Cheat Day_Retiring at Last_Balance_Our Father
Catalog Guide:
Cheat Day
You’re not supposed to be here, Mandy thought to herself as her Jeep crept slowly into a parking stall in front of her favorite coffee shop. She had expected the brick facade to fill her with comfort, like a reunion with an old friend, but what she felt was more akin to deja vu. A passing familiarity, the sense that she’d been there before in a dream. In the past, it had been a weekly destination for her. Every Sunday, on Cheat Day, she bought a large latte with whipped cream on top and curled up on the couch with a good book for at least an hour. Occasionally she would get a refill, though sh...
Retiring at Last
Inside a decrepit apartment building in a boring town in a questionably-existent territory sat an old man. He covered what remained of his hair with a dark green flat cap and when attempting to stand upright, his spine declined to cooperate and his head stuck out in front of his chest. He sat in front of a television playing the travel channel. The oceans of a Hwww.onedoor.ccawaiian beach repeatedly swallowed up a few feet of shore before spitting it out again. He had dreamed of sitting there, unemployed and carefree, for as long as he could remember. As his eyelids drifted shut and that faraway world consu...
Balance
His hands, flapping around uselessly on the way down the cliff face, grasped nothing but air. Finally, he perceived a sickening crack -- a sound that appeared to come from all around him, yet from deep inside -- as bone collided with age-old rock. The last neuron impulses, which flashed through Jim D. Brick's dying brain formed a single thought: Why them -- what did I ever do to them?! Heidi Brick used a template to draw another few maple leaves onto pages of orange, brown, and red-colored construction paper before she handed them to her kids, 8-year-old Mandy and her 5-year-old, Sammie, who t...
Our Father
(Note: Lola = grandmother)“Peace be with you.”“And also with you.”The cold water lingered on my forehead, traveling slowly before settling on the lines in between my eyebrows. Even though it had been over thirty years, stepping foot into the church was like riding a bicycle—you stumbled and swerved at the beginning until you got your bearings again. I looked down at the open casket, taking in a cleansing breath as I stared at your face, pale and peaceful. A stark contrast to how I’d describe you when you were alive.Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;You’d always been the ultim...