This site is filled with stories inspired by pictures I’ve taken or images I’ve been sent.

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Happy reading.

Rotating images courtesy of the author, Ronni Bui, Mari Elliott, and Plankhead

The head start I’d gotten would help some, and the back way would too—assuming Yeager didn’t know the back way. Of course, I had my doubts about his being that stupid, but a girl could hope, right?

I was making excellent time, but with every inch I put between myself and my pursuers, I imagined I could hear them racing up behind me, and the uncanny silence that seemed to be all around was no help. In the woods, quiet almost always means bad.

I willed myself to go faster and managed to find a small reserve of energy I hadn’t tapped into. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sustain the pace at which I was moving for long, but if I was lucky, I’d get to the hideout before “long” was up.

Getting close. Getting so very close. Keep going. Just keep going. The words thumped in my head in time with my pounding heart, and suddenly—there it was! The hideout. Safety.

In that instant, I let myself believe things were going to be okay. Bad, bad idea. The only thing worse than quiet in the woods is what generally happens when the quiet turns into the kind of noise I heard gaining on me from behind. Just like thunder, the leaves and branches and other debris on the forest floor began rumbling in a wave moving closer to me.

I’m not going to make it. But, I have to make it. I have to, or. . .

YEAGER! Yeager—NO! BAD KITTY!

Silence again surrounded me—well, aside from the yelling, all was silent. The thunderous noise from the ground below had all but stopped, but I didn’t wait around to find out whether or not Yeager and his gang were going to listen to the voice: I zigged right and left and right again just in case they were still on me, but as I made that final zig, I flew right into the hideout’s opening, and the cover and comfort of darkness.

As my eyes adjusted, I took a head count: one, two, three, four—good, all four of my kids were still safe and sound. I fed them one by one while keeping an eye on the hideout’s entrance and an ear tuned to any sounds of climbing. All I heard was the sound of running water, and I chuckled to myself: that meant the voice had sprayed Yeager and company with water, and for reasons I don’t understand, the furry beasts hate the water.

Outside, I could hear the voice muttering something about strays being a bad influence, and I chuckled to myself once again. I knew the voice was nothing to fear, and I often wondered how a nice thing comes to care for a beast like Yeager.

I was pulled away from my thoughts by two of my brood, who were poking and prodding at me for more to eat, but my supply was exhausted, and so was I. I’d have to wait awhile before I ventured out again, and neither of the little ones was too happy about that detail. Kids.

I tried to entertain the children while I caught my breath, but they were all in a cantankerous mood: two because they were full and playful and two because they were still hungry. After an all-too-brief rest, I gave a quick word of warning to the youngsters and darted out of the hideout and back into the bright light of the mid-morning.

It wasn’t the going that put me in harm’s way: it was the collecting. On my way, I could remain out of the reach of Yeager and his friends, but eventually, I had to collect the food, and that was the problem: on the ground, I was no match for the furry beasts.

The routine was simple: I’d leave the hideout and head for the collecting area. Yeager and his gang—who seemed to have nothing better to do than to pester me—waited for me to leave and tracked me along the way. The game would really begin when I touched down to collect a bug here or a worm there.

Fortunately, Yeager and company were no match for my fancy wing-work, and I was often able to lose them when I bobbed and weaved between the area’s densely growing saplings.

Of course, even if I lost them, they knew I’d have to return to the hideout, and there were plenty of places nearby my family’s safe haven for the beasts to stalk me.

And so it went:

I left.
They followed.

I collected.
They pursued.

As I left, I saw Yeager and his gang lounging in the sun. I marveled at their laziness: it seemed they lived lives of pure leisure. I didn’t hold out hope they’d simply let me be, but when they were basking in the mid-day sun, they generally opted not to chase me until my return. I flew to a nearby collecting spot, but I didn’t drop my guard. My caution was unnecessary, however, as the furry beasts were not around.

I began the trip back—I still flew with caution—but as I neared the hideout, a welcome sound met me.

It was not the voice that came with the water to scare Yeager and his gang that I heard. It was the sound of the other furry beast that echoed through the air. The other furry beast was bigger and liked to chase Yeager and anyone he was with. The other furry beast had no interest in me: it just wanted Yeager and his gang, and when it showed up, Yeager and company scattered in as many directions as they could manage.

I enjoyed the last bit of my flight back to the hideout as I watched the game of chase going on below me. The other furry beast seemed content to run around and around and around even after chasing off Yeager and the rest of the gang. It looked to me as if he gloated over his power, and that was just fine as far as I was concerned.

Back at the hideout, I made quick work of distributing the day’s second course, then having finished my task, I poked my head out of the hideout’s opening, glanced at the now prone and panting other furry beast, and began to sing a song declaring my sheer pleasure.

