Tag: story
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Prophecy
The poet had gone insane. Ingesting a chemical substance believed by pundits of religious esoterica to be the forbidden route to God. Discovered near a dead sea were scrolls of his work written under the influence with his senses heightened and deranged, was how they came to be. Found in a vision – picture this…
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Prayer
At the edge of a cliff lived a man who sang praises to the wind. What kept him alive was the desire to reach the ultimate dream of perfection which he hoped he might someday achieve. In a house built of stone and wood he prayed for answers while awaiting guidance in the colors of…
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Omniscience
On route to experience the paranormal, I walked for days through a downpour of incessant wind and rain, climbing out of the storm by traversing the face of a cliff to its uppermost ridge. I found myself standing at the rim of a dormant volcano, an island high above an ocean of clouds. I was…
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Blame
Three men sat at a table to analytically dissect the reasons for their lives going to hell. After numerous drinks and several helpings of the house specialty of lamb they found many people to recriminate besides themselves. And when asked to leave because of their boisterous conduct they blamed the waiter and unanimously agreed not…
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Devices
I was detained and held captive by a man who sought to conquer the world. He had stockpiled an arsenal of weapons dating back to the birth of civilization – Babylonian spears, Roman catapults, Samurai swords, medieval crossbows, grenades, missiles – a virtual museum. These trophies of war were hung from ceilings, displayed in glass…
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Oscillations
Of little substance, autonomous worlds of spinning matter interacting within a predominately empty space is who and what we are, she said. We were on a blind date prearranged by friends. It’s amazing we can communicate at all, she quipped, given the enormous distance between us, relatively speaking. Dinner was served and we talked and…
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Clay
His body displaced the air as he walked along a sunlit path and questioned the worth of his existence. What if anything would he leave behind? He beheaded a flower to examine its ephemeral beauty and purpose, sniffing then twirling it by the stem, before tossing it back to earth. As all things return again…
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Blur
He drove himself too fast. His life was a blur, punctuated by moments of clarity. At the altar, his wives, in the honeymoon suites, the kitchens, bedrooms, wanting love. His children showing him a toy, a picture they drew. Road signs. Looping overpasses. Changing signals. He felt maligned by the curves, forced to brake, always…
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Attributes
She was a woman of incomplete mind. She formed her thoughts then her words with deliberate care. The skill of communicating with a precise formula of letters and sounds did not come easy. By the age of thirty-six she had turned this detriment into an attribute and had become a talk show host married to…
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Dementia
What he wanted most was to save lives but in the end he could not even save his own. People arrived with their tattered minds and troubled dreams and he gave them hope. Inspiration found in stories, age-old remedies designed to repair the damage over time. Compassionately he cried, unable to maintain a professional distance.…