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At least we don’t have hurricanes.
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I need to go back to Portsmouth, UK to where my boys were born. I’d like to visit my neighbors, and hang with them a day or two. We’re good friends and good company. You don’t find that often enough these days. I’d like to take the boys with me too. We could walk along…
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“Are you still working? Why don’t you retire?” Everybody wanted to know because of the silver hair and wrinkles. Fred asked at the wrong time. Janice was tired and not in the mood. He thought women were silly. He retired early five years ago. “Why? Do you need someone to take care of you?” Janice…
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Drat, dammit, and O hell, my plans to go to the Baltic Sea for vacation had fallen through. I was at the pinnacle of despair, flustered to the very bone. It was the coffee klatches fault. Susan’s husband had put his foot down, he said flat out “No.” He wasn’t about to let her go.…
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It’s the little things that make mountains. Kaiden didn’t want to wear his headphones even though they were a requirement for the test. “I know how to read, why do I have to do this?” He was in the sixth grade, and his third grade reading scores indicated that headphones would be more helpful than…
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What was I supposed to do, paint illustrations of ghost stories?
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Nobody is watching.
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“I know it’s not much, but I’ve been saving this for the apocalypse,” Traci dumped her bag on the dining room table. A ball of twine, a box of matches, a straight razor, scissors, a bottle of valium, and a loaded pistol. “This isn’t the apocalypse, the pipes are backed up. We have to call…
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Betty dreaded opening the package the mailman was about to deliver. She knew what it was when she watched him come up the street. She should just refuse to accept it, turn around and send it back right then. Return to sender. That would be the smart thing to do. She didn’t want to dredge…
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Dirty Snow
“Mom, where are the boots you got me for Christmas?” asked Charlie. He tore the living room upside down looking for them. Couch cushions went flying, followed by blankets, and newspapers, he made an unholy mess. “Stop it! Stop throwing stuff around and straighten this room up right now,” Alice was livid. “You know better… Read more
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Sewing Lesson
Santa brought me a baby doll for Christmas one year that had white curly hair like an old lady. She had a rubber head and blue eyes that would open and close when she sat up and lay down. Her arms and legs were rubber too, attached to a stuffed body. She was about half… Read more
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Haiku in Winter
The whittling down of a grandiloquent tale to seventeen syllables. Getting the juice from it to its purist form wrings the neck of a piece of writing so tight that all that’s left is the essence of its meaning, a haiku. Five seven five. The dear sweet poems of eternity. Pictures in pure form Whittled… Read more
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The Fishing Village
Image generated with AI. I’ve never been to a fishing village in Scotland. I don’t care about cities and tourism. The small town misty cold draws me. I want to walk out on a rocky shore to hear the waves crash and redden my cheeks with cold as long as I can stand the grey… Read more
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Story Published!
Thank you, Nolcha Fox and Chewers and Masticadores! Beatrice Entombed Millard watched the undertakers close the drawer that held Beatrice’s casket, and waited until everyone left the cemetery. A dusty brown cloud followed a parade of black limousines crawling their way up the side of a mountain to the main road. The last thing he… Read more
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At least we don’t have hurricanes.
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I need to go back to Portsmouth, UK to where my boys were born. I’d like to visit my neighbors, and hang with them a day or two. We’re good friends and good company. You don’t find that often enough these days. I’d like to take the boys with me too. We could walk along…
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“Are you still working? Why don’t you retire?” Everybody wanted to know because of the silver hair and wrinkles. Fred asked at the wrong time. Janice was tired and not in the mood. He thought women were silly. He retired early five years ago. “Why? Do you need someone to take care of you?” Janice…
-
Drat, dammit, and O hell, my plans to go to the Baltic Sea for vacation had fallen through. I was at the pinnacle of despair, flustered to the very bone. It was the coffee klatches fault. Susan’s husband had put his foot down, he said flat out “No.” He wasn’t about to let her go.…
-
It’s the little things that make mountains. Kaiden didn’t want to wear his headphones even though they were a requirement for the test. “I know how to read, why do I have to do this?” He was in the sixth grade, and his third grade reading scores indicated that headphones would be more helpful than…
-
What was I supposed to do, paint illustrations of ghost stories?
-
Nobody is watching.
-
“I know it’s not much, but I’ve been saving this for the apocalypse,” Traci dumped her bag on the dining room table. A ball of twine, a box of matches, a straight razor, scissors, a bottle of valium, and a loaded pistol. “This isn’t the apocalypse, the pipes are backed up. We have to call…
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Betty dreaded opening the package the mailman was about to deliver. She knew what it was when she watched him come up the street. She should just refuse to accept it, turn around and send it back right then. Return to sender. That would be the smart thing to do. She didn’t want to dredge…
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Long ago
I’m still not used to the Fourth of July without the indignity of the sumptuous feasts my mother concocted on her birthday. They had everything but bursting fireworks against the black sky. They weren’t necessary for her celebrations. Everyone was too tired for them by dark anyway. The family would have had to replenish its…
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Lasagne Night
“Do you remember when we had dinner in that old house in the woods on the farm?” Ruby asked as she took the pan of lasagne out of the oven. Alan smiled. “Yeah, you wore your prom dress and I wore my sport coat. Mom made lasagne for us. We took it to that little…
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School’s Out for Summer
Image generated with AI Being home in my forest among my flowers allows me to be me. The old people said “tending violets cures melancholy.” There’s something about digging in dirt to plant my begonias and impatiens that does the same thing. It restores my soul from working all fall and winter. Every morning of…
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Goulash
Image generated with AI. “I’m making goulash for dinner tonight. I’m going to use Mom’s recipe too.” said Janice. Mason hoped she remembered the recipe. Sometimes her memory of her Mom’s dishes were sketchy and turned out awful like the soup. He was skeptical of this goulash stuff. It had a weird name to it…
Devonne Brown 