For Better or Worse

…was having a bad day. Everything was going wrong today. She’d had a flat tyre on the way to the office that morning. That seemed to have been some kind of omen, a hint of the kind of day that lay ahead. Instead of changing the tyre and continuing on the way to work, she should have sorted the car, and then done a U turn and headed back home. She had reached the office to find problem after…

By Chris Platt

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Temporary Annoyance

…approach her bed slowly, like every morning. She ignores me, staring at the television, that is running the usual batch of home shopping ads for portable vacuum cleaners, abdominal shapers, ultra-sharp fish cutting knives, smart neck massagers and rechargeable hearing aids. The only thing that can be useful to my…

By Marcelo Medone

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The Best Is Yet To Be

Grow old along with me, the best of life is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.

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…put his hand under Sarah’s elbow to help her up the stairs. She was a little wobblier than usual. She’d insisted on wearing those slinky high heels which made her legs look sexy but, he knew, hurt her feet. And she’d had more to drink than she was used…

By Jean Ende

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The Pea Island Lifesavers

On the day that Richard Etheredge arrived at the Pea Island Station the five…

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…was created as one of 18 stations on the outer banks of North Carolina. Congress established the stations to help rescue passengers and cargo in the event of a shipwreck – a common occurrence at the…

By Pete Black

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Elspeth Crusoe

When Elspeth's family leaves her at a campsite, she decides to be a kind of Robinson Crusoe.

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…saw her parents and her uncle and aunt leave the campsite in southern Ohio on a hot summer day. Elspeth was seven and had been playing in the woods. When she emerged, she watched the two cars heading down the gravel road. Her parents were in one car, and her aunt and uncle in the…

By Anita G. Gorman

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Going To The Mattresses

…trouble is, I got indicted for selling smack. Actually, I wasn’t the one pushing. This kid, named Enrique Henderson, was selling the horse, and he was paying me protection money for it all the while. Now the boss, Mr. Spirochete, he really frowns on the selling of narcotics, you know? He had started an edict—you deal, you die. Two behind the ear, just like…

By Jack Bristow

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