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Albie’s dad was a firm believer in hard work, and when Albie had expressed early interest in comic books and super heroes, his father had lifted the small boy up, set him on his workbench, and explained that real heroes were the men and women who got up each morning, worked hard at their jobs, and looked after their family members. Flying, ex-ray vision, and super-strength were merely whims of fancy and not worthy of one’s time.

When Albie’s father finished, he noticed his son was on the verge of tears. The man hadn’t intended to upset his son. He’d simply wanted to instill a work ethic in the boy, and he feared an over-active imagination would lead to a path of laziness. He, like any father, wanted the best for his boy. He wanted Albie to surpass him in whatever he undertook in his life.

“I’ll make you a deal, Albie.”

The young boy looked up while continuing to fight off tears.

“I’ll share a little secret with you if you promise not to tell anyone.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed as he considered what his father had said. His young brain was processing whether or not his dad was teasing him or was about to reveal something worthwhile. The boy settled on the thing being worthwhile and nodded his head vigorously.

Albie’s father looked carefully to his left and then to his right. He made a show of peering over his shoulder, putting a finger over his lips to instruct the child to remain silent, and then he leaned in close to Albie.

“The truth is, I have a secret power of my own, and if you want, I’ll pass it along to you.”

Albie’s eyes narrowed again, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He knew a gyp when he heard one.

“You’re lying, and lying isn’t right.” The indignance in the boy’s voice was punctuated by the firm nod he tacked on to the end of his sentence.

Albie’s father shrugged his shoulders, grabbed the boy under the arms, and hoisted him up slightly so that he might place him back on solid ground. “Well, then. Off you go, I suppose.”

The boy watched as his father turned away from him and began tinkering with something on his bench. It shocked Albie that this father wasn’t even going to try to convince him of his supposed power. It shocked the boy even more that his father had simply dismissed the entire thing so abruptly and returned to whatever it was he he’d been working on.

Albie didn’t want to bite—he was sure his father was only ignoring him to get the boy to pursue whatever it was he was going to say he could do—but the silent treatment his father had dished out was making it very hard for Albie to resist pursuing the issue.

The boy stood behind his father while mentally ordering himself to turn and leave, but his orders were those of a child, and even in his child’s mind, they held little weight.

“Okay, tell me, then,” Albie blurted out.

His father stopped what he was doing and made a show of turning around and looking down at him.

“You’re still here? I thought you’d gone off somewhere. Now, what was it you wanted?”

Albie took in a dramatic breath, rolled his eyes at his father, and replied, “tell me your secret power.”

It was the father’s turn to narrow his eyes.

“Can I trust you to keep my secret?”

The boy was getting frustrated, but he obediently nodded his head. As an afterthought, he made an “X” over his heart with the index finger of his right hand.

Albie’s father reached down for the boy and placed him back up on the workbench. He didn’t look around or remind the boy to be quiet this time, but he did lean in close to him before saying in a whispered voice,

“We Beiman’s keep the world on course. We’re not ordinary electricians.”

Albie’s disappointment covered his face.

“C’mon, Dad. Being an electrician’s not a superpower.”

The father raised an eyebrow, “Oh, no?” he asked his boy. “If I don’t have a superpower, how can I do this?”

As he spoke the word “this,” Albie’s father made a gesture with his right arm and hand in the direction of the garage door opener, and as if on cue, the door slowly ground to life and began to open.

“Wow! How’d you do that?” Albie exclaimed.

His father began to answer when Mrs. Beiman pulled into the driveway.

Albie was too disappointed to notice the surprise on his father’s face. The boy waved at his mother and grumbled out a request for his father to put him down. Mr. Beiman did as the boy asked and didn’t pursue the super-power issue with the boy who stalked off toward the station wagon in search of whatever treasures his mother had brought home from the grocery store.

* * *

“Why so glum, Albie?”

Albie’s response to his mother was a half-hearted shrug of his shoulders. He wasn’t in the mood to admit to his mom that his father had suckered him into a fleeting belief in a familial superpower. His mother was about to pursue her son’s mood when the phone rang.

“Hello? Yes, he is. Just a moment.”

Albie’s mother cupped one hand over the bottom of the telephone receiver, looked down at her son, and asked him to go out to the garage and tell his father the phone was for him. Before Albie could move, his father walked in and stepped toward the receiver his wife was holding.

“I’m on my way Mick. Be there in ten minutes.”

Albie’s father hung up the receiver, looked at his wife who nodded as if she knew exactly what was going on, and then he spoke to his son.

“Want to come along and see what your ol’ dad can do?”

Albie couldn’t think of a single time his father had asked him to tag along on a job, and this fact put the boy’s mind on edge. On the one hand, he wanted desperately to refuse simply because his father had asked him, but on the other, the opportunity to tag along with his father was too cool to pass up.

“Okay, I guess.” Albie tried his best to sound bored when he answered.

“Peter, it’s not safe.”

