Restless Spirits
_"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana_ _"I've got news for Mr. Santayana: We're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive." -- Kurt Vonnegut_ "Can I help you?" The...
Conversations
"Has he said anything?" "Not a word for the past few hours at least." "Did they give him too much tranquilizer?" "They had to control him just to get a blood sample. I'm betting PCP or worse. The tranq shouldn't screen anything in the system." "Are...
Collar 2 -- Angel
I wasn't sure which had wakened me, the gasp and stifled cry or the crashing of the mug to the carpeted floor. One or both had also wakened the young gray-furred wolf who had, until then, dozed quite peacefully in my spooning embrace; now, I felt him...
Warrior's Spirit
_I was afraid to go to her, not because I did not return her love, but because it would make saying goodbye all the more difficult..._ "I AM SPARTASTICUS!" I shouted against the icy blasts of unceasing, howling wind._"I am the Khranoth cheetah...
House Rules
Art, in the modern digital studio, is made in layers. With music, it can be individual tracks and riffs, shadings and nuances, even sampling of other audio media. Graphic work can begin on paper and be scanned in, or begun on a tablet and continued...
Great Minds
He was proper puffed when he coasted his bicycle into the fast-food stand parking lot. His goal of making Provinceton by dark was on schedule, including an hour-long stop at this place to get a semblance of a meal and some rest before continuing on his...
Seem and Substance
_Let be be finale of seem; The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream._ --Wallace Stevens A sharp double-trill resounded from several locations in the large, empty house. After several untended rings, the answering machine, that delightfully...
Engineering, Part 1
I'm partial neither to bars nor alcohol, although the occasional _aperitif_can be welcome. Properly, the word refers to a dry or fizzy alcoholic beverage (a Sloe Gin Fizz is a good example), although the word has come to mean any alcoholic beverage...
Triptych
When Malcolm was still but a kit, his mother often warned him about making silly faces, saying that he might wake up one morning to discover that his face had "frozen" that way. At this particular moment, he wondered if it might be true after all, as...
Control
_"All right, LISTEN UP!"_ The sharp command caromed off the walls of the gymnasium, bringing a swift silence from the hundred or so students seated on the bleachers. All were part of the varsity and JV teams spanning all disciplines, called in for a...
Tenderness
"Good morning." The soft voice in Eoin's ear made him smile softly and stretch a little even as an arm reached around and pulled him closer, his bare back to a very firm and equally bare chest and belly. He wrapped his own white-gold furred arm...
Aftermath
Cory Windrunner slumped, exhausted, barely able to keep herself on the hassock she had sat upon... how long ago? Hours? Months? Years? She had heard every word of a story spanning nearly a decade, felt as if she had somehow lived it, survived it, and...