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The Friday Muse – The Unending Staircase
Made of concrete, the small thirty by thirty structure sat alone in a vacant parking lot. A single black door against all-white cement was the only indication that people were meant to enter and exit the structure. The lot itself belonged to a grocery store that had been torn down long ago. Nothing else resided for miles along Highway 17, even though the highway was a main artery connecting Fenneston to Fairbanks. Pam spotted the uncanny landmark while passing through on Highway 17 on her way to Fairbanks. In fact, she passed it many times on her multiple trips to Fairbanks. She always found herself curious as to why the…
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Eight Ball, Corner Pocket
“Eight ball, corner pocket,” Shane called out. His trembling hands coated the pool stick in slippery sweat, making it difficult to position his shot. Sergio leaned against the pool table, a smirk slowly bleeding across his face. “You just called your fate, ese.” Gripping the pool stick, Shane lowered himself to the table and attempted to line up his shot. His rapidly pounding heart reminded him of how ridiculous it was that his fate and the fate of his wife and kid rested on a simple game of pool. His mind tried to trace the events that led him here… He caught his wife cheating with his best friend. That’s…
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The Friday Muse – Shutterbug
Stacy set the Polaroid camera on the oak desk. Releasing her grip on it gave her a strange sense of freedom, as if fate itself was trying to fuse her to the camera and she was cutting the connection each time she broke away from the handheld item. The camera seemed to hum, faintly rattling the surface of the desk, but Stacy knew it was her imagination. Cameras didn’t hum. Then again, cameras didn’t do what this camera did. The intercom installed near her front door chimed, startling her. Stacy rushed to it and hit the faded blue button to let her friend, Renee, into the building. Unaware that it…
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Christians, Fiction, And Domestic Violence
Late last week, I posted a fictional story titled Jen Fled. It was a short piece for my ‘The Friday Muse’ segment on my blog where I write a short piece of fiction each Friday to discipline myself in writing on a regular basis and to give my followers/readers something new each week. Jen Fled is a piece about domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is not covered in Christian fiction circles very often – if at all. I can’t remember EVER reading a piece regarding domestic abuse, aside from a brief mention here and there of the victim. Definitely never any pieces that showed actual domestic abuse happening. Christian circles tend…
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The Friday Muse – Jen Fled
“Where are you going?” Jen stared out the window at the clouds below. “Anywhere but here.” “No really, where are you headed?” the older woman insisted. “I don’t know.” The old woman grumbled something under her breath and then resumed reading her beaten copy of Reader’s Digest. To Jen, the clouds looked like puffs of white cigarette smoke. In truth, she had no idea where she was headed. The plane ticket would take her to Paris, but beyond that, she had no itinerary. She just knew she had to get as far away from Victor as possible. “Drink?” Jen turned toward the stewardess. “Just water.” The old woman chuckled. “I’m…
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The Friday Muse: Darkness Pierced (Part 3)
Darkness Pierced (Part 1) Darkness Pierced (Part 2) When Melissa Robinson left the candlelit safety of the guest room in Turnkey’s farmhouse, she entered a darkness so thick and so consuming that she swore she had died and entered hell. Her eyes wouldn’t adjust to it, the shadows grazed her skin like strands of silk, and the smell of rotting meat made her want to retch. Maybe I should have listened to the cat. Really? she scolded herself. The cat? The talking cat? Melissa took a deep breath, and the air weighed in her lungs. “Hello?” she called out. “Lightbearer,” a slithery voice hissed. “Me?” she said, spinning around. The…
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The Friday Muse – Darkness Pierced (Part 2)
Darkness Pierced (Part 1) Melissa Robinson nearly died of hypothermia that last day of winter. After falling through the icy surface of Turnkey’s Pond, the cold shock of the water beneath almost immediately paralyzed her, preventing her from making it from the center of the lake back to land. Everyone from the winter celebration had left and this left Melissa alone, skating on the lake, oblivious to the fact that 6pm had come around. Nobody ever stayed on Turnkey’s property much past 6pm during the winter. Everyone knew better. But Melissa had neglected to pay attention and nearly died for her mistake. When she opened her eyes, she found herself…
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The Friday Muse – Darkness Pierced
There was nothing quite like skating the frozen pond near Turnkey’s farm. Once winter hit, and the pond—which acted as a habitat for various creatures during the spring—froze over, it became the ideal spot for kids and adults alike to come and skate, build snowmen, or just enjoy the falling snow. Melissa Robinson loved to ice skate on Turnkey’s Pond. Loved it since she was five. Loved it now, in her late twenties. The cold wind on her face, the slippery ice under her feet, she was able to get lost in the act of twirling and spinning and sliding across the surface of the pond. There was something mystical…
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The Benefit Of The Long Road To Success
Success. It’s what everyone strives for. Success in life, in business, in finance, in everything. We all want to succeed. We don’t want to fail. Most of all, we want success now. Not next year. Not the year after that. But now. I was like this for a very long time. In 2004, when I first self-published Expired Reality (now Endangered Memories, the first book in my Expired Reality series), I thought success would come to me overnight. I truly, wholly, believed that. In fact, I believe it so much that I hit one of the lowest points of my life when the book, in fact, did not become successful…
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The Christian Fiction Mess
Creatives. We abound in the fantastic. We thrive in the extraordinary. We skirt convention, we thwart the mundane, we flesh out the status quo. As creatives, we create. And much of what we create can be…messy. Or rather, it should be. How can painters paint without getting paint all over the place? How can writers write without eventually surrounding themselves in a mountain of scrapped and balled-up paper? What about those who do clay? Woodworking? Metal? Of course, I’m not really here to talk about a physical mess. You won’t be able to avoid making a mess at some point if you work in the creative arts. I mean a…
