The Lost

That is what they called themselves, this rag-tag group of survivors. They felt lost and were actually often geographically lost. After the wars that ended the world they few who had survived in the city gathered together and started heading south. They had no maps and no compass, but they knew the sun still rose in the east and set in the west so they knew that they were headed in the right direction, that was until the dust and smoke from the burning of the world engulfed them, on those days they would wonder sometimes for hours in the wrong direction never knowing until the sky had cleared enough for them to see the sunrise. In the year that they had been walking they had seen terrible, terrible things. Things that stained their memories for ever. They travelled during the day for it was safer and found hiding places at night. They met few other survivors learning very quickly to avoid them. But every once in a while they would stumble across another who would join their group and tell stories of horror and hope, the hope of a place that had food, rules, clean water and a community that was thriving. So they continued their journey despite everything, each of them holding close to a small spark of hope that one day they would be found.

The Trust

She had inherited the money when she was five, but it had been held in trust for her until she was 25. Twenty years she spent in poverty never knowing that she was the one that had inherited her grandfather's estate. A grandfather she had never meet, a grandfather who had judged her mother unworthy and disowned her like she was nothing, a grandfather who had accumulated so much money that many believed him to be the richest man in the world, a grandfather who had left all to her perhaps out of guilt for his treatment of her mother. The trust was run by a small group of trustees, headed by her uncle. The uncle who had become her guardian on her mother's death, the uncle who had not disowned his only sister like his brothers had. the uncle that she loved and trusted and who had claimed they had nothing, the uncle who was swiftly going through her money like it grew on trees. When the lawyer knocked on her door and gave her the will and trust documents she started laughing, laughing at the injustice of it all, laughing at the audacity of her uncle, laughing at the regret of her grandfather, laughing at the lack at money that had forced her to turn down the acceptance to Harvard, laughing at her lot in life. When she stopped laughing she sat down and cried.

Cheering is a Sport, Dammit!

He had made it to the pinnacle of his career. He was the President of the most powerful country in the world. He commanded one of the strongest armies ever to exsist. He had it all. Or so it seemed, but underneath it all he was a simple man. He liked hanging out with his friends and being on his ranch. When he looked in the mirror he did not recognize the old man who looked back. God, this job was way more stressful then anyone told him it would be. He really just wished he could go back to that time in his life when he had been the happiest. Cheering! Cheering! Cheering!

The Art of War

The goose bumps rose up on her arms as she aimed her bowed and let loose the arrow. It flew swiftly and hit the pile of brush set up on the opposite peak. The brush burst into flame signally the warriors below that the advancing army was headed their way. She slung her bow over her shoulder and made her way, as fast as she could, down the mountain side. She wanted to be there with her regiment when they went into battle. This would be the fight of their lives. Everything they held true and dear was at stake. She joined her regiment just as they were preparing to head to the front lines. She refilled her arrow pouch adjusted her sword and bid farewell to her younger sister who would be staying behind to tend to the wounded. Her commander yelled the advance and she and the 100 other women in her regiment set off. As they approached the battle field she could smell the sickening stench of blood and knew that there was a chance she would not survive this battle. She prepared herself and as they reached the battle field she saw the chaos and did not hesitate, she rushed in with bow and arrow felling two of the enemy before they even knew what happened. When she ran out of arrows she withdrew her sword form its scabbard and plunged toward the fray. To her left and right were the women she had trained with from the time of her sixth year. As she fought on she would catch occasional glimpses of the red hair woman leading the regiment to the left of hers. The woman fought with such brilliance it was if she were a goddess of war sent to rescue them from this battle. But in the end she was merely a mortal and an arrow from the enemy pierced the red haired warrior's chest and she fell. When she saw the red haired warrior fall she wanted to scream in pain and lie down and cry, but the battle was not over and she had to finish this for she was an Amazon Warrior and if she was lucky there would be time after they won this battle to mourn her mother’s death.

The Long Black Veil

He was hanged over ten years ago but I can still remember the feel of his hands on my skin. His eyes would shine a brilliant blue brimming with love as we lay tangled in the sheets of my bed. He loved me with all his heart and that love for me killed him. He was with me when the man was killed but because he loved me he told no one and because I was weak, I stayed silent and watched as they hanged him in the town square. He was a good man. I wish I could have been a better woman, so I put on my veil and walk the hills where he is buried, it is the least I can do. I may not have loved him in life, but I can love him in death.



