None of Those Above

The windshield wipers beat out a slow and steady rhythm, trying in earnest to keep time to the 70s rock ballad that blared from the radio.
A flash of blue appeared ahead and he instinctively slowed.  He felt ___________ .
A.    excited
B.     anxious
C.     surprised
D.     nothing
Soon a red flash appeared as well- must be an accident he thought, [...]

Fair Game

So you wanna play checkers?
I guess so.  Where’s the board?
Inside.  I’ll get it- hold on.
Solomon sat on the front porch and watched the bats dance in the dusk.  A beer appeared to his left.
Red or black?
Red. He looked down and rubbed a callous on his index finger. You know, I was driving home from work [...]

Fear

Nothing makes much sense now- the heat and fear and spite envelop me like a wet cocoon, sickeningly sweet.
I hear drums in the distance.  They are close now.
My left arm raises out of instinct and I stare at my bare flesh, as if the watch they had stolen would somehow appear if I stared long [...]

Winter

The weather as it hits the landscape is an unfinished pencil sketch, faint and muted with smudges of cold brushing across the canvas of my skin. It is early morning, but still too light for color. Everything is gray- burnished silvers and fresh charcoals show themselves before the sun’s ascent dulls and chars the view, [...]

Shelter

It wasn’t much, really, just an old barn in the middle of a field on the edge of town.  As he glanced at it now, the childhood memory formed thirty years ago of an impressive structure was irrevocably tarnished by the image before him. He couldn’t count the number of times that the present had [...]

Breakdown

Hey, hand me that thing over there.
What thing? A young girl beside him looked around in earnest, her flowered dress twirling in the breeze.
That one. Arthur stood up and pointed at a small screwdriver before diving again beneath the hood of the vehicle.  In a few moments, he felt cold slick metal in the [...]

Scars

The sun hung in the sky like a life-threatening blood clot, menacing and deep red. The warm waters of the Mediterranean rolled out beneath it in complementing shades of orange and yellow. In the distance the last remaining evidence of land was slowly retreating behind the horizon. The only sound was that of the waves [...]