Decision Made
By Marina Kelly, Monica Rose

The hotel rep was addressing the crowd now, telling them that their new celebrity would be a guest in the hotel for the rest of her stay and that there would be a public event the next day where she would be presented with a check for her winnings.

A short story...

Copyright © 2021 by AuP reviner

he gymnasium was crammed full of people. It was the second week of October and Halloween was just around the corner. With Halloween being so close, our student council on a whim had decided to hold something of a Harvest Celebration. You could tell it had been a last minute decision, because everything seemed thrown together. But all in all, things seemed to be turning out alright. Like I said, the gymnasium was crammed full of people, both students and teachers alike seemed to be enjoying themselves.

when you live in a small town, you have to be creative when it comes to having fun. I was never really into football, but I do attend all the home football games at my high school. I really don't watch the game, I wander around the bleachers and around the grounds visiting with friends and chatting with people who might be from out of town. If there are no home games, then nine out of ten times I'll pester my sister or Heather to drive me out to the skating rink located just off Highway 16 three miles from town.

My bedroom is small, half the size of my old bedroom. Then again the whole house is really small. The house, or cottage I should say has three bedrooms, a master bedroom, my bedroom, and a guest bedroom. All three of those bedrooms are located toward the back of the house, the main bathroom is located in the back of the house too. If you were to leave my bedroom, you would enter into a narrow hallway. There's an old linen closet located at the end of the hallway. My room is across from the master bedroom and beside the guest bedroom.

I took a deep breath and tossed myself down upon my bed and rolled over onto my back. As far as I was concerned, my plans for the weekend had been smashed like an egg being dropped down on the ground. Sheets of rain started to pelt my bedroom window pane. It was one of those late summer downpours that are all too common in my region. It was not only rain, but lightning and thunder. Every so often a loud boom would echo across the sky, causing the house to shake. 

Skyler's trouble never seems to end let's see how he deals with the new challenges he faces in his ever-changing life!!

For a small southern town, Benton puts on an amazing number of seasonal celebrations. One of those is the “The Fireman's Summer Fair”. The purpose of the fair is to raise money for our local volunteer fire departments. Benton has three I believe. Our town is really too small to have standing fire fighting force so we depend on local volunteers. In order to raise money, a number of local programs are put on, local youth's display talent shows, each of the three fire stations take turns selling hot plates, anything from smoked chicken to fresh fried fish, even tacos and tamales.

I took a deep breath as I peered toward Heather who was reclining in an old fashion chair. I had been invited to appear on the Heather Ford Show on a whim. I mean, I had been a fan of the show for two and a half years. It was the bread and butter of our local PBS station. And I guess it was only a matter of time before I was invited on, I mean, not to blow my own whistle, but I was something of a local celebrity in Benton.

Just east of Benton is an unguarded railroad crossing. According to legend, one cold, foggy, autumn afternoon a school bus full of children became stalled on the tracks. Before the driver could get the children off the trail, a freight train came barreling through and smashed into the side of the bus, crumbling it up like a sheet of paper. In the blink of an eye, the bush became nothing more than a twisted collection of metal and wire, reaching the wreck, fireman found the mangled bodies of six school children tangled up in the spiderweb of bent medal, broken glass that bus had become.

This is the story of two gender non-conforming teens back in the benighted 1980s. Two kids trying to find their places in the world and finding a kindred spirit.

Thanks to Lizzy Bennet, editor and friend extraordinaire.

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Fall 1983. Spencer’s Gifts in the Nanuet Mall.

Lyle and Josh were flicking through the racks of posters, the clicking sound getting faster and slower.

Graphic created by Patricia Marie Allen from photos on Pixabay.com
- Background by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

This is the story of a crossdressers wife. It was originally published as part of the anthology One Dozen Roses. I highly recommend the whole anthology, but I am biased.

I found myself floating. Floating through the air, floating through space, time had no meaning, there was no beginning or ending through the realm I floated through. My body felt light as a feather. Then I felt my toes touch something. I looked down and noticed I was standing on some green grass. I looked up and noticed the sky was blue. I had gone from floating from nothingness to standing on earth again. Then I noticed it. Before me a massive gate with a fence running as far as the eye could see in both directions. The bars of the gate glowed in the sun. 

The wind was blowing hard, harder than before and small flakes of snow were starting to fall down from the sky. The sky above me was gray and cloudy and my whole body felt numb and small flecks of snow were falling down upon me. The door of the ambulance had just opened and I had been awoken from my sleep by the blinding light. My whole mind was numb too.

In two thousand and eighteen I volunteered for the dunking booth attraction at the relaunch of the 'Discover Benton Festival' that has become a yearly event that draws a number of people to our small, little delta town. I was fourteen then and just starting to come out of my shell. I was new to Benton and in a way, I was still frail. Beside dealing with puberty and the discord that it brings, I was also trying to come to terms with me being transgender. My mother had just been buried four months before, and because I was in hospital when the funeral took place.

In a clearing eight miles north of Benton there stands an old wooden railway depot. It's a simple white wooden building with a rusty tin roof. It stands next to another wooden building that was once the town's post office and beside that another building that was once the town's trading post. Beside the depot there's an old steam locomotive resting in an old section of line. A quiet section of road runs pass these three buildings before crossing the mainline of the “Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad” that runs straight to Benton.

Gentle Summer Rains: I'm the Village's Idol Now?!
Episode One: The Village's Talent Show Brings Me Misfortune!