Things were going well, until we got arrested. By our own security. No lawyer, no rights read, even our own boss turned on us. Because now we were being studied like the very people we were studying before. Or trying to. You see, we couldn't find any trace of those people, except for faint traces of biological material that were old enough to be historical. Everyone was starting to think they were some sort of urban legend. Until we went on a...

In the days when people were, owned by the land, two young girls found their power by becoming ghosts, then spirit guides. This is their original story... Their parents were serfs, and belonged to two different dukedoms. Falling in love endangered them both. Becoming pregnant with twins, made this even worse. Their Dad had to raise them by himself, as Mother died shortly after birthing them. But, her spirit remained on Earth to watch over them. Sal...

She'd been waiting to kill me for a very long time. And run out of patience at last. So she pulled me to her across time and space. Just so she could end my life. Painfully. Violently. But first, she had to explain her reasoning. Because she had been thinking this through for a long time and someone should hear and applaud her reasoning. Crazy, yes. But as I was going to be dead soon, what did it matter if she wanted to tell me her story? Maybe...

It wasn't often a song stopped me dead in my tracks. All I could do was listen. And I was filled with feelings of peace and hope. So much I didn't want to move, just listen. Now there wasn't a tune, a melody, or words to that song. But I was transfixed. If I could have tapped my foot to keep time, I would. It was a catchy song, and filled my heart to overflowing with love and understanding. A siren's song. But not of lust and longing for carnal...

The result of all these civil wars was complete destruction. Maybe we should have taken a hint from all those wars we fought "over there" and the footage came back showing entire cities now only towering, shattered icons that stood in piles of rubble. Uninhabited. uninhabitable. Yet this one woman stayed there. This was her new home, she repeated stubbornly. She wasn't leaving. Even though it meant eventual death. If the warring armies didn't...

If laughter is the best medicine, then reading humorous short stories should be the best practice to maintain your health. These three authors with their six stories have written stories that both poke fun at the sacrosanct and also skewer them for dissection as both pompous and ripe. From the ranks of Voltaire, Twain, and Vonnegut, these new voices have something to say about how our current culture and what they consider serious. You may find...

"Well, this is curious - I've only got papers to take one of you."My two latest deaths stood in front of me."The other is supposed to keep on living. But here you both are."Neither spoke to volunteer which was which."So, you both intend to keep on living, in spite of my orders to take one of you."Silence signaled assent."You know that no one has ever cheated Death. Just because you have some spirit-guides looking out for you doesn't mean I won't end...

DO ELECTIONS REALLY HAVE CONSEQUENCES? This saying is repeated often, and seldom fully understood. So this collection of pure fiction came into being, which explores the choices that politicians make, as well as those who manage them and follow them. We can see the results of their choices in these fantastical worlds. Told through the lives of those affected, often as unintended effects on those lives. Because that is the best way to tell stories,...

In the days when people were owned by the land, two young girls found their power by becoming ghosts, then spirit guides. This is their origin-story... Their Dad had to raise them by himself, as Mother died shortly after birthing them. But as a spirit, she remained on Earth to watch over them. Sal and Jude could see her, and knew their Dad could feel her presence. Father and Mother taught them all they knew. Efforts to enter the forest, to exploit...

The nightmares galloped roughshod through my dreamscapes. Every night, every nap.During my sleep-interrupted nights, they were waking my husband and even the children sometimes.Not that I could do a lot about them.That morning, I woke up alone in our bed.When I did sleep, it was always a hard one - nothing could wake me. His rising to work, and getting his own breakfast without me - that fueled my discontent.Dressing that morning, I saw the dark circles...