The City of Ember

Flames rushed skyward from a structure less than a mile away across the sagebrush. At the height of another dry desert summer in July 2013, Chris Tucs, a novice member of Carson, New Mexico’s volunteer fire department, was working in the yard of his off-grid home when he saw the blaze. He threw a few shovels into the back of his truck, hitched up a trailer loaded with 300 gallons of water, and sped to the scene, looking up from navigating the ruts in the road to see flames shooting through the…

sorrow---sorrow for the lost Lenore--- For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--- Nameless here forevermore. He makes careful note to describe the dreary mood that remains present throughout the poem. He points out how each dying ember of a burning out fire sets its own eerie light out onto the floor, not into the room, but the floor. It also tells of how the man wishes that his day will end, and how he is trying to read books to keep his mind off of the sorrow felt…

Melancholy with Love by: Jon Barrett Melancholy with Love tell me how you feel is your heart made out of steel back in the ally way where herion is a must for it is all you can trust an insist thats a must. Couldn’t get over the thoughts and the feeling all around me I can see the sadness yet in love yet the goodness comes at a price of endless dreaming steel rails goes in rough the blood is tough down to the last vial to the last hour don’t want it to be over. I just want…

The Great Paper Clip Caper A detail was dispatched to a nereby expansive governmental unit. The community work squad disenbarked immediately covering the unit with papers, tape, dropcloth and other various and sundry paint paraphanaljia. Casey James, first-mate in charge head foreman and man of many discretionary talents, huddled his crew for this morning was to be the beginning of; “The Great Paper Clip Caper,” Everyone listened intently while Casey laid out the grandest diabolical plot of…

(Pic COVER) MOUSE AND DRAGON By IAN T. WALKER (pic TITLE PAGE) These fourteen children’s stories first appeared in “Lilly and Ian, Mouse and Dragon” which was published by Partridge, Singapore in 2015. That book was inspired by the author’s love of a Chinese woman called Lilly. Of this collection the author writes, “I showed other stories I had written to a publisher in China and he said they did…

Then she smelled wood smoke, and smelled the river, and she saw a steeple and the cabins on their steep steps. Dozens of little black children whirled around her. There ahead was Natchez shining. Bells were ringing. She walked on. In the paved city it was Christmas time. There were red and green electric lights strung and crisscrossed everywhere, and all turned on in the daytime. Old Phoenix would have been lost if she had not distrusted her eyesight and depended on her feet to know where to…