I woke up and knew I was going to die. It was sometime past four in the morning. The dream was still vivid–not the images, those had already dissipated–but the certainty that my end was near. It felt solid, a physical presence, and oddly unemotional, like a date on a…
The agents kicked open the door and rushed into the room, guns ready. The target, Chad Starn, sat at his computer, hands raised above his head. Agent Simon Adamson strode up to him and cuffed him. “Game over, kid.” “It’s not a game,” Chad said, looking up at Simon—not defiantly,…
It was mid-May, and Todd was taking a walk as an act of protest. The cold wind gusted around him, making him hunch as he plodded forward. The light mist, almost a fog, splattered him. He would be soaked by the time he got home. “Stupid weather,” he muttered. It…
Since his crash landing on Calliope 4, which the native called Aurerallear, Thomas Alistair had seen many amazing thing. The flora upon the planet was wild and mobile, roaming the wide plains in slow movements like a stop-motion movie filmed day by day. In the sky were light shows unlike…
As a lesser noble of the House Elganar, Allen could absent himself from the pageantry of the Annual Ball with little notice. He had danced with a few pretty young women, but their polite smiles and flickering eyes proved his low position. He wasn’t worth the attention. He stood in…
His wife found him staring at the computer. “Um, Mark? What are you doing?” He looked up, startled. “I’m waiting for him.” “Yeah, I don’t think so. He doesn’t use Facebook.” She clicked his other tabs. “Or Twitter. Or Pinterest. Or email. Or idle games. Oh, and definitely not Google…
The mayor of Utopia City was a well-built handsome man, the sort of man you’d see in a Men’s Warehouse advertisement, with perfect hair, perfect teeth, and a perfectly tailored sense of style. Like most politicians, the mayor wasn’t as popular as he thought he was, but his approval ratings…
Last year I wrote an Easter play for the youth at our church to perform. It was entitled “Saturday,” and it deals with, unsurprisingly, the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The youth did a fabulous job performing it, and I think it’s one of the best plays I’ve…
Delia woke to the gentle clicking of a clock somewhere in the distance. She lay there, eyes closed, for a long time, the steady tick-tick-tick leading her consciousness slowly out of the depths, giving her a sense of space and calm. Delia was only eight, and she was not brave….
You feel it too, don’t you, that uneasiness when you wake in the middle of the night, that exhaustion when you open your eyes in the morning and think, “Not again”? You keep moving, keep checking your phone, keep on keeping on, because if you pause, if you hesitate, if…
Paul pulled up to the window and opened his wallet. The cashier leaned out. “Sir, the car in front of you paid for you.” He gripped the cash in his hand. “We had $30 worth of food.” The cashier smiled. “They said, pay it forward. Here are your drinks.” Paul…
Her father sat enveloped in the La-Z-Boy recliner, staring sadly at the blank TV. Sometimes Sarah could forget how old he was, but it struck her all at once now. She saw him clearly for a moment–sunken cheeks, wisping hair, worn, perpetually smudge clothes, an old man who could hardly…