No Going Back

At 9:00 p.m., a thunderstorm forced him to climb to 10,000 feet to fly above the…

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…miles from Le Bourget Air Field, he began to see the flares. Less than 33 hours earlier, 500 people had watched the 25-year-old pilot take off from a muddy Roosevelt Field runway in New York. He hoped to become the first…

By Pete Black

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Bitter Fruit

…felt his marriage to Susan had been on the rocks for years. Things just weren’t right between them. They were completely different people. These days they hardly spoke to each other and when they did it usually ended in an argument. The niggling doubts he’d been having for years were increasing as their marriage trundled on. They were just going through the motions. They could have an argument about…

By Chris Platt

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Wallflower Observations

“We were the wallflowers. The weeds. The throwaways.”

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…again I was left standing alone against the wall while the pretty ones all around me were chosen and floated off as though they were helium balloons on streamers which never touched the ground. The girls’ giggles when the handsome boys’ hands caught theirs and led them off lingered in the air on either side…

By Carmen Baca

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Her Eyes Were Open

…served three years on a ten to fifteen stretch for armed robbery when the Governor of Ohio decided, for monetary reasons, to pardon a big group of nonviolent offenders. Somehow my shyster lawyer got me on the list and I have no idea how he convinced them that I was non-violent. Suddenly I was a free bird; back out in the civilian world with no parole and no…

By Benjamin Fine

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Discovery

…film crew hacked and pushed on through the jungle. At their head Sir Ralph Gordon, intrepid explorer and sailor. He had been declaring for years that he would one day discover the Enryb, a tribe that had often been spoken of, but nobody had ever seen. Sir Ralph checked the readings on his compass and also his mobile satellite navigation devised. He nodded to the…

By Chris Platt

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Auld Lang Syne

A woman faces a terrible tragedy on Christmas Eve but within two hours she makes a decision that not only changes her life but thousands more.

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…when Peter left work a few minutes early. Although he knew for days about the coming winter storm, it had completely slipped his mind when he rushed out the house late that morning. Having failed to wear a heavier…

By Michael Fright

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The Guardian of Time

…truck at Rosser’s Crossing was on its way to Houston, Texas filled with groceries. Eighty thousand pounds of vehicle and canned vegetables on old Kentucky 79 neared Annie’s Grocery Mart and gas station. 

The young man beside the blue mustang was singing as he replaced the nozzle in the old-fashioned gas pump and twisted the cap securely before flipping the tank lid closed. He sang louder and swayed as he…

By Elaine Marie Carnegie

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