Say Cheese Part 3

The next morning, we assembled for breakfast at dawn and, after we had tidied up and got ourselves ready, we left the Refuge in the five Volvos, all fully fuelled from one of the tankers.

We had sirloin steaks that night with garlic french fries and home-made yeast rolls. The cotton was dry and needed to be hauled in and uncle Sidney was in the field from daybreak to dusk. I could tell the work was taking its toll on him. His face, arms and neck seemed blistered from the sun and his eyes seemed hollowed over. And no matter how much he seemed to bathe, he always seemed to be caked in dust.

Retransitioned
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I saw him across the room, and my blood ran cold. I knew when we split up that I would have to avoid all the places that we loved to go to together, and to avoid mixing with people that we knew as a couple, but it seemed to me this was not one of those places. He was not interested in art before he met me, so why would he be at the opening of that exhibition?

Calci and I were working on our anti-mind control potion again. Like the other day the first half of the class had been a lecture on various alchemicals and how they interact with each other. Professor Pyrotechny was still smoking from adding dragons bile to cockatrice venom. The clockwork teacher been demonstrating why reading the instructions was extremely important, and how two seemingly harmless ingredients could have a very volatile reaction.

I can’t believe that I was doing this. I had (stupidly) competed with my girlfriend, Carrie, over the Oscars. Initially starting as playful fun, we made a bet with each other that, whoever had the most correct Oscar winners, got to choose something for the loser to do as “punishment”. After careful decision-making, I had decided that, if I won, then Carrie would have to mow the lawn in her bikini, once a week, for the entire summer. Having heard my choice, Carrie made hers similar to mine.