In life we all have responsibilities; we all face hardships and deal with tragedy though for me with whatever comes my way I like to see the bright side, the positive side, the good side of life, even during times of difficulty. It is how we deal with adversity that makes us unique, makes us strong, right? Take my older brother for instance. He had been attacked and badly beaten a few years back, nearly six years ago in f...

I was just nine years old in June of 1983 where due to illness I had to spend some time in hospital, ensuring I would miss out on the last couple of weeks of school. I was back to my normal self by the time school started back up that September. The illness itself wasn’t all so strange though the circumstances surrounding it were just that… Strange. A lot of my friends who I hadn't seen during the summer, wanted to know w...

It's a wonder as to how a place like Abe's Diner sees any business at all but business it does see and all the rest too. Castletown is and always has been a rather large and continuously growing town though Abe's sits alone on the outskirts of town more than a fair distance away from everything and anything else noteworthy. Prosper it has and prosper it does for a good three decades now. That’s Abe’s Diner. Kate Evans arr...

The world is forever changing, at times it changes too quickly and not all change is necessarily good change nor is it always a wanted change. What if someone or something does not want to accept change? What if that someone or something is so unhappy being left behind in the doldrums created by progress that a will is created, an energy with a will to fight back and rewind the strides made by progress. Life is a funny th...

I hear it said it is darkest when you cannot recall the exact moment that change took you though we don't really know anything about darkness or being taken anywhere by it, now do we? When the light leaves us and we are only left with the dark, there is only one place that any of us will go. Speaking of which... In total darkness, you see nothing, nada, not a thing and all you can hear is the sound of your own breathing....

We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oh, how dark a place the mind can truly become. Everyone has a dark side. Most of us don't go to, show, or even acknowledge this unilluminated place but it is there all the same, inside each and every one of us. It itches and claws. It scratches and delves. It pulls and pushes. It constantly asks questions of you and you hear these questions being asked whether y...

Seventeen-year-old Jenny Ford was home alone one evening early in the month of December. Her parents were out at a Christmas themed ball and Mary, Jenny's eleven-year-old sister, was having a sleepover at a neighbours house just down the street. The evening darkness had come quite some time ago and it had also been snowing for more than a little while. Jenny sat by the living room window with a book in her hand. When she...

I remember it well for I will never forget. That park was just eight minutes away from home if I walked quickly or five if I ran. Follow the footpath by the river right around almost to the end, cross a field and down a hill then it was through the trees for a moment or two. No one ever came down there, no one, not ever; there was only ever you and me down there. I know it should be you and I, not you and me but we were j...

3. It is early morning and Gus has just left his house to head out to that chemist of his. A couple of days have passed since the visit of and then the subsequent death of constable Pierce Rowan. Gus’s nearest neighbour is once again out in his garden. ‘Hello there, neighbour.’ ‘Hi, beautiful morning isn’t it?’ ‘It is indeed,’ Gus manages to say before his neighbour heads inside. At lunchtime, there is not a soul in Crew’...

The universe, a giant unending night-time sky, an infinity of stars stretching out as far as the eye can see. Some stars are brighter and larger than others; this can be true of the sky above or of the land we live upon. The biggest star, the moon, is full and bright, it moves yet is unmoving. A disk of light leading the way, watching over a world in darkness bathing in light. Floating forever we drift with cloud undernea...

Today is born a seventh one, born of woman, a seventh son, and he in turn a seventh son. He has the power to heal; he has the gift of the second sight. He is the chosen one. So it shall be written, so it shall be done. – Lyrics from Seventh son of a seventh son by Iron Maiden.   Eleven-year-old Jamie was out playing ball by himself. He had been fighting with his brother until his mom scorned him. Jamie is the older brothe...

I remember that day so clearly. June 14th, 1986. It was the day my childhood best friend died. I was twelve and Joe Collins was nearly twelve, he would have got to be twelve years old if things had turned out… Different. He was coming up the garden path when I opened the front door. It was almost eleven and I had been up for hours. We had talked about building a dam the day before. The closest part of the river to us was...

Late in the evening and the light of the near full moon pierced through the quick moving dark smokey clouds. It seemed so strange to see the moon just hanging as low in the sky as it so happened to be. I have never noticed it being so low or remember seeing it seem so big and bright before, it just caught my attention, that and the mist hovering over the lake I passed by gave me such an eerie feeling, as if I were starrin...

Neither Mike nor Jeff knew each other prior to that evening. Their separate journeys on the same long stretch of road would most definitely alter both their lives in many ways, so much so that it would not only bring both of their lives to an end, but it would also see their lives continue on none the wiser as to if anything out of the ordinary occurred at all while creating an afterlife with each other on that long stret...

Insomnia ... I can’t get no sleep ... Can he who is haunted by his actions pass on such a haunting with one single final action? Total darkness, eyes open, disturbed by an unending plop ... plop ... plop ... all there is, and it is all around, an eternal mind-numbing drip that must be stopped, it needs to be stopped. Fully awake in a conscious slumber, that drip must be found and ended. In truth the drip is internal, the...