Paul Merkley
Bio
Co-Founder of Seniors Junction, a social enterprise working to prevent seniors isolation. Emeritus professor, U. of Ottawa. Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Founder of Tower of Sound Waves. Author of Fiction.
Achievements (1)
Stories (51/0)
Capri
Otherworldly hue Tiberius treasured this He'd not seen your eyes
By Paul Merkleyabout a year ago in Poets
Operations
10 a.m. I think there is nothing more beautiful and satisfying than a perfect operation. Call me Jeff. I don't go by that name, but I need to anonymize things just a bit in order to tell this story, and I do want to tell it to you. I love games, mysteries, and operations. You say you're not into operations? Well you are missing out on a wonderful part of life. Maybe I can draw you into that world.
By Paul Merkleyabout a year ago in Criminal
Thanksgiving gone South
I fear that, as you read this, you will ask questions like how could I not have known? How did I allow this to happen? Why did I.... Well stop right there. Why is a sucker's question. Why gets us nowhere. When things go as far south as they did on that 2012 Thanksgiving, the "Allower," myself, the one who you may say dropped the ball, can usually explain how, but seldom why. So I will tell you how.
By Paul Merkleyabout a year ago in Families
- Runner-Up in The Aquarium Challenge
Jack DempseyRunner-Up in The Aquarium Challenge
It was hard to give Jack up. We'd been with each other through thick and thin. When we moved here there hadn't been much for me at first. I'd left my friends behind. Cousins too. I had no brothers or sisters, so not much. Lots of TV stations in this new place, but there's only so much Jeopardy and Perry Mason a guy can watch, you know? And Sundays, Sundays were slow. Not even the FBI on Sundays. Dad was stuck on Ed Sullivan and Have Gun Will Travel. Topo Gigio is okay, but even so...
By Paul Merkleyabout a year ago in Petlife
Dinner with Friends
Magilla Gorman arrived late to Girls Night Out, and slid his very large frame into the booth. That was okay because they always left one of the end seats of the booth open for him, seeing as how Magillla was claustrophobic. How bad? The eminent psychiatrist, the best in Geyserville had asked him that, explaining that with the new phobia cures you can get over almost anything. Magilla told him he couldn’t wear a coat in the car, even unzipped. The psychiatrist, as Magilla told it, lowered his voice to a semi-hypnotically suggestive whisper, and said, “Just stay away from closed-in spaces and it shouldn’t be a problem.”
By Paul Merkley2 years ago in Fiction
Cracking the Sleep Mystery
I suck at sleeping, and in the past five years it has been harder (worse) than before. There. I’ve said it. I’m not embarrassed to admit it because, chances are, if you are reading this, you, or someone you know and want to help, has a little or a lot of trouble sleeping too. Yes?
By Paul Merkley2 years ago in Lifehack
How I'll Pick your next Incarnation
Hello, I am an inter-life circumstance adjuster. The Souls at HQ asked me to write this piece so that you, humans, will be better informed. We don’t really expect you to make better choices, dear me no! That would be hoping for too much. We’re just tired of your making all of the wrong assumptions, so our Human Information Division decided it was time to do something about that. After all, we’ve been flooded with processing here for the past two years. Perhaps I should explain.
By Paul Merkley2 years ago in Fiction