Long Black Veil

Ten years ago on a cool dark night
There was someone killed 'neath the town hall light
There were few at the scene and they all did agree
That the man who ran looked a lot like me

The judge said ``Son, what is your alibi?
If you were somewhere else then you won't have to die''
I spoke not a word although it meant my life
I had been in the arms of my best friend's wife

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave where the night winds wail
Nobody knows, no, and nobody sees
Nobody knows but me

The sky froze high and eternity neared
She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold wind moans
In a long black veil she cries over my bones

By Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin

Organic Material

The rocks were carefully searched for organic remains but none were found. That is when we decided there was no life on the planet. To our shock and dismay we were wrong. When we landed on the planet and started our mining project we really did think the planet was desolute. It was only later when they attacked that we realized our mistake. We were looking for organic materials not robotic. That had been our mistake. We had been nieve. I leave this message as warning for others to not make the same mistake we had. If we had left them alone we would not be in this situation now. They are tough task masters and working for them is hell, but at least I am still alive, unlike most of my fellow humans who pershied in the war when they destoryed us with thier superior power. They are indestructiable. Do not let your knowledge of organisms blind you.

Happy Birthday Brother O Mine!!!!

The Tradition

No one knew when the tradition had started. It seemed to most that it had just always been. When her name was drawn that year she felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. This was her last year in the drawing and she was certain it was not going to happen to her. Each of the last three years she had prepared herself for her name to be called, but this year she was not ready. Not ready to hear her name called by Thomas the newly appointed record keeper and her best friend. He smiled sadly at her because he alone knew she was not ready for this. He alone knew she had not prepared for it. She had destroyed all of the previous years' carefully prepared plans. She had been a fool. With dread she walked up the stairs to the stage, held her hands up and thanked the kingdom for this privilege, the privilege to live in the castle, wear silks and satins, to eat enormous amounts of food and pretty much do anything she wanted for an entire year as the Queen. She felt sick to her stomach.

Which Jane Austen Heroine are you?

Take the Quiz here!

The Stranger

She had sung in the saloon for two years now, it was common knowledge that she could be had after the show for a few coins. she had not chosen this life but there were not many options for a women like her. Her voice drew them in and thoughts of her unclothed body kept them in the chairs. She made a tidy profit for she had the voice of an angel in the body of a whore. She hoped that very soon she would have enough saved to escape this life and buy a small farm and live out her days there. It was a small dream but it was all hers and nothing would ever take the dream away, until he walked in to the saloon. He was not handsome by any stretch of the imagination but she looked into his eyes as she sang on the stage and she knew her dream was over. After she finished he paid his coins and followed her up to her room. He stopped her as she began to undress and said,

" I have been looking for you for two years now. Yours parents think you are dead and your son cries himself to sleep every night. Why did you leave us?"

She just stared at him, so he grabbed her arms and gave her a little shake.

" You are my wife and I love you and want you to come home, don't you have anything to say." he asked

She looked at this strange man and reached behind her for the fireplace poker, this stranger was obviously crazy.

"There you go"

The Johnny Cash song came on the juke box in the corner of the bar. She smiled when she heard it. It had been so many years ago that it was ,at times hard for her to believe that it had ever happened. That she had ever been that kind of women. But it was real and it was the truth, in her younger years it had been her style to break hearts and tell lies. She had been a beauty and even as a small child everyone who met her told her mother that she was going to break a lot of hearts. She had lived up to everyone’s expectations and she had had fun doing it. Now she was your typical grandmother of ten. Her oldest grandchild was getting married in the spring, that girl had definitely not broken any hearts. Sometimes she worried about her and how boring she seemed to be, it just seemed wasteful to spend all that beauty on one man. Oh well, what could a grandmother do. As the music played on she let her mind slid back in time to that hot summer long ago when she met that young musician and broke his heart. She smiled as her body swayed to the music….. “You’re gonna break another heart you’re gonna tell another lie…..”

