athesaurus.com

…breathe deeply and often…

  • The Appointment

    ***Warning! Trigger warnings. Contains thoughts of suicide and mental illness. Possible School Shootings. “Do suicide hotlines keep a record of who calls when and why?” Bob talked suicide over with the shrink at his last appointment.  “Probably,” she was taking fast notes on the computer as well as on the notepad beside her. Her soda Read more

  • Remembering Elouise on Her Birthday

    Elouise, tall and elegant, shrank to five foot nothing by the time she died at seventy-seven. Her youngest daughter, Dagmar, stayed all night with her the day before she died and dreamed of Grandma, Elouise’s mom, that night. She called me that morning to tell me all about it.  “I dreamed about Grandma last night,” Read more

  • Fin

    The sequel to Norris Tales is written, twenty-five thousand, one hundred nine words. Norris Lives. It’s a book of short stories and vignettes about Norris, the seventeen year old cat that I’ve fought and lived with for a long time. Hey, this is a big deal.  I have two more big deals to go, formatting Read more

  • Some thump

    “What the fuck? It’s three a.m. and my kitchen is as nasty now as it was when I fried chicken at noon today,” thought Tess. Something had woken her up out of a sound sleep. Some thump. “What the fuck?” She found the fuck passed out on the couch in the living room. How dare Read more

  • Meteor Shower

    The house went dead quiet and the den lights went out. The whirr of the refrigerator stopped. Norris knew something was wrong, same as I did. He asked for cream before the fridge got warm, he understood. I gave him treats instead. Usually these things flickered and came back on within seconds, then everything blinked, Read more

  • Tune up

    “One of the best parts of the concert is when the orchestra tunes up their instruments,” said Silas. “It hides the frenzy backstage, but hints at it when the squawks and squeaks get flung from the pit to the back of the house.”  “The more frenetic the tune up, the bigger the tribute the director,” Read more


  • Portsmouth

    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…

  • But I don’t want to

    “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…

  • Learning

    I’m too tired to argue and fuss about mess today.

  • Elvis and the Baltic Sea

    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.…

  • Test Day

    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…