where? ... I only just got in.' 'Don't worry about that. Bags are packed, and we're ready to roll.' 'Roll...

Hubert Granise, pacing the length of his pleasant lamp-lit library, paused to compare his watch with the clock on the chimney-piece. They were both in perfect sync just as they were when last he compared them only two minutes earlier. ‘Damn,' he thought, ‘Where is that boy?' The boy Hubert was referring to is Aengus Brennan, a young man with an internship with the city newspaper whose future career in reporting depended o...

On a Saturday morning, just one week away from Christmas day, six-year-old George Mackie awoke to find that outside his window a blanket of snow covered the ground. He couldn't wait to go and wake his nine-year-old sister and go outside to build a snowman with her. Dora had been up for over a half-hour already, she wanted to be ready and able to go play with her brother. Being not so well, Dora couldn't stay out very long...