On the twenty-eighth of October nineteen-sixty-five, the Llyn Celyn reservoir in North Wales was officially opened. Its primary purpose was to supply water for the city of Liverpool. The whole project had been steeped in controversy. To create the lake, the small village of Capel Celyn, which included twelve houses and farms, a post office, a school, and a chapel with cemetery, was to be drowned under the floodwater. The...

“Zombies are real. Zombies are real,” Felix mumbled to himself as he stumbled through the chaos surrounding him in the neighbourhood. There were dead bodies lying everywhere, scattered across the lawns and driveways of the homes along the street. There were also bodies walking around, though they were just as dead as the ones on the ground. They just happened to have their brains still stuck inside their craniums and were...

The power company needed the dam. At least that was what the newspapers had reported. The town was soon abandoned, cemeteries relocated, schools and churches gutted, stores emptied.  It would take almost three weeks to fully submerge. She woke slowly. Her head was pounding and cloudy. She fought through the haze to connect one thought with another. None of them added up to make sense of why she was there.  As she forced a...

You weren’t always a ghost, sometimes a bit distant or “emotionally reserved” as they say, this easy, strong, quiet presence. Six feet tall and suave, you with the crazy wave in your hair, fierce dimples, a hint of gold around your pupils, all of it. You wrapped me. I was a junkie for years before the doctor gave us the diagnosis, that dim one. And so in time, you began to diminish. Mouth slack, the sunken eyes, all those...

It’s 4 AM. My mother wants to drive. There’s nowhere for us to go, but she wants to tell me about Jesus, the devil, and music. It’s summertime. I don’t get to go to school. She has turned the radio knob up as high as it will go, and the sounds of pianos, guitars, and horns fill the air. My mother used to be a sexy singer in a cocktail lounge before her head got sick, all sour. Now, she collects checks in the mailbox, and...

The Miami sun is a friend of mine. Dappling off the pool's surface in the early morning, the sun creates playful, refracted, writhing patterns on the surface. The rippling patterns shifting in size and shape bring me a little joy. I wait quietly, knowingly, for sunscreen-covered, bikini-clad teenage girls to fill the pool area with boys, giggles, and estrogen. Eventually, their parents will arrive with the day's heat. The...

Lavi stood in the cool dew-covered field. She loved the feel of the dampness on her toes. In this moment of meditation with the bird’s screams bouncing off her ears, she felt connected with the earth.  Soon the field would be stamped down; run over by the tires of rubes coming to enjoy the sights and sounds. By children running here and there, stuffing their faces with cotton candy or candy apples. The bright red sticky t...

Checked my mobile phone, it showed three fifty-eight in the morning. It was not even four in the morning, and I am still wide awake, staring at the whirling ceiling fan. Dismissed the set-alarm and pondered whether to start my day early or just stay laid back in bed for another thirty minutes.  The moment I remembered her beautiful smiling face. I got excited to start my day and get ready. After I freshened up. I wore my...

Screams erupted from every ride in the carnival, even the not-particularly-scary ones like the Ferris Wheel and the Turtle Train, as Conor walked the midway. The smell of funnel cakes and corn dogs and cotton candy washed over him. Discarded hamburgers and crushed lemons from discarded cups of lemonade littered the ground. He looked in the hall of Funhouse mirrors and saw the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Long red...

At Bronwig’s bookshop there's a notice on the door, in red capitals: IN LIQUIDATION. It’s devastating. I’d been a customer since I was too small to see more than the top of Mr Bronwig’s head behind the counter. His hair was white, even then; delicate as cotton candy. I didn’t come to Bronwig’s for the books at first. I came for the turtles. When you bought a book, Mr Bronwig would delicately fold a paper model to serve as...

It was not a great Summer. The girl I was seeing decided to seek greener pastures and I fought with my buddy Dr. Radio about the way he ran his mobile DJ business. We had a verbal disagreement which ended with my quitting and stopped taking his phone calls. It was on the Friday of that week that I headed out to drown my sorrows at a well known and lively bar/ restaurant named the "Fast Break". There in the large back room...

It was a beautiful summer day in Wisconsin. The family reunion was in full swing. The adults were sitting around talking as the sun was shining high in the summer sky. The kids were running around the back yard shrieking. They needed to get sunscreen put on.The adults were sipping lemonade trying to beat the heat  as they  watch the kids jumping in the pool one by one, splashing and having a good time. Andrew was in the s...

Welcome, citizen of Earth. It is hoped that you enjoy your sojourn to the stars but there are several important points to Galactic Culture that you must learn before you leave Earth space for more exotic climes.  Now, as you know that for the Earth to join the Galactic Federation, Earth and its people had to make three contributions to the Federation. If the Earth could not make viable contributions, then the Earth would...

I come up on deck laughing... then freeze, instantly transported in time.  That smell, that unforgettable cloying aroma of funnel cake and sunburned skin leaves me reeling mid-laughter. I start trembling where I stand, unprepared for the whirring picture reel of memories that appear unbidden behind blindly staring eyes. I don't notice Bob talking. I don't notice anything except the screams of children living life at their...

The President extended her hand. "On Earth, this is a symbol of friendship." Standing by the open panel door just inside their spacecraft, the contingency of aliens examined her hand curiously for a moment. Hesitantly, the one in front mimicked the gesture taking her hand. When the President shook its hand, there was great applause amongst all the world's leaders and people of influence gathered in the open field. The Pre...