The Cranberry Bog

Her name was Dot and she had spent her whole life on the bog. She loved that bog and those cranberries. She now gave tours to ignorant tourist who had no idea the beauty of the bog. Every once in a while there would be one person in a tour group who gave Dot a slight glimmer of hope. They would ask all the right questions and would listen intently to her description of the process of harvesting the berries. This happened so rarely that when that person appeared every three years or so it filled her with the hope that maybe mankind was not as bad as she really thought, that just maybe there was a kindred soul. Invariably this hope would build over the next hour of the tour and as always it would be dashed and smashed liked a ship against a rocky coast. More often then not she would see that hope die as each of these “ kindred souls” would prove they were not what she thought by letting their curiosity get the best of them and making the very fatal mistake of stepping out onto her bog. She was sure getting tired of burying all those bodies, but at least she had a lot of bog and after all it was really good fertilizer for the cranberries.

A History Lesson

She travelled through time like she was just going to the corner grocery. It was easy. She had been able to do it since she was about four. That first time it had happened quite by accident. She had been toddling around her room playing dress up when all of the sudden she was no longer in her room, one moment she was walking toward her bed and the next she had somehow slipped through an open seam in the fabric of time and was wandering around a dark London street perilously close to where Jack the Ripper was about to strike his second victim, she was of course not aware of any of this because she was only four after all, but as she got older and the time travel more frequent she learned facts about history that she could use in her travels. She learned to love all aspects of the history of the world but her favorite time in history was 1948, the year her father was two. She would often go to that time and sit in the park across from his childhood home and watch the idyllic, serene family scenes that played out for her like a movie. Her childhood had not been like a movie, after her parents divorced she had seldom seen her father and as he slowly slipped from her life her mother dug a tench and fortifications and tried to control every aspect of her childhood. Travelling between times was her only refuge and as the years went by she returned home less and less so that by the time she was thirty her own time had forgotten she even existed. On her last visit to her own time she discovered that although history can not be altered the future is uncertain and so it goes that in 1974 a girl was born but in 2008 the women did not exist for she had spent too much time in the past.

57 Seconds is not long

I could survive for 57 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

The Wedding

Sometimes I dream that it never happened. That the huge wedding with all the flowers, ten bridesmaids and the whitest, most beautiful dress I had ever owned. After waking from those dreams I would sit in the giant bed covered in silk and keep my eyes closed for a minute savoring the dream, savoring the idea that the wedding had never occured, that I was now not sitting in this luxurious bed in the biggest house I had ever seen or was ever likely to see again. That instead I was sitting in a narrow bed in a small farm house on the edge of civilization. On those days after the dream I feel listless and anxious as if I am waiting for my real life to start. I fear that it will never start, that I will not ever experience joy again. The fears are very real becasue I knew when I chose him that I was making a mistake but I did it any way. I thought that beautiful clothes, fancy houses and servants would be enough. I was wrong. I should have chosen better. I should have chosen the farm with rough sheets, hard work, little money and the only man who not only made me laugh but alos made my heart leap everytime he walked into a room. I should have chosen the man not the wedding.

Kafe

Every day for two years she drank coffee. Never before in her life had she drank so much coffee. She had always been a tea drinker. Hot tea every morning. But for those two years it was coffee. Coffee in the morning, coffee in the afternoon, coffee after dinner. It sometimes seemed the countries entire culture was based on coffee drinking. She met her friends for coffee, she met co-workers for coffee, she took her students for coffee( although they would occasionally try to sneak in a beer instead), she drank coffee after every meal she ate out. And because she was not used to nursing one very small turkish coffee for two hours and since she unlike many of her local friends could afford more she would drink three to their one. So needless to say she became addicted to coffee, addicted to sitting in cafes for hours drinking coffee and talking, addicted to the pleasure of no time constraints, no worries and nowhere to hurry to. Eight years later she still drinks coffee every morning and although she no longer has the luxury of those long leisurely afternoons in the cafe, every time she tastes that warm sweet coffee, she remembers that place, its people and their coffee.

Somewhere

Somewhere out there is the man I am looking for. It may take years to find him but I will find him one day. I am preparing for our first meeting every day. I have developed the skills I will need to catch him. I have become a different women knowing that the one I used to be would never find him. I have practiced every day for the last two years so that I know when I find him, he will be mine. My hope is that once I find him my life will be complete, this gnawing emptiness will be gone. I will be whole again. It took me years to realize what I needed to do but now that I have a plan, I know that I will find him and when I do I will kill him with all the vengeance that has been bottled up inside me since the day he killed my parents and younger sister. Somewhere out there is the man who destroyed my family and I will find him.

