Historical
The Queen of Cakes
It was many years back in the land of France. Queen Marie ruled with a heavy heart and the mind of a true narcissist. But she always had desired more, mostly the finest desserts that only the world’s greatest culinary minds could serve her. However, each of these heads were soon disconnected from the rest of their bodies as they had failed to please her royal highness. From the most delectable vanilla cookies to the most beautiful strawberry bowls of ice cream, all expensive, all gorgeous, but all failures in the queen’s mind. But the one dessert that nobody could afford to serve her, her prime desire, chocolate cake from the rarest and amazing cocoa beans on the planet.
By Nathan Miller3 years ago in Fiction
The Devil and The Debutant
Jane stared longingly at the decadent chocolate cake perfectly decorated with intricate patterns of corded piping. Her stomach, to her embarrassment, roared out its want to devore more than the tiny sliver passed down to her. She looked down at her morsal hoping no one had heard and waited for everyone to have a piece before she could take her first bite.
By E. J. Strange3 years ago in Fiction
JACK OF DIAMONDS
iii Gabby sat down on a bench to watch the couple across the street. She’d first spotted them when they stopped off at the Town Hall earlier. She’d just happened to be out and about herself, running errands and picking up foodstuffs from the market on the corner of Fore and George Streets when she saw them. She knew the woman for one of the town’s Constables.
By ben woestenburg3 years ago in Fiction
Cherchez la Femme
My name is Lilith Meijer - Lily, to my friends and family. I was born July 8, 1910. I am a Jew. My family lived near Arnhem on a little farm until May 30th, 1940 – that dark day that the Germans invaded. We had heard rumors and whispers of what was happening to Jews in Germany; we thought we would be safe in the Netherlands. We were wrong.
By Matthew Stanley 3 years ago in Fiction
JACK OF DIAMONDS
Chap 4 - Pt 3 (ARE SEETHING WITH CONTENTION...) iii Berry directed Nigel to the East Library, guiding him soundlessly through wide hallways hung with elaborate paintings, sculptures, and wall hangings he wished he had the time to examine. He knew he'd give anything to sit in one of the hall chairs and make endless studies. All the same, it was an ostentatious show of wealth, and little else, he thought. Like the jacket Berry had given him to wear, a little long in the sleeves. He willingly admitted to himself the paintings were quite fanciful, and while they were possibly quite valuable, it also reminded him that the people working the farmsteads on the outlying grounds probably paid for many of these treasure with their toils. It was another example, as far as he was concerned, of the extravagance of riches. People, monied people, seldom think of anything but their own welfare—which for the most part is the same for everyone else—and while he may have felt that it would be better to share the wealth, he knew that type of thinking in today’s world was impossible.
By ben woestenburg3 years ago in Fiction
Lemon Lane
Lemon Lane. 1798. A little girl was ignoring her mother’s insistent calls to come along, and instead was dropping pebbles into the stone well set by the side of the laneway, delighting in the “splooshes!” and “splashes!” that followed. A rotund woman rushed out into the road, her large middle still donning her paisley apron, slightly smudged from bleach destroying sporadic pigment in the pattern. She untied a ribbon which was binding cloth together tightly, and a pigeon fluttered out into the daylight, faltering in the sudden shock of sunlight before regaining its ability to simply flap its wings and be off, far away from the world it had just left. The little girl abandoned her mission of filling in the well and instead delighted in the sight, eagerly awaiting the matron’s next magic trick, but when the door slammed shut tight again, she begrudgingly ran to catch up with her ever-patient mother, who by this point had taken a seat on the stoop of a nearby building.
By Renessa Norton3 years ago in Fiction
Breakfast of Champions
Another bout of coughing wracked Doc’s chest, leaving him gasping for breath. He curled his sweat-soaked body deeper underneath the covers, bloody rag clutched in his fist. Incessant bleating from a rooster in the street below indicated morning had finally arrived. Exhaustion weighed on Doc’s limbs as heavily as the blanket. He coughed again and squeezed his eyes closed, willing sleep to end the misery.
By Blaze Holland3 years ago in Fiction
Alexander's Wife
Men call him the King of Kings, the son of Zeus, the man who conquered the world. Generations would take up his mantle, birth fire of purpose in their hearts from the mere sight of his image, name cities and citadels in his honor. They would delegate him among the greatest of giants who walked this earth. But what of me?
By Bethy Parr3 years ago in Fiction
Names in a Hat
The white stallion’s muscles moved rhythmically under her. His rumbling hooves stirred up the only breeze blowing across the harvested ground. As the fieldstone wall loomed up, sweat dripped down and burned Lydia’s eyes. She knew the danger of jumping the stone wall but trusted the horse. There was freedom in being airborne, no matter how short lived. Pegasus, neglected since the Colonel’s death two days earlier, hankered for the jump as much as she did. Neither the other enslaved people, busy at work, nor the master’s family crying over the Colonel’s open grave would know. She and Pegasus craved this. They jumped.
By Diane Helentjaris3 years ago in Fiction