The Abstract Art Gallery
A writing gallery created by writers from around the world. From poetry to song lyrics, from essays to entire novels and short stories.
I did my best to make the most of my childhood…
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…the middle of May, the lilacs along my driveway are in full bloom and, as always, they remind me of Aunt Arlene. She had a row of lilacs that ran all along the southern section of her yard. Well, it wasn’t exactly “her yard”, or Uncle Bud’s either. The farm, the yard, and almost everything else around the place actually…
By K. L. Shipley
Read More…applied for a cashiering job yesterday: I hadn’t before because my ego is enormous and I wanted to be viewed as an “entrepreneur” and a successful one at that, despite the fact that it takes most businesses three to five years to reach profitability, and I’m only just beginning my…
By Daniella Cressman
Read MoreThe fog never clears. We must make our best guess, and move on.
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…little words that stick in the craw. Even when we know that we don’t know, we are reluctant to say so. We believe that admitting ignorance makes us vulnerable. Ignorance does make us vulnerable; admitting ignorance is the first step toward being…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreWhen there is not enough data it is better to acknowledge ignorance than it is to invent absurdity.
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…does it happen that two persons of equal intelligence, rationality, and good will can come to equally opposite interpretations of the very same set of facts? It is something that has puzzled me for a very long time. Now I think I have ways to explain some of the mystery. I believe the oddity known to psychologists…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreHiking in rural Derbyshire (UK) can transport you into Britain's Celtic past
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…narrow, slippery path leads me to the very top of the hill, dominating the endless fields around Birchover, a tiny traditional village in rural…
By Valeriya Salt
Read MoreUncle Roscoe started each day with a generous helping of oatmeal.
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…years of hanging out on the planet it finally occurred to me to wonder where I came from. I knew quite a bit about my immediate genesis of course, but I knew nothing about the deeper roots tangled in the obscurity of…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreWe know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean.
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…is about six miles deep at its deepest depth in the Pacific’s Mariana Trench. The pressure at that depth is eight tons per sq. inch. The pressure at Ocean’s average depth of fifteen thousand feet is about six tons per sq. inch. No wonder little more than five percent of the Ocean deep has been…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreThe battle slogs on relentlessly.
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…motes of dust dance in the light, gracefully swirling inside the beam that reveals what the darkness hides. There is no trace of even the slightest movement of air. What makes the motes dance? Some sort of electromagnetic energy? Something else? I don’t know. Where did all this dust come from? If the beam…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreKilling them would have been the straightforward solution. I didn't want to kill them. I wanted them gone.
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…come bent on pillage and plunder, roaming tribes driven from their native home to invade mine. No doubt they have heroic ballads celebrating the boldest among them, justifying their ravaging ways…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreI can remember almost everything past the age of two. How could I have gotten this wrong?
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…moved West to seek his fortune. He set out from Cainsville, Missouri on some unknown day in the 1880’s with little more to sustain him than hope and ambition, he worked his way across the country until he reached the San Juaquin Valley in central California. He got there just in time…
By K. L. Shipley
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