(This is a different story for me, but one that underlies those who wait for others to give them direction or make decisions for them. Hopefully, in time each of us accepts who we are and learns to live with ourselves.)

CHAPTER 52
I was being pulled in so many directions at once I felt I might tear down the middle.

“Stop fussing, Neil. It’s a bloody wig; they don’t get ‘conditioned’, OK?”

Mam was sat at the dresser doing things to herself while Larinda shepherded the girls next door, but Nelly just HAD to help me, as he saw it. I turned to face him, taking his hands.

“Girl stuff, pet. We take our time but we get there in the end, aye?”

“Dad?”

In virtually every way, she resembled her ‘predecessor;’ the sister in a set of metaphoric fraternal twins, in a way. But her expression and her demeanor were all Christina. No hint of Christopher other than the same reluctant half-smile borne of insecurity and hope. Chris looked at his daughter; perhaps for the first time, in a way and sighed.

Yasmine’s Wedding Switch

...she felt the gentle breeze echo her and she could almost swear she heard a soft flutter, as if a bird had hovered over her. She closed her eyes, failing to notice the woman standing just off the beach on the path. The woman was tall and handsome and appeared to be surrounded by a very large if over-sized mantel. And a second later, the wrap unfurled once again, as if she had been hugging herself. She walked over to Rianna and said something softly, heard above the gentle breeze but almost unspoken as well. Her hand touched Rianna’s face gently before she disappeared like so much fog on an ever-clearing morning….

CHAPTER 51
We stayed the night, as planned, but Mam took her toy boy along with Ian and Von back to our place. Much as he would normally have loved to talk army games with Fossy and Stewart, he was just too drained. He had pulled himself together for Hays, it seemed, and that was all he had left.

Bridges 36

Chapter 36

Two weeks later…

“Uggh…!” I push away from the kitchen table when Brandon comes in with Ryan and several take out bags.

“Ouch.” Ryan says grinning. “That bad?”

FTL-17…Faster Than Life.

Chapter 17

I’m scared really as I’m sipping at my water and trying not to feel like I’m about to go through a great deal of pain. Sipping is important because if I drank a lot of water then there would be some or rather more of it in my stomach waiting for Corporal Armstrong to beat out of my in a spray of eww.

Before the likely sprays of blood…

My teeth…

Everyone’s ready but me and that includes her outside the ring with some of her people and she’s kicking this big pad one of them’s holding and the heavy "thud" is audible.

And she's staring me down with a savage grin.

This is a VERY dark Altered Fates tale. It contains obscenity, the rape of two girls (males transformed by the Medallion), and the ravings of a very sick mind. (Not me, the narrator, and no wisecracks, please, about not being able to tell the difference.)

This was an experiment; a thought piece to see what would happen if a truly nasty man found the Medallion and decided to use it for his own purposes.

But if they had a contest between the three women at the table as to who was the most insecure, it might have been a dead heat. The girl felt so badly about herself that she had given into hopelessness. The woman who loved her felt overshadowed by a woman whose only fault was that her husband had built her up into a hero of mythical proportion, even in death. And the woman sitting across from them witnessed the love between the two, feeling entirely unworthy and inauthentic; as if being herself was some mere phase of life rather than the huge struggle she had endured with much success.

Love and Old Books…Finale

It changed everything that weekend and I mean it changed everything…

I will remember that night forever but the next day too. I woke up and it was chilly even with it being summer but the smell of the water coming in off the beach was still heavy in the air and there’s nothing like it really the smell of salt water that close. It mixed with the sounds of the waves hitting the beach and the smell of us, of Valerie sleeping there beside me.

I rubbed some more thankful, so thankful wetness from my eyes with my thumb and then I rolled over and spooned her wrapping an arm around her and the blankets and just holding her.

Smelling her skin, her hair.

There are some perfect moments in this world.

Victorianna Pentangelo stood on a hill overlooking Lake Ewuana. She trembled at the thought of what she was about to do. Looking down at her right hand, she felt the weight of the gun pulling at her; beckoning in a way. She breathed a deep sigh and put the gun to her right temple. As she did, she said a quick prayer, seeking forgiveness for the unforgiveable...

Love and Old Books…Part Four

It was a few days before we saw each other again. We kept talking online about work and books and breakfasts some was on my computer but I wanted to be able to talk with her whenever so…I broke down and I bought a phone with texting…that was just.

I was at the Parker Place Mall after just getting my phone and I’m trying to text Valerie back with my big mits on this teeny tiny phone when hear her giggling.

“Oh My God!” She exclaims her hand over her mouth and giggling.

“What?” I’m hunched over still trying to hit the right keys.

“You look so cute trying that.” She smiles this sweet smile and comes over and looks upside down at my screen. “Who are you texting?”

“You, or I was. What are you doing here?”

Bridges 35

Chapter 35

I’m smiling as I make it over to the house as quick as I can and stumble inside and kicking my boots off at random the thuds making her giggle on the other end of the phone.

“You’re home?”

“Yes baby I’m home.” I smile into the phone as I’m trying to climb stairs and she clothes at the same time.

“I head the door and your boots.”

I first notice the beeping noises as I awake.

CHAPTER 49
We flew back two days later, work calling for most of us, and Ian due his ‘moderation meeting’ with Ellen and her shark. It had been a heated discussion, Von setting her stall out in front of her son and, to my delight, his new friend. This was Von as I had seen her that day at the Quay, full of fight and passion, but this time for good reason.