Leave No Trace

It happened so fast that when it was over they were both shocked. The body laid on the carpet in the middle of the living room. Phil started to freak out repeating over and over again,
"Oh no!"
Thomas had to slap him several times to calm him down.
" Look, this is bad and we have to remain calm to decide what we need to do!" Thomas said
" I can not go to jail, I will not do well in jail!" Phil shrieked
" Don't worry I know someone who knows someone who can help us out." Thomas said
Thomas went to the phone dialed and waited. Phil watched in both anguish and hope. After Thomas hung up the phone he said,
" Don't worry it will all go away."

Twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door. Thomas answered and standing on the door step were five of the youngest, clean cut, decent looking boy scouts you had ever seen. Thomas said,
" Thank you so much for coming it is great to meet you guys, I am Thomas and this is Phil."
The oldest of the scouts stepped forward and said,
" We have never met and we were not here, now sit quietly on the sofa while we clean up this mess." the scout then began to shout out orders to his patrol, " Lay out the tarp, get the rope, make sure the knots are secure, ready the bleach."
In twenty minutes the scouts had securely wrapped the body and cleaned up any traces of blood, they hoisted the body up and prepared to leave. The Patrol leader looked at Thomas and Phil and repeated his warning,
" We have never met and we were never here!"
As the scouts carried the body out of the apartment Thomas and Phil could faintly hear them singing:
Softly falls the light of day as our campfire fades away,
Silently each scout must ask, have I done my daily task,
Have I kept my honor bright, can I guiltless sleep this night,
Have I done and have I dared everything to be prepared.
Phil and Thomas never saw those scouts again and to this day 10 years later that body has never been found. Thomas sometimes wonders how they made it disappear.

A group of scouts sits around a campfire with their Scout master, the Scout master is finishing his second bowl of Chili, he turns to the Patrol Leader and says,
" Kenny I don't know how you do it, but this chili is amazing, won't you tell me your secret ingredient?"

My secret Exsitence

For years and years and years now people have been searching for the answer to that one burning question. Am I real? Do I exist? The answer is yes. I am real, I exist. I live up here in Alaska where no one will ever find me. It is a pretty good existence. The wife and I have recently redecorated the rec. room. She made these really lovely flowered curtains. The kids are all doing well. They have lots of friends at school and Thomas even has a part in the school musical. He is not the greatest singer but he does a good job. We are canning vegetables for the long winter ahead and we have recently been able to pick up The Disney Channel on the satellite dish. The kids have been enjoying High School Musical. All in all things have been good. We caught the news of those yahoos in Georgia. It just really burns my butt that these crazies continue to make up these hoaxes. I tell you if I thought for a minute you humans would not kill me, my family and our community and experiment on our cold dead bodies, I would come forward and end these hoaxes and all the myths. But since I am pretty sure you would kill us, I think I will just ignore this latest news and keep my head down and enjoy our little families quite life.

The Observer

She watched him from the apartment across the alley. She had cameras, microphones, everything you would need to observe his activities. This was her fifth assignment and it was the longest she had been on. During the training phase before you were ever allowed to watch you were taught to separate yourself from the subject, to never begin to think of the subject as anything but the subject. She was afraid she was failing. it had started innocently enough during her third week of watching. He seemed to look directly at her from his window and smile. She know there was no way he had seen her or known she was watching but still she felt as if they were connected through that one smile. As time went by she immersed herself in his activities and now she realized she was goner. She had gotten too involved, too concerned, too connected, maybe even fallen in love a little bit. She was going to have to ask for a reassignment. It would be hard ,but she could do it, she could leave this all behind and move on to another subject. Besides he would be dead soon anyway. I mean after all she had been watching him now for 80 years so that would make him well into his nineties, humans did not live much longer then that. She sighed when she thought back over all of her subjects and realized that her very first observation subject had now been dead for over three centuries. She shook her head and reminded herself that she had chosen to drink the serum and take the oath and pick up the Observer Mantle, she had a job to do and one 98 year old guy would not break her resolve. The observers must observe or chaos would reign.