Albie’s father looked at Albie’s mother, and the boy saw a moment of doubt cross his father’s face, but before Albie could issue a plea in his defense, his father replied.

“It’s time he learns, Vi.”

Albie’s mother gave her husband the slightest of nods and moved toward her son who she grabbed and pulled into her and from whom she collected both a kiss and a hug before releasing him.

“You two be careful,” she said as she blew an air kiss to each of them.

* * *

To Albie, the drive seemed to take forever, but in truth, it took the pair just under ten minutes to arrive at their destination—a destination that was hundreds of miles from their home. It would be weeks before Albie put all of the pieces together: the fact that his father had known there was a call for him; the way his dad answered the caller without so much as hearing the voice on the other end of the telephone line; how his father had simply climbed into the van and driven to a location without being told where to go. All Albie knew at the moment they arrived at their destination was wherever they were, it wasn’t anywhere near his house. In fact, they seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

“C’mon, son.” Albie’s father had climbed out of the van and was motioning for the boy to follow him. As Albie got out, he noticed there was nothing in any direction as far as he could see, save for an old, beat up truck next to which stood a man.

“Where’s she at, Mick?”

Mick’s head ticked slightly, indicating the thing was behind him and to his right. Mick also managed to shoot a long, hard stare at Albie.

“What’s with the kid, Peter?” The man’s head ticked again, only this time his motion was directed at Albie.

“There’s nothing to worry about. This here’s my son, Albie.” As his father spoke, the boy saw him look in his direction, and there was something in the look his father gave him that made Albie understand he needed to be on his best behavior.

“Pleasure to meet you, sir.” Albie took a step towards Mick and extended a hand as he spoke. Mick didn’t return the gesture. Instead, he spat a used up wad of chewing tobacco into the dirt at the boy’s feet, climbed into the bed of his truck, started up the engine, and drove away.

Albie watched the truck’s disappearing dusty path, and looked back at his father who motioned for him to follow. A few hundred feet from where they had met up with Mick was what they were after.

“There she is.” Albie’s father pointed to a tangle of wires sticking up out of the ground.

“What is it?” Albie asked his father.

“That, son, is a reset device.”

“What’s a ‘reset device’?”

Albie’s father took a step toward the wires and produced a pair of cutters from one of his back pockets.

“A reset device is just what it sounds like: if it’s activated, everything gets reset. That means the world goes back to the way it was at the beginning.”

Albie looked at his father, and his earlier anger began to resurface. He didn’t like his dad teasing him.

Albie’s father saw the look on his son’s face, and while it disappointed him his son didn’t believe him, he recalled having had a similar reaction when his own father had passed along the gift.

“I’ll tell you what, Albie. How about I let you cut the wire, okay?”

Albie didn’t mean to do it, but a snicker escaped him. It wasn’t that he believed his father, but he hadn’t meant to be disrespectful, either.

His father’s face wrinkled in what was clearly angry disappointment, and Albie found himself divided: part of him was glad he’d hurt his father, but the other part of him felt a bit of shame. He steeled himself with a reminder that this had all started because his dad couldn’t accept his reading comic books and admiring superpowers. Albie assured himself his father deserved a certain amount of disrespect for pretending he could control energy, and for mocking a young boy’s imagination.

“Hey, are you listening to me?”

Albie looked down at his father who was bent over the tangle of wires. The boy hadn’t heard a thing his father said.

“I said I could prove our powers to you, boy. Pay attention!”

Albie was shocked at the tone and level of his father’s voice, and he focused on what his dad was doing.

“You’ve got to look at the wires closely. The green wire disables the device. The yellow one pauses things. The red wires activate it, and that means resetting the world, and that’s not a good thing.”

Albie looked at the bunch of wires, but they were all red. Even when he crinkled up his nose while squinting the sun away, all he saw was a gob of red.

“Are the green and yellow wires buried?”

The man looked up at his son, and then back down at the wires.

“You don’t see them?”

Albie shook his head, and for a moment, the look on his father’s face went completely blank. During that moment, a sense of dread spread over Albie, and he grew very afraid.

His father’s eyes met his own, and he opened his mouth as if to ask the boy another question, but instead of releasing words, his lips spread into a smile, and with his father’s smile, the boy’s sense of dread disappeared.

“Try now.”

Albie’s father handed the boy the wire cutters he’d been holding, and as soon as the boy had them in his fist, the green and yellow wires appeared in the tangle of red ones.

“Cool! How’d you do that?”

Albie still didn’t believe his father had superpowers, but whatever he’d done with the wires and the cutters was a great trick, and Albie had already begun to count the ways he could use the trick to his advantage with the guys back home.

“There’s no trick, kiddo. It’s just what we Bieman’s do. We make sure the world doesn’t get reset.”

