I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people. -Lord Isaac Newton, PBUH “Hey Jack. My name is Sam.” Jack looked him up and down. Uncomfortable, Sam said: “I’m looking for a doctor. He lives over on Arbor Hill. Do you know where that is?” “Oh, a […]
Sarah Jewel’s diary August 3, 2016 Sometimes it takes a death in the family. Other times, it takes a death of a stranger. But it always takes a death for the living to go on living. A fat man in a tight black AC/DC t-shirt sat down at the workstation beside me: Workstation Eight. […]
At the first turning of the second stair I turned and saw below The same shape twisted on the banister Under the vapour in the fetid air. – Tom S. Eliot Sam did not know what to expect at the stairs’ apogee. He certainly did not expect the sound of raucous […]
Sarah Jewels’ diary August 3, 2016 Writer’s like to use the word façade. Especially new writers. It’s one of those pseudo-sophisticated words (like pseudo); complex and yet relatively common. Façade. Meaning concealment. Meaning fake. Meaning hardly discernible. Isn’t it ironic how so many of us freely choose a word like façade to impress a reader? […]
He dreamt of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. He saw the angels of God ascending and descending on the incline. -Gen. 28:12, New Academy Translation The rumbling of a loaded freight train shook Sam awake. He had fallen asleep on the metal floor of the Deacon’s […]
From: unknownsender to unknownrecipient Subject: RE: who’s getting restless…? 03 AUG 2016, 06:57 AM The encryption certs should mask our correspondence, but make sure you’re wiping your email regardless. We can’t afford a leak. Every last step of the plan has to go accordingly. Speaking of which, they seem to be on […]
Law 1 Corollary 6: If bodies, any how moved among themselves, are urged in the direction of parallel lines by equal accelerative forces, they will all continue to move among themselves, after the same manner as if they had been urged by no such forces. -Lord Isaac Newton, PBUH The Deacon often […]
Calvin Member #4 Posted August 02, 2016 10:01 PM It took believing in miracles for me to believe in God—and it took witnessing a miracle for me to believe in them. I’ve been preaching the Word of God since my mother died and came back to life. It started as a […]
“Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground,” thought he to him self. -W. Stukely A scramble and scurry across the rooftop above Sam caught him by surprise. The apple tree shook and a few leaves and late blossoms fluttered to the ground. Sam gaped dumbly as Emma Dunbar dropped from the […]
Prof. O Member #3 Posted August 02, 2016 12:05 AM Holy guac! I didn’t think anyone would ever post on here. I’ve been waiting since I got the email, checking hourly, I think. I went to his funeral. There were hundreds of us. All fans. Once the immediate family had left, we laid our favorite […]
Law 3 Corollary 2:4: For from hence are easily deduced the forces of machines, which are compounded of wheels, pullies, levers, cords, and weights, ascending directly or obliquely, and other mechanical powers; as also the force of the tendons to move the bones of animals. -Lord Isaac Newton, PBUH Sam slowly crawled out of the […]
Lucy Member #2 Posted August 01, 2016 09:22 PM I watched a woman win 250K today. Her name’s Evelyn Baxter. She’s a tax professional and works downtown by the court house. I know because she charges me my return every season for her services. Most mornings before work I stop in at the corner station […]
Early spring storm / Up the kite flies When lightning descends / Everyone dies – The Curse of Benjamin Franklin, from Poor Richard’s Heraticks Sam Mack dug away in the granite hills of the Adirondacks all morning until dust of crushed rocks mixed with locomotive smoke and filled the whole valley to the brim. Pale sunlight streaked in rays […]
From: unknownsender to me Subject: Miles Granger is not dead 29 JUL 2016, 7:40 PM Dear Author, Sometimes they come as heroes; sometimes they come as thieves. Sometimes they come to wonder; sometimes they come to eat. What if I told you the Nicholas Sleeper horror novels are not yet finished? That […]
Law I: Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed. -Lord Isaac Newton, PBUH Airman Adams balanced on a small crow’s nest high on the mainmast of His Imperial Majesty’s Airship Endeavour. For three […]
Setting his pack down, Gary closed the door behind him. It was stuffy inside the small rounded chamber, he adjusted the wetsuit around his crotch while Holly entered the code and fine-tuned the mixture. Finishing the preparations, she turned to him, saw the questions in his eyes. She gave a slight smile, “It’s too late […]
The long months melted together, only mist in her mind as Holly made it through each day. She painted a little, on the days she was allowed into the activity room, often creating lazy abstracts in bright colors, some unconscious rejection of her reality so concrete and drab. It was hard for her. For months […]
“Okay. What’s the main theme of ‘Romeo and Juliet’?” I doodled on the back on my notebook, more than ready for school to be over. The stupid clock hands refused to move, though. “Love. Could you have possibly asked an easier question?” Scott raised an eyebrow. “Putting love down on the test won’t get you […]
Holly looked into Gary’s eyes as the pandemonium grew around them. “Ten,” she simply said, “Count to ten.” A bullet tore the air between them and hit the machine. Gary flinched, looked into her eyes one last time, turned and entered the chamber. The door shut behind him and Holly knew he was gone. She […]
I raced for the bathroom before either the vampires or my dad could see me. I had to calm down. Pretend I hadn’t heard anything. Too bad my reflection in the mirror was a worse sight than the graffiti-tagged stall doors. Anyone with half a brain would be able to tell something was wrong. I […]
Uncertainty overwhelmed Gary as the door to the Marshall Temporal Device shut behind him. He had never felt this before. Complete cognitive dissonance, only able to act on inertia, no confidence in his current capacity for reason or rationality. There was one thing. One solitary fact that he held onto in the midst of his […]
“Toxic Cinema, #170 – Why Speed Eating and Embalming Don’t Mix” I have officially been so grossed out by a movie that I couldn’t eat my Kit Kats while watching it. I never thought it would happen. You, my loyal readers, never thought it would happen. I got through “Saw” without blinking. Viewed “The Devil’s […]
From the moment he saw Daniel take a bullet in the gut, Restrepo knew they would not be getting out of the ARCC alive. To be fair, he had assumed as much from the very beginning, from the moment he cut a hole in the perimeter fence and crawled through it he had the feeling […]
Here’s the thing: vampires have the same anatomy as humans. Which means things hurt them the same as humans. But they get over it. Fast. And then they get pissed. Glen was down for all of ten seconds. It gave me time to shove the marker back into my pocket and backpedal a few […]