Tag Archives: #amwriting

Two Eternals

shadow man

Image: jimharold.com

“Rafe Johnson.”

At first, Rafe thought he was dreaming. He rolled over in bed, grabbed his mobile, and looked at the time: 2:31 a.m.

“Rafe Johnson.”

He sat bolt upright in bed. It was no dream. He looked around the darkened room in the basement of his Mom’s house and saw no one.

“Who’s there?”

A shape slowly coalesced near the foot of the bed. It was a shadow, then it was a man.

“Do you remember me, Rafe?”

“What the fu…”

“If you kill a man, you should at least remember what he looked like.”

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The Unlikely Alliance

trans-equality

Image: technocracy.news

“You want me to take over as the Director of the Safe Housing Project. Me.”

Jake Buchanan was sitting across a table at a local diner from Bishop as she made what he considered an outrageous suggestion. What could she possibly be thinking of?

“Just let it sink in a minute, Jake. You’ll see it makes a lot of sense.”

Bishop lifted her coffee cup to her lips to take another sip and Jake couldn’t help but notice her hands. She had transitioned nearly a decade ago, but he always felt her hands, about the same size as Jake’s, didn’t fit in with the rest of her appearance.

“Sense? You know me. I’m as conservative as they come. I’m almost sixty years old, white, male, cisgender, married to the same woman for thirty-five years, three kids, two grandkids and another on the way. My life’s practically a painting by Norman Rockwell.”

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Where Giving Leads

homeless

Image: Munir Atalla / NBC News

“What the recipient of alms does for the donor is greater than what the donor does for the recipient.”

–Vayikra Rabbah 34:8

Less than a year ago, Eddie Scholl had been living on the streets. When he saw the old man in the torn olive green coat and rainbow stocking cap standing on the street corner on a freezing November morning, holding a sign saying “Anything helps”, he reached for his wallet.

His last five dollar bill. He could use it to buy breakfast. Instead, he gave it to the old grey beard.

“Bless you, brother. Bless you.”

“Glad to do it, friend. Take care.”

Eddie walked on with the old gent still calling after him, “Bless you, brother. May God bless you.”

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Angel In The Night

angel

Angelina Jolie

“What do you want? Can’t you see that I’m in pain?”

Everett Temple was 86 years old and dying of cancer. It was late, after 2 a.m., and yet he had a visitor in his private hospital room.

“I want to help you, Everett. I want to ease your suffering. Why won’t you let me?”

Even in the semi-darkness, the old man could see she had the appearance of a young, very attractive woman. Short, raven black hair, piercing blue eyes, succulent ruby lips, elegant yet brief black gown. His body had long abandoned the ability to react to the erotic, but he remembered when he longed for a woman like her.

Yet for all her beauty and sexual allure, there was something about her he feared. He didn’t know her name but he knew who she was. He had been running from her for years, nearly a decade, and tonight, she had finally caught him.

“You? Ease my suffering? You are my worst enemy.”

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The Day After Thanksgiving

thanksgiving

Image: greatest.com

It’s the day after Thanksgiving and I’m exhausted. The holidays wipe me out, especially when I have to spend them with family.

I really wasn’t looking forward to that flight from Chicago to Oakland. Couldn’t get a direct one of course since I waited until the last minute, so the whole trip took nearly seven hours.

I really hoped Mom would have just accepted my excuse that I had too much work to do to take the time off, but she knows how to get her way. She’s always known how to manipulate me. She uses guilt, that’s a favorite. What about my ailing father? What about my sister and her obnoxious husband who never get to see me? What about all the snotty-nosed nieces and nephews who miss their Uncle Jerry.

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Trying to Wake Up

dreaming

Image: alghad.com

Jeremy woke up from the nightmare that was rapidly vanishing from his memory. He meant to stay up late enough to find out the election results, but after pulling a double-shift in the E.R., he was exhausted.

Turning on the coffee, he opened his Macbook and searched the national news. What a relief. The 45th President of the United States was going to be Olivia Marsdin. She was originally considered a long shot that had little chance of beating her political rival Charles Remington, but as one scandal after another surfaced to plague the Remington campaign, Marsdin steadily rose in the polls.

Marsdin was an outsider, a moderate fiscally and a liberal socially, so she appealed to a wide audience. Remington was conservative both fiscally and socially and while he appealed to the Washington insider crowd, he also was the early favorite among college educated voters, especially white males.

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A Late Night Visit

shadow

Image: Business Insider

Jerry was finally dozing off when his doorbell rang. He had a tough time sleeping alone, but Susan and the kids were visiting her mother in California so he had the place to himself for the next week, whether he liked it or not.

“10:30 at night? Who the devil?”

Then he abruptly got out of bed and grabbed a robe. No good news arrives so late at night. What if something happened to Susan, Denise, and little Frankie? “Please don’t let it be the cops.”

Jerry pulled on his robe, turned on the front hall light, and then the one over the front door before opening it.

“Bill?” It was Bill Henderson, the guy he used to share a cubical with at work until…

“Let me in Jerry, it’s freezing out here. What took you so long to answer the door?”

“It can’t be you, Bill.”

“What? Are you blind? Of course it’s me. Let me in.”

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The Last Woman

seedy bar bangkok

Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Harvey couldn’t believe how easily he’d lured his latest victim out of that seedy bar and into an even more seedy motel room across the street. She was a beauty, a bit of a rarity in the places where he normally sought his prey.

The news media called him a serial killer. Seven women between the ages of 19 and 37 all strangled during the act of sex over the past fifteen months. The police couldn’t catch him. They had his DNA but it wasn’t on record anywhere else that would identify him. He moved from city to city, chose different venues to pick up women, a bar here, a concert there. He kept shifting his pattern around so they couldn’t predict where he’d strike next.

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Redemption: A Halloween Tale

trick or treat

Image: WFMJ.com News

Brent hated Halloween. He’d hated it for the past twenty years, and he had a very good reason to. Twenty years ago tonight she had died and it was all his fault.

Twenty years ago tonight, Brent took his eight-year old daughter Evelyn out trick or treating. His wife Marie stayed home to give out candy to the children who would be visiting their house.

It happened so fast. Evelyn saw her best friend across the street and ran over to see her without looking. A teenager driving too fast in a neighborhood full of children. Brent froze at the sickening thud of her body being crushed by the impact. Mercifully, she died instantly.

Brent wasn’t the only one to blame him for little Evie’s death. His wife divorced him six-months later. Evie was their only child.

For the past twenty years, Brent lived alone. He never remarried. Who would have him anyway? Oh, he’s kept a job, had a small comfortable house to live in, he even had a few friends, but the spark of life and of living died along with his little girl.

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Even Coffee Doesn’t Help

Sean Becker was working on his third cup of coffee sitting at the counter in the town’s only all-night diner. He thought it would help kill the taste, but so far nothing really helped.

“Want a refill?” The waitress looked tired and bored. The only other patrons in this dump were a couple of truckers pulling an all-nighter.

“Yes. Thanks.” He was careful not to smile too widely at her. She poured more of the bitter brown liquid into his cup.

“Sure you don’t want something to eat? It’ll be morning soon. We serve a good breakfast.” He could tell she really didn’t care. She was flying on auto-pilot.

“Actually I just ate not long ago. I came in here for something to wash it down with.” He started smiling again and then remembered what would happen if she saw too much.

“Suit yourself.” She walked away without another word.

He took another sip. He used to love coffee, even the poor quality java served in greasy spoons like this one. It was finally starting to kill the taste of his meal, but only by a little.

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