Having your best friend die is rather unsettling, especially if it quite literally is in your arms.

Mary and I had been talking in the office when she suddenly had a massive heart attack, uttered a few confused words about me and heart and then collapsed. I caught her but before I, or anyone else, could do anything it was too late.

She was a great loss not only to me personally and for her family, her husband Pablo, sixteen year old José Maria and fourteen year old Cory. The publishing company we worked for, “Descartes Publications”, was just as badly hit. Mary had been the “handler” for one of our most profitable authors and she had kept the contacts with the anonymous author very close to her chest. As it turned out she was the only one in the company that knew the true identity of “Corazón Tenderheart” (or as on the books Corazón Tender❤), bestselling author of “Thumping ❤❤, Broken ❤❤, ❤❤United” series of books. In my opinion the soppiest, most braindead romantic drivel ever written, or at least published.

The beginning

Thirteen is an awkward age, stranded somewhere between ‘just a kid’ and ‘old enough to know better’. At thirteen Halloween costumes are the peak of uncool; trick or treating is something for babies, and high school parties are a long way away. But that wouldn’t stop Grayson from making the most of the holiday.

ѦꙮꙚ꙰ꙚꙮѦ

Thursday

The notice board, in keeping with tradition, is tired and worn. With chunks of the cork knocked out, drips of paint from various attempts to liven up the entrance to the community centre, and a small selection of “local happenings”. It kinda shows we’re one of those villages that’s just far enough off the beaten track to be a bit dead.

Gibraltar Falls

I love my history class, but as I looked around at my classmates, I realized that I was pretty much the only one paying attention.

Not that I totally blamed my classmates, as it was the last day of school before spring break, so most of them have ... other things on their minds.

So did I, but I tried and focus on our teacher anyway ...

“All right, let’s just do a quick review of what we’ll be covering when you come back before you all run away on me.” Our teacher said.

It was a contentious meeting.

General Food Products was trying to acquire Matilda's, a leading name in the custom lingerie industry. The lawyers were negotiating while the principals sat there patiently trying to stay awake.

The Scribbler’s favourite way to spend those sweltering summer vacation weeks is to get into a nice hot airless class-room far away from home immersing oneself in irregular verbs, different cases (dative, genitive, instrumental, locative, vocative ....), where to place the verb, making sure that the female plural pronoun didn’t appear together with a male singular adjective, whether to use words like ”the”, ”a” or instead use suffixes or totally ignore any difference between determined of non-determined and so on … and on… and on.

Well this year The Scribbler, for various reasons couldn’t go away to have fun. Forced to stay at home The Scribbler had a look at the July contest at BCTS. That was not the original plan but it was worth having a look though.

It was Friday, June 22 during the end of season JV baseball game to determine the county championship. The score was 2 to 3 in favor of the other team. There was a man on first with 2 outs at the bottom of the last inning. The pressure was on. Kyle stood at the plate staring down the pitcher. The pitcher was clearly sweating as he kept wiping his brow. The first pitch was a ball. Kyle had almost swung at it. The next ball was a strike, a real whiffer. Kyle began sweating. Soon the count was 3 and 2. Kyle then whacked 3 foul balls. Everyone held their breath as the next pitch came in. As the pitcher wound up, Kyle took a deep breath. As the ball flew to the plate Kyle decided it was a perfect pitch. With every bit of his strength, he swung for the sixth time this at bat, exhaling sharply as he did so. The CRACK echoed through the ball field. The ball sailed high for the center field fence. All eyes were glued onto the ball.

“I think that is everything we needed to cover. Any other points?” I said mightily relieved that the meeting was coming to an end.

My team looked at each other but no one spoke until the newest one of the team, Jeremy Ford said,
“So, Frank, are you going to tell us where you are going for your Holidays?”

I smiled. I’d not told anyone what I was going to do for the next three weeks.

“I’m going to the Outer Hebrides. I’ve rented a cottage on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis,” I replied smiling.

“What are you going to do up there?” asked another of my team, Melvyn Sands.

“Not a lot and that’s the beauty of it. There is a long white sand beach just yards from the cottage and not a lot else for miles.”

It all started when I came down sick with some kind of summer "bug" just two days before we were supposed to leave for our vacation.

Our family has been taking vacations together every summer since my dad, a former Staff Sergeant in the Army, was retired on medical grounds. Over the years that he had been serving, he'd seen enough rough and nasty stuff that it almost ate him from the inside out.

Nightmare to Scream for on Friday the 13th

Enjoy this fun little tale about Friday the 13th.

A Staycation Contest Entry

Max Williams smiled when he saw it was his mom calling. It was always great to talk to her. Since she remarried, she’d never been happier.

“Hey, mom. What’s up?”

“Hi, sweetie. How are you doing?”

“I’m great. When are you coming up to visit again?”

“Honey, Henry and I are passing thru in the night. We’re headed up to New York City for the Spring and then we’re flying over to Greece for a cruise. I was hoping you’d do me a favor.”

“Sure. Just say the word.”

Harry pulls his battered pick-up truck up to the house he had been told to clean out by his father. It was to pay his father back for buying the truck he was driving. He grabs his gloves and paper mask as he heads inside the house. He couldn’t believe how much of a mess had been left behind.

The house had been foreclosed on and his father had bought the house at an auction to flip it. His father loved making money. His father was paying him and four of his friends to clean the house out. If there is anything they wanted to come for themselves, they could.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for my lengthy absence, but in addition to battling my depression, I've been dealing with a crippling case of writer's block, not just in the TG field, but in my professional life as well. But the other day I decided to re-read some of my old pieces, and I was struck with the sudden need to give "The Perfect Dress" a new ending. Hopefully this leads to a new beginning for my creative juices.

A young man who never expected to wake up again finds himself in the hospital with a new outlook on the rest of his life.

Staycation Escape

Staycation contest entry

Sometimes, you dont have to go away to escape.

Or at least, I didn’t. My “staycation” gave me all the escape I needed.

It happened the summer I turned 16. My mother and stepfather announced they were going to take a holiday as a delayed honeymoon since they hadnt taken one when they had gotten married, and my brother, who had just graduated high school was taking advantage of camp that was free, and would also be gone for most of a month.

“Galen, your report on the Destructors Incident?” Albert Coleman, the Secretary of Defense, asked Galen.

This was first meeting between Galen and the National Security Council, plus the Joint Chiefs, since the explosion of the crystal three days ago... but this wasn’t the first meeting between himself and the Council about Bug, whom this meeting was no doubt going to be about.

Dania licks her lips to wipe away the rest of the blood still cling to her lips. The drug dealer she killed lies at her feet with two small holes in the side of his neck from where she had puncture the vein located under the skin. She just looks down at his lifeless body. He was a parasite; living off the misery of those he sold his drugs too. She searches through his pants pockets and such, looking for his drug money. She finds it hidden along with the rest of his stash. She pours some under his nose, so the cops would believe he died of a drug overdose.

Peter couldn’t believe someone would be willing to pay him $80,000.00 dollars if he could get the Wonder Woman outfit that Lynda Carter wore. He had searched the web and called people he knew to see if anyone had one of her original costumes. He comes across an article from Fox News Magazine that she kept one of the costumes from season one and one from season 2 of Wonder Woman. They were being stored in her closet and might be falling apart.

A smile appears on his face. If he could break into her place