“I didn’t mean to keep count of how many people I’d watched die since Mrs. Heyland thirty-one years ago, but my subconscious was a diligent accountant. Especially since I was nearing a pretty impressive milestone - today the tally nudged up to ninety-seven ..read more

“For a long moment, the command post is silent. All eyes study the drone video feed on the screen. A sea of red heat signatures is moving through the jungle, heading directly for Jericho City. We’ll never survive contact with this many E. Rex. Even before we came down to the planet, we knew that the Eos Rex was the most dangerous predator on this world. We call them E. Rex because they resemble the T. Rex from Earth’s past ..read more

It seems like Almost Yesterday when the community of Greenville, Missouri experienced a disastrous flood. The event was the most extensive flood in the history of the small town on the St. Francis River, and caused such destruction that it permanently altered the region ..read more

“I see a young man on TV, riding a horse out of a barn, hugging a little girl. Let’s face it, I’m in the market for a useful idiot, and he’s strong and has that big goofy grin. So voila, there he is, the ideal candidate. He doesn’t have the brains of a plate of spaghetti, or seems not to. A cipher even to himself. Never even voted, can you believe it. Perfect, absolutely perfect. I’ll create him. I’ll be his Henry Higgins. And he’ll repay me with votes.” L.D. chuckled. “I had no idea what I was in for ..read more

Many years ago, while visiting Coventry Cathedral, my mother was taken by the beautiful needlepoint kneelers that were in every row. She asked the guide if they sold the pattern for them and the guide went off to check. She returned with a packet of four of the original pattern papers and simply gave them to my mother ..read more

“Prologue. Altha. 1619. Ten days they’d held me there. Ten days, with only the stink of my own flesh for company. Not even a rat graced me with its presence. There was nothing to attract it; they had brought me no food. Only ale ..read more

“Your education will prepare your to be splendid wives and mothers, and your reward might be to marry Harvard men.” Wilbur Kitchener Jordan, president of Radcliffe College, in his welcoming addresses to incoming students, 1950’s ..read more

“Deep in space, billions of miles from Earth, an ancient machine awoke. The machine ran several simulations, quickly settling on the optimal way to eliminate the target. The question wasn’t whether it could wipe out the primitivism ..read more

“Approaching the museum, ready to hunt, Stephane Breitwieser clasps hands with his girlfriend, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, and together they stroll to the front desk and say hello, a cute couple. Then they purchase two tickets with cash and walk in. It’s lunchtime, stealing time, on a busy Sunday in Antwerp, Belgium, in February 1997 ..read more

Anthony Peardew has been collecting lost things for forty years, ever since he lost the St. Teresa medal that his wife-to-be gave him right before she died. Every day he goes for a walk, picks up lost items, brings them back to his study, and labels them ..read more