Aaron Michael Grant
Bio
Grant retired from the United States Marine Corps in 2008 after serving a combat tour 2nd Tank Battalion in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is the author of "Taking Baghdad," available at Barnes & Noble stores, and Amazon.
Stories (20/0)
Anderson's Prize
Winston lay weeping like so many times before. The toddler loved the woods so much his passion got ahead of him: he was alone. He looked this way and that - craving the sight of the mother he just left, and wept face down in the leaves. In the never-ending forest, nothing else mattered but mommy. Not the sunlight beaming upon his face, not the perfect October afternoon, not even the brilliant color fall held around the curled little boy. He shook, a helpless baby sobbing in a wild, foreign world. Yet, the pitiful sound was carried by the breeze, and heard by the most unlikely creature imaginable.
By Aaron Michael Grantabout a year ago in Fiction
Bubble-Gum Conscience
You knew it when it happened. You will always remember the first day you took something without asking. You stole it, and depending on your character, you stopped immediately or continued being a thief. Yes, you knew it was wrong by the rush of adrenaline, and quick heartbeat. You knew it when your knees shook, and you knew it by the emotion that came with it. Yes, that day is a story of all of us, and you have a similar one in a billion different places, and billions of different outcomes.
By Aaron Michael Grant2 years ago in Families
Titanic to Dunkirk
He was crazy. He must have been crazy. They knew they were submerged in the boiler room, and out of the creeping, freezing water came Charlie; second officer of the Titanic who drew a breath the moment his face hit oxygen. He was underwater nearly a minute. A high officer, third in command of the ship; was out to save the trapped, snot-nosed coal-workers.
By Aaron Michael Grant2 years ago in Fiction
Context is Everything
Just a few days before Christmas, an old marine walked into a government complex and smashed a voting machine with a hammer. He immediately placed the document “Natural Sovereignty” down amongst the shattered pieces that explained why.
By Aaron Michael Grant2 years ago in Confessions
The Departure of Empathy
Empathy: “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.”
By Aaron Michael Grant2 years ago in Humans
The Old Man's Mine
When he got out of his bed, the cold of the North Sea cottage invaded everything. When the wool was pulled off, the warm bed chilled, and he had to move fast. With the customary sigh he began his day covered from head to toe. Not just when he went to sleep, but all the time. Head with the ever-present beanie (even when sleeping), toes with a double pair of wool socks (also when sleeping), underclothes from the wool under-sweater to the wool over-sweater, and lastly his inside tweed jacket. And shoes, always shoes for the tamped earth below that reminded him he was alive.
By Aaron Michael Grant2 years ago in Families
Faces of the Deep
The children never liked playing at the pond. Something happened at that frozen place that scared the hell out of them, and the parents played it off as mere enthusiasm. The frightening rumors spread like wildfire, and the little ones believed it. The ice skates were stored year after year in every village home rusting as they spoke of the faces they had seen: faces in the deep.
By Aaron Michael Grant3 years ago in Fiction