Young Adult
The Waterfall- A Short Story
June 1992 “Wow, dad, this is great!” I smiled, then walked over and sat beside Joshua on the wall that kept visitors safely away from the cliff’s edge. I was a delivery driver at the time and there was a package that had to be at a hospital in the mountains, so I took that run. It was the first real excitement Josh had shown all day; the long drive to the mountains had bored him. Unchanging panoramas of tobacco and cornfields, pastures with cows, sheep, horses in the rolling red clay hills of the Piedmont … To me it was idyllic countryside, but for Josh, nothing he did not see all the time around his grandparent’s farm.
By Blaine Coleman5 years ago in Fiction
35 Years
35 years. That’s how long I’ve lasted. After all the countless-well, you get it, all those close calls with certain death and the mumbo jumbo about my “expiration date,” life sorta died down for me. I’m not the hopelessly romantic type, but I couldn’t help the small twangs in my chest at the thought of seeing Fang again. If you haven’t already been filled in on my history with Fang, well, too bad. All I’ll tell you is he left the night of Total and Akila’s wedding, with only a note left. Now it wasn’t one of those crabby one paragraph sob notes about why he had to leave and all, but it was just so much deeper, to sum it up.
By Lauren Reo5 years ago in Fiction
Hidden in Plain Sight: Chapter 5
Smith’s silver Lincoln MKZ turned into the driveway of the Victorian model house that had served as the housing for the President of McClaren College for the last century. The house stood two stories tall with a wrap around front porch painted white to accent the beautiful light blue building. The property overlooked lake McClaren and had one of the most stunning views of the sunrise Smith had ever seen.
By R. S. Bliss5 years ago in Fiction
The Wandering Boy
In his small blue room in the quiet suburbs of Boston, a young boy walked over to his book case, carefully looking over the titles on the spine of each book. There were children's bible stories, encyclopedias mixed in with childrens books yet not one caught his eye. None called out to him in a way that demanded he read them. There was no call to immerse himself in their world. His tired eyes finally laid on a red leather bound book at the end of his book case. The cover was intricately decorated with a golden Viking axe with a red ribbon to use as a place marker. The book was unique, it had stories that needed to be told. These were stories of the Old Gods, of ancient peoples who lived and died long ago. The boy carefully took the book off the shelf and sat down on his blue rug in his blue room. His little fingers carefully traced the outline of the axe on the front cover. He opened the book to a random page, to photos of the ruins of Knossos. The frescoes depicting the blue dolphins and bare chested women with black hair startled him and he quickly turned the page. The page turned to a new chapter, a chapter written exclusively on Ancient Greece.
By Daniel Crowley 5 years ago in Fiction
Hidden In Plain Sight: Chapter 4
Artemis slowed to a walk and checked her watch. 23 minutes 15 seconds. “Sub 8 minute miles. Not bad Biscuits.” She reached down and scratched behind one dust brown ear as he panted contentedly. She never knew what their Saturday morning pace would be. Sometimes Biscuits was excited and they would run two 6 minute miles before he decided he was done. Other Saturdays he wasn’t really into it and they run-walked 11 minute miles. Today was a middle of the road kind of day. Artemis took the little water bottle off of her running belt, which always made her feel like Batman, and took a sip before removing the collapsible bowl from another little pocket on the belt and giving the rest to Biscuits. They had been following this routine on Saturday’s for close to a year now. Two or three miles at Biscuit pace, then a walk to the bakery for a double espresso mocha and a giant cinnamon roll. Biscuits much preferred the cinnamon roll eating part of the routine to the running part. Artemis enjoyed exercising and really always had. Her favorite ways to exercise were jogging on sunny days and some amateur rock climbing. She had started using the weights in Steven’s some as well and thought she was getting pretty strong. At least that’s what the “gym bro” that always offered to spot her kept saying. After one of her weight sessions he had cornered her by the water fountain talking about some kind of supplement he had been taking and getting “an insane pump”. She had escaped into the girls locker room that she never used and ended up finding a community board posting for a free yoga class put on by one of the students on campus and decided to attend. Although it wasn’t the same type of heart racing feeling she got when climbing or running, she had grown fond of the slow burn and mind quieting of a good yoga session. She had been adding some open air yoga to the end of their Saturday runs and Biscuits was not a fan. He cried and whined like he had been tied to the tree without food or water for days instead of 10 minutes. Looping the leash around the bottom of a bench they had stopped by, Artemis firmly told Biscuits “down.” The dog blinked at her and sniffed something in the air before collapsing onto his side, pink tongue lolling out of his big square head. Artemis scoffed and rolled her eyes at her ridiculous best friend. She stepped out into the patch of sunlight that was shining through the snow-spattered trees and moved into her first pose trying to center herself and control her breathing and heart rate. Her mind returned to what she had been thinking about during the run, and really for the last few weeks. How to go about becoming an accomplished art thief.
By R. S. Bliss5 years ago in Fiction
In Our Hollow Heart We Sing
CN: Includes themes of su*cide, grief, and loss What the movies get wrong about high school is that it is, for the most part, incredibly boring. No lush gossip crews and bounding parties that rival a rave. Just classes and awkward texts, muted hang outs while you wait for the bus to take you home or to your after school job. Maybe there are other people who have the live fast die young life of the Disney channel but Marie had yet to find it. Not that she hadn’t looked, making sure her hair was cut in the new style, pants the right fit with a crop top that barely made the school dress code. She’d tried. But the classes remain monotonous and the teacher’s uninspiring, hers confusing and at times abrasive. It wasn’t their fault though, Marie just hated learning anything that didn’t affect her day to day life. Besides health class, which taught her everything she could possibly want to know about the ways her brain could fail her and render her melancholic-ly depressed or starkly insane, not much was applicable. Her mother cautioned that in the future these other things would be relevant but Marie didn’t much care for concerns of in college or when you’re grown up. Considering her brother hadn’t made it to either of those milestones, preferring instead to intentionally exit existence in front of a semi truck before his sixteenth birthday, Marie was not particularly concerned about making any long term plans.
By Arwyn Sherman5 years ago in Fiction
