I shouldn’t have listened to her. She did, after all, murder my friend. Her husband. My only run-in with cops had been a speeding violation when I was eighteen. There was zero reason to involve myself. “Jesus Christ, Jennifer,” I muttered to myself. Standing in the gap of their hedges, I looked at the front door. The little pots of basil and thyme, sitting next to a palm-sized clay turtle. “The fuck is wrong with you?” It...

The grand medieval castle of a barbarian kingdom was where the world’s greatest executioners were trained. They learned how to spot and catch criminals, as well as the many methods to execute them. Executioners were held in high regard in the kingdom, and a new one showed promise. Zahurom was a handsome seventeen-year-old apprentice, who only started a year ago. He was short, brown-skinned, and had a lean body filled with...

Vicki went shopping. Her entire wardrobe consisted of two pairs of jeans, two t-shirts, two sweaters, functional underwear and a thick coat borrowed from a friend. Nothing that would do for this. Her insurance company had already assured her that the payout would be significant, so she could afford to splurge. She had some savings in the bank, and this seemed as good an excuse as any to dip into them. She found an attract...

“…traumatised.” Vicki flinched as he said it. Yes, that’s what I am. Traumatised. A silly girl responding to my Knight because I’m ‘traumatised’. She pushed back from him, waiting until he’d finished talking on his radio. “I’m not traumatised,” she said, angrily, as soon as his hand lowered from the button. It was insulting. He’d kissed her back, hadn’t he? Had he been merely placating her? She moved back further, her ang...

His radio crackled. “Gerry, I swear to god, if you don’t get your ass down here pronto I’m leaving you up there all night. Do you have any idea what time it is? Becki will have my skin!” Gerry sighed. It had been a long shift, and it wasn’t his fault that the weather had slowed everything down. It was him up here, after all, while that idiot Jack was in the warmth of the portacabin, two hundred feet below. He lowered the...

To another era I travel In pursuit of all principle. Who knows what will unravel When finally, I reach the temple, Where all purpose is encapsulated In its dome of the all meaningful. The last frontiers, now contaminated From happenings, in the last life, full. Hopefully, before I’m obliterated I’ll contain what’s worth being.   Now I visit the razor whipping through of organdy and flesh, For the glory and gift of a lily...

I'm in a lot of hot water with my wife. Hopefully, she'll get over it, but I suspect I'm going to have to spring for a lavish party where we renew our vows. It's my own fault, and there's no chance that I won't do it, so I guess I'll have to spend the money. It all stems from my twisted sense of humor. I certainly like dry comedy, and slapstick physical comedy. I like juvenile humor and fart jokes. Occasionally, when the...

I've done terrible things in my life. I’ve betrayed friends and turned my back on those that were close to me. Your life doesn't truly flash before your eyes, that's all bullshit. It's the regrets that haunt you. No, it's your sins. The ones you let down, the ones you failed.Heart monitor softly beeping ______/\_______/\_______/\____The fog lifted from my head, I recognized smells, sounds. ‘Where am I?’ I wonder, as I awa...

I guess I always knewRight from the startThat we risked the wrathOf the Warlords,Of the Taliban,In this country which I now called home. And I guess I always knewThat one day they would comeAngry and embittered,Feeling threatened by the foreign bitch, And that that day would change my life forever.A day of reckoning. And I was right. They did come. Because I/ we defied themBy educating children -Young girls -In our school...