Lucas went with the others into the beautiful room where the committee did its work. It had once been a grand library, and marble pillars framed rows of books. There were high balconies all around the sides of the room, looking over the gigantic oval, wooden table that the Academia had had moved into the … [Read more…]
The tree had died and there couldn’t be any doubt about it. It had hung in for a few years, sprouting a few green branches every summer, even though the rest of the tree stayed bare. But that spring even those last, surviving branches hadn’t come back. Now the tree was just a wooden skeleton … [Read more…]
I can’t remember what the adults were doing, all I remember was that they weren’t around. It was a gang of kids that gathered in the dirty wasteland between the houses. We had all moved into a new subdivision, and though the houses were done, the yards hadn’t been finished yet. Between the houses, there … [Read more…]
When I got to the spot at the side of the highway, I couldn’t find the sign that had been there. I was fairly certain that I was near the right place, but I had always depended on the sign to know exactly where the memorial spot was. But someone had taken the sign down, … [Read more…]
It was already hot outside even though it was still early in the day. It had been baking for days, and the nights were just a brief respite of slightly cooler temperatures before the sun came back up and started cooking you again. It was like being put on simmer for a while, before the … [Read more…]
In the interest of accuracy, I’ll tell you now that this is about dreams I had. Some people just hate hearing anything about dreams. “Oh God, not more dream crap,” they say to themselves. But I’m going to tell you about them anyway. They were weird dreams, but they were excellent. I say that, and … [Read more…]
I’d been talking for quite a while and I knew that it was past time that I stop, but I couldn’t help myself, and so I just kept going. Meredith kept laughing at my increasingly poor imitations and observations. I could see in her face, though, that she was also desperate for me to be … [Read more…]
Gerald walked quickly through the city. He scanned the alleys and balconies as he passed by, sure that he was being followed. Eventually, he knew that he’d have to turn down one of the side streets to his right. He couldn’t just keep going straight forever. Every time he came to a corner, though, the … [Read more…]
It was the middle of the day and very sunny, but John had the curtains drawn, and so his apartment was dark. People always associate darkness with crippling depression. In this case, they would have been wrong. It was also a Saturday, which meant that John should have been out being happy in some way … [Read more…]
Newton was the first one to go inside. The animals had been circling around the place for months, wondering what was going on inside, if anything. Of course, they had a whole forest to work with, so the tower was interesting, but hardly the most important thing on their minds. The last couple had left … [Read more…]