Tag Archives: fantasy

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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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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Why Don’t I Trust You?

trust“If you trust me, why are you so upset?”

“Are you out of your mind? Just look at what’s happening to me? How could you do this?”

They were sitting together on the edge of Mallorie’s bed in the dark. It was just after two in the morning but she couldn’t sleep. She barely ate. She hadn’t been to class in a week. She just stayed in her bedroom in an apartment she shared with two other girls, toggling between mind-numbing despair and panic.

“I never said bad things wouldn’t happen in your life, Mallorie. I just said I’d be here to help you deal with them.”

The young college student wiped tears from red, swollen eyes and tried to compose herself.

“I do trust you.” She started sobbing again, then forced herself to stop.

“I don’t know. Maybe I don’t. I mean if I did, why are my emotions so out of control? Please, please have mercy. I need to heal. My Daddy’s throat cancer need to heal and only you can help.”

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Blanketing Fantasy With A Hint of Reality

trump-clinton

Image: CNN.com

Carolyn felt comforted and satisfied as she finally turned off the TV after watching Hillary Clinton being inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. It had been a struggle for her over the past eight years of the Obama Presidency, not because she opposed President Obama, not at all. It was a struggle because of the unfair and racist criticism he was constantly faced with during his two terms.

She hoped that with the Clintons back in the White House for another four and hopefully eight years, the country could finally heal, racism and sexism would begin to fade, and all of the so-called “deplorables” would learn to accept that a nurturing, protective, and loving woman was leading the nation. She fervently wished that Hillary wouldn’t have to experience sexism the way President Obama had faced such racist hatred.

Carolyn curled up on her sofa and pulled her big, fluffy blanket over her. She felt totally at peace, soothed, and relaxed. She thought about picking up her half-finished novel or making herself another cup of tea, but she didn’t feel like expending the energy. She wanted to bask in the glow of Hillary Clinton being the President. It almost didn’t seem real, more like a dream or fantasy come to life.

Then she cried out as another sudden, sharp pain shot through her skull. The headache was back. Where was it coming from? She’d been having these episodes with startling regularity ever since the day after Hillary won the election. She’d been to her doctor and then a specialist, but no one could explain why she had such pain.

She rubbed her temples and muttered, “Please, please go away.”

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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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Savior in a Storm

thunderstormThe Eighth Story in the Adventures of the Ambrosial Dragon: A Children’s Fantasy Series

Four months ago.

The little Ambrosial Dragon was totally outmatched by the huge Shadow Dragon. Somehow, his mortal foe had detected him crossing the spaces between worlds and had pursued him. The smaller dragon was already almost exhausted. He had been hiding out from Shadow Dragons for months, moving from one realm to another, barely staying ahead of them.

Tonight, his luck had finally run out.

“You will die like all of your kind, golden one. Perish in agony, fool!”

The larger dragon used a combination of magic and brute force, striking his smaller opponent again and again. The little dragon was getting weaker. Fighting back would be useless. He couldn’t even begin to penetrate the dark dragon’s defenses in the current circumstances. But if he could open a doorway into the world he detected earlier, the one where magic almost does not exist, he could escape. The portal would allow only the smaller dragon through. The Shadow Dragon would be much too big to follow.

The Ambrosial Dragon was getting dizzy. It was hard to focus the spell, but if he failed, he’d die.

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Expendable

arena

Yokohama main arena courtesy of Yokohama.com

Decades of dispute between the two empires of Queen Rhoda and King Jon finally erupted into open warfare. Each ruler wanted to reign as supreme leader over the people of the Great Continent. They didn’t particularly care how they achieved their goal or how many had to suffer and die in the service of their ambition.

Each marshaled vast armies at their mutual border and targeted the other’s strongholds with weapons of mass destruction. The war, the great war of conquest would claim the lives of hundreds of millions. Both Queen Rhoda and King Jon were supremely confident in their abilities to send out their forces to battle and to win. Each were seated on their thrones in fortified bunkers awaiting the beginning of the first and last battle of the final war. After all, armies are expendable, sovereigns are not.

Rhoda grinned with evil intent imagining her troops and battalions smashing Jon’s fortifications and capturing him. She wanted the honor of slitting his throat with her own hand and then drinking his blood.

Jon had similar plans for the accursed Rhoda, though his personally violating the Virgin Queen’s body would proceed her slow torture and death.

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Entering the Slow Dark

wraith“Why am I so tired? Where am I? Is this my bedroom? Everything’s all gray.”

Rand Chambers found himself in an indeterminate environment. He was lying down and covered up like he was in bed, but this was different. He could neither fall asleep nor wake up and was suspended in a state somewhere in between.

“You all ask the same questions. It’s as if it hasn’t been explained to you before.”

He heard a woman’s voice but it was not kind. Rather, she sounded impatient and annoyed and bored, as if she couldn’t be bothered with Rand’s condition, whatever that was.

“What do you mean? Who are you? Where are you?”

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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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The Apostle is Unhappy About How the Church Misrepresents Him

paul

Image. NPR.org

Ed Tillman noticed the diminutive, middle-eastern gentleman enter the sanctuary and take a seat in the back right before Pastor Taylor began his sermon. Ed was seated in the back as well, but not by design. He’d been waiting for his friend Phil to show up, but he hadn’t been coming to Ed’s church lately.

Ed had expected to see Phil again at the end of what he called the Month of Elul. Ed had completed the thirty-day plan of prayer and repentance his friend had suggested. Elul, the Jewish High Holy Days, and the holiday of Sukkot were long gone, but so apparently was Phil.

When Phil was absent, Ed usually sat with his friend Mark and his family, but Mark’s wife Evelyn had the flu and Mark stayed home to take care of her, leaving Ed to attend alone once again.

As usual, Ed was taking notes on Pastor’s sermon, which this week was on how the grace of Jesus Christ had replaced the Law, but he kept sneaking peeks at the stranger. He didn’t often see people from the middle-east here. The man was dressed well, but not expensively. He had a full, rich beard streaked with gray, and was nearly bald.

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