July 1935 Somehow it seemed fitting to carry the scrawlings from a dead woman into the depths of a prison such as Eastwater. The place was an example of how plain looks could be menacing. Its wall was

It's a sad day when the story about how Houston drowned is old news only a few days after the city's demise. Irma has flattened swaths of the Caribbean and is en route to Florida, which by the way is barely

Compliments are often a Trojan Horse, if you know what I mean. For example, did any ever call you smart? Then it's time to start drooling and speaking mostly in grunts. Or better yet, try not to be around

As far as I’m concerned, the genre we call science fiction originated about 200 years ago in an villa on Lake Geneva, in the mind of an 18 year old woman. Whether or not you agree depends, in part, on

The phone call always meant some very distraught person needed a Sorry Man. Somewhere between the disaster and the cleanup, George was responsible for making some sense of what had happened. That’s how

There are a lot of things to be anxious about in life, but none compared to the little thing chewing at the back of Julie’s brain. It sat beneath her skin, at the base of her skull, and it was real. She

The tangled mass of pipes coming from and going to nowhere were all that remained after the inferno. Usually a house fire leaves behind some charred shadow of the original frame, but the old woman must

When Robert heard the rattling in his truck, he was less afraid of what he’d find and more afraid of what he’d do. He had a history and that’s why he was in this town to begin with. He had been kneeling

George was smoking in the garage and feeling relieved that he could at last allow himself to let go of an impossible dream. Had Joyce been around, she would have asked him why he didn’t smoke on the porch.

It is impossible to become disoriented in strange places. The more familiar my surroundings, the more terrified I became when they changed in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I’m sure my friends must have

July 1935 Arthur found his sister grasping at the rocks on the river bank. He pulled her out and propped her against the shed that stood between the water’s edge and their house. Dorothy’s eyes wandered

It was the strangest thing to be locked inside a prison of one's own making, and to not realize it until it was too late. The builder worked alone, constructing one room after another. It started out well.

Heading down to the Oakwood Street Inn was one of the best suggestions Detective Lyons had ever gotten from his partner. Lyons wasn’t sure if it was going to be a very useful one, but it was certainly

There is a common argument tactic that goes around the internet, among other places. I'm sure it has a name, but I can't figure out what that is so I am calling it the "sucker swap". By the way,

Welcome to part 6 of my serialized story. This took me way to long to put out. My apologies, but maybe when you read it you’ll see why. Read the earlier parts if you would like: part1 part 2. part 3. part

School children often ask why learning one or another subject is good for them. Sometimes we answer by enlightening them on practical application of what they are learning. Or perhaps we could expound

This post isn't for you - or you either. You can be dismissed. What we are talking about is a matter of pure self indulgence. I'm one of those people who has a dozen different things going on in their

A new Star Trek series is coming and we're told it's going to be gritty. It has been 12 years since we last had a small screen Star Trek, and in that time television has experienced a revolution. The Wire

The movies think we’re all afraid of the mentally ill because someday they might chop us up in the middle of the night, but what we’re really afraid of is the open door. The open door is what the Boston

If Maslow says the need for "self-esteem" is more fundamental than "acceptance of facts", then I guess we're screwed Every few years we get to talking about raising the national minimum