Rufus, Cynthia and Claire walked in to the front room. They stood there in dumbfounded silence. Not only had Amy changed her clothes - something she’d never been able to do, but she was skipping around the kitchen, humming to herself and making breakfast. “What in blazes?” Rufus broke the collective silence. “Rufus! Hey!” Amy giggled. “What the heck?” He reiterated. “Watch this!” Amy looked smug as she went incorporeal an...

The phone rang. My mom picked it up. “Hello… Well… Wow… Yeah… We'll come pick him up in a few hours… Okay… Bye” she said in a one-sided conversation. She left the coiled corded rotary phone that hung from the wall, and sat down at the kitchen table with her coffee. “Niemeyer’s just called. They have a sick pig they want to get rid of. Marsha’s going to be here any time though.” Marsha was the same age as my mom, had been...

“Tell me a story, Lucy,” Alice murmured, staring skyward, watching the clouds form dragons or, possibly, cats. “And give it a happy ending this time, please.” Lucy shrugged and lay down her pen aside, deep in thought as she plucked blades of grass from the summer lawn and twirled them between thumb and forefinger. “Would you like to hear of Goldilocks and the three bears?” “Anything, as long as it doesn’t involve Rapunzel...

“You’re being melodramatic, as usual,” she mused, tracing a jagged line across the table top with the tip of her nail. “You’re not listening,” Lucy spat, tears flowing down her face, the onion on the cutting board forgotten as she plunged the knife’s tip into the counter. “I just want you to shut up and listen for once, and not go hide in your books like you always do. Would it kill you to let yourself feel something?” Su...

The last van load was finally delivered to Rufus’ flat.“Wow, it’s finally official,” Cynthia sighed.“Not yet,” Rufus smiled.“Huh?” Cynthia was confused.“Here you go!” Rufus fished a key out of his pocket and gave it to Cynthia, “now it’s official! Now, let’s get the last of this unpacked,” he grinned.“I know something else we could do that would be just as tiring,” Cynthia winked.“Okay! You’re naughty!”Rufus paid his frie...

Crow a Love Story A friend told me about all the noise by the flocks of Indian house crows. Of how the British had brought them from India to their colonies in Africa, to be scavengers, and like most man- made solutions that can backfire, it did with the crows in eastern Africa. Crows are known bullies and will, given the time, run off all other. They will eat the local birds eggs, raiding the nests for chicks, and eat al...

Sharlene sat at the piano for what seemed like hours, staring at the keys. She reminisced of times spent with Klyde. She began fingering the keys and notes she never heard before began to play. She closed her eyes and images played in her mind as the music flowed. His fingers played over her body elegantly. He knew exactly what he was doing and where to touch to get the most erotic responses from her. Klyde was truly a ma...

The General stands on the edge of the forest. His grey-green eyes haunted by death and destruction looks over the beauty of the meadow before him His heavy armor matches the heaviness in his heart. When will the bloodshed and devastation stop. Blood covers his armor and face. His own or others he does not know or care. He is lost in despair. His eyes take in the sprawling green meadow before him. Lush green fields with cl...

Behind her faded net curtains, she indulges herself by watching her neighbors pass by. The lineaments of her face are partially hidden. She stands in her "slightly untidy" living room, which affords her a better view of the street. Faded family photographs, placed in a neat row, smile at her from their ornate frames. She dusts them dutifully every morning, "Just in case someone visits." The hands of her grandfather clock...

WHAT SUMMER MEANS TO ME Summer means no school. Summer means having to mow your yard instead of going fishing or swimming. And to make matters worse, my tightwad father don't hardly pay me a thing for all that work. He claims riding around on a John Deere for a couple of hours isn't some kind of cruel and unusual punishment. And he also says he won't pay me time-and-a-half for hazardous duty. Someday I’m going to turn him...

My name is Mindy. I'm five years old. My hair is long and brown. I live with my mommy. She says my hair is pretty. She says I'm pretty, too. My mommy has to work a lot. I miss her but I get to stay with my Meme. My Meme is very old. Mommy is old too, but not as old as Meme. Meme says she was a young girl once. I can hardly believe that. But I always believe my Meme, and I love to stay with Meme because we cook together an...

Visiting time was finally over and Rufus bid his visitors farewell. He’d had quite a good visit and managed to get a bit of business done. All he really wanted to do, however, was get back to his journal. “Hey, would you lot mind if I wrote in my journal for a bit? There’s something I need to get written down,” Rufus asked.“Nah, it’s okay, time for my programme, anyway” Cynthia smiled.“Okay, I’ll get out of your face, too...

Hello all. I'm trying something out here. It's an 'internal musing.' I think it's called? Most of my stories so far here have been about nostalgic-look-backs, so I thought who better to ref nostalgia, than an old person? So I wrote a first draft and sent it in pm to a good friend, who's a critic, who ran over it with a wagon, reversed back over it, then ran it over again just to make sure! I must admit on reflection, it w...

One Door Closes. . . I spent the last six months in my failure-of-a-marriage, tying up loose ends. Divesting myself of all that I'd gained in twenty years. We all accumulate things, to keep under the banner of, “what-if ?” We'd had all our hurtful arguments. Each trying to score points off each other like a weird new X-box game. Except as far as I was concerned this was no game I ever wanted to play again. I was played ou...

Rufus wanted nothing more than to pace the floor, but being bed bound and advised against any strenuous activity, he could do nothing. Instead he just mimicked the movement, which was part of his physiotherapy anyway, and wished he could have a smoke. 'Suppose this could be a good opportunity to give up, though,’ he thought, resigning himself to not smoking, ‘meh, I still wanna smoke. Stressed out here!’“Hey Roof, I’m bac...