When was the last time you read a book from cover to cover, closed the lid on the final page and sighed? Do you remember that sigh? How did it feel? What did it mean? Was it a sigh of satisfaction with your read? A sigh filled with bittersweet joy over the finale? That sigh. ...

Read PART 1 here   ~~ I was lying in bed, listening to the whistle of wind against the side of the house. It had always been a comforting sound, and one of the few good things to come from the winters in New England. They had become colder every year since my husband had ...

Thursday was when I had my weekly home visits for blood work. For twelve years, my flesh had been trying to poison me, but by the grace of God, Dr. Hubert caught it in time. Who knew type II diabetes would actually kill you? After 71 years, the only way to keep the up in ...

Read the previous parts here: | 1 | 2 | 3 |   Harold stood just within the entrance and let the door close behind him. It bumped him a bit as it latched home.  The hall was empty. He took a step and an obscenely loud crack of thunder reverberated through the walls. He ...

Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2   8   Sheets of water battered the showroom windows as midnight approached. Harold was beginning to wish he had brought his guitar. An itch had developed in his fingertips to feel the copper strings beneath them, to hear the scratch of his new calluses on ...

Read PART 1 here   5   The weekend came and went as Harold forgot about the footsteps in the sanity of daylight. He bought his groceries and gathered up his clothes to bring over to the communal laundry room the dingy apartments shared. Once his short list of chores were attended to, he did ...

1   Harold Rothman had been working the night shift at MorningStar Storage Co. for three weeks before he heard footsteps in the hallway. It sat mostly unused, connecting the climate-controlled units A and F. He had been hired for under the table cash to run the counter for the odd-ball late-night customer that might ...

Alan Forthite opened his eyes and was met with blinding light. His head felt extraordinarily heavy on his shoulders, and he had to exert considerable effort to not let it lull about in place. He raised his hand to rub at his aching temples.  That’s when he remembered that he was dead. I was sitting ...

Derek Hilliard loved numbers and walking. On his way home from the accounting firm where his office was located he counted his steps; 572, 573, 574. This was his custom with every trip he could justify not taking a cab for, which also happened to be most of them. From his house, he knew that ...

Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4   PART 5 There was darkness and heat.  Scott was lying on a stone floor. A thin layer of gravel and dirt scraped against his face. He made a clumsy attempt to stand, but found his hands bound behind his back and resigned to rolling onto his ...