Albie’s father could tell his son was impressed, but he also saw clearly the boy’s excitement was not because he was taking his father seriously.

“I’ll show you. Take the snippers and clip the yellow wire.”

Albie did as his father told him, but nothing happened. At least that’s what Albie believed until he looked back at his father and noticed the five o’clock shadow on his father’s face and the receding sunlight.

Before the boy could pepper his father with more questions, the man looked at his watch and then back at his son.

“Cut the green one, Albie. The time’s almost up.”

“Time?”

“Once the unit’s located and dug up, it’s got to be deactivated within ten hours, or it goes off, and. . .”

“And the world gets reset, right, Dad?”

Albie’s father grinned at the boy who looked back at the tangle of wires, reached out, and clipped the green one.

Nothing discernible happened, but Albie understood this meant things had gone well. He smiled up at his father, handed over the wire cutters, and proudly followed his dad back to the van.

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It occurred to him, as he stood looking about, that he didn’t feel the aching in his knees nor was it there in his back or his feet. He smiled to himself—something he hadn’t done in years. He noticed, too, that his eyesight was sharp. Then he fancied he could smell the freshness in the air. Another smile.

He decided quickly it was a dream. He tried to focus on the sagging mattress he knew himself to be sleeping on, but try as he might, he could not feel the springs rubbing annoyingly on his right hip—for he always slept on his right side, and the springs always stung him.

He took to counting: it was a trick he used whenever a bad dream took him over. He first pictured the number drawn in large, bold strokes on a blackboard. Once the number was fully formed, he thought it out in his head as loudly as he could. Then he went to work on the next number. In this manner, he was able to awaken himself before reaching ten. Only this time, he was nearing twenty, and he was still standing in his dream surrounded by brightness and things somewhat familiar.

“I’ll try another tactic,” he said aloud, and the words seemed to echo and vibrate and send ripples though the air and the room. The leaves of the plants rustled every-so-slightly, and for a moment, he felt fear.

In the middle of the room was a large easel with paper, and all around him were brushes and paints and sticks of charcoal and pastel. He would make the numbers himself he thought, and so he did. But as he reached five, it occurred to him he might make other things, and so he began by imagining the smile of his long-dead wife, and as he imagined, his hand moved the brush on the paper and before he knew it, he heard her voice.

He opened his eyes expecting to find her, but he remained alone in the room, and he felt a deep sadness. Then he noticed the paper in front of him was blank, and his sadness turned to fear.

Surely, I’ve gone mad, the man thought to himself. He looked for a door to exit the room, but saw he was closed in. I’m mad and I’m locked up. That’s the answer.

But in his heart, he knew this wasn’t true, and as frightened as he was, he returned to the easel and took up another brush.

I shall paint myself a door, he thought, and then I shall walk though it and awaken. And so he painted a door. And as he painted, he heard the creaking of the hinges, for it was the door from his father’s workshop he had imagined, and the basement door—his father’s workshop was in the basement—had always squeaked eerily.

The man opened his eyes, and there was, now, a door in his room, and it looked just like the door he remembered leading down, down, down to his father’s workshop. He stepped to it, and reached out, but the door had no knob, and as he examined it, he saw it had no dimension: it was but a false door painted on a real wall.

“What am I to do?” He shouted out in anger, and the sound of his own voice rang so loudly in his ears it took him to his knees.

“You must decide” came the answer—and the answer was in his own head, and it helped soothe the pain there.

Decide what? He thought. What must I decide? He waited for an answer, but none came, and so he listened more intently. He concentrated and slowed his breathing and willed the voice to answer him. But there was nothing. The voice was gone.

The man walked around and around the room, and time passed. He began to cry—something he hadn’t done since he was a small boy—and his tears soothed him like the voice in his head had done.

Finally, the man sat cross-legged on the floor. He looked directly at the easel, and as he watched, one image after another appeared and then vanished from the paper. The images had a familiar quality to them, but the man could not put his finger on the reason.

Occasionally, he would recognize an image outright: his son; the tree he had climbed as a child; the first home he and his wife had bought. But mixed with these images were the faces of strangers and places and things he did not remember.

The images stopped, and the man wondered if it were a sort of intermission. He looked around and listened—for what, he wasn’t certain, but it seemed the thing to do.

Presently, he arose from where he sat, took up a brush, and painted a brilliant and beautiful sunset. This time, he did not close his eyes as he painted, and as each stroke hit the paper, the image came more and more alive until the walls of the room dropped away and the heat from the setting sun washed over him.

The man finished his painting and carefully washed the pigment from the brush. He took a step back to admire what he’d done, and felt satisfaction. He watched the paint dry, and when it had, he reached for the paper, tore it from the pad, and rolled it into a tube which he tucked under his arm.

Then he was back in the room, but this time, his wife was there and the door to his father’s workshop had depth and a knob, and as he reached for his wife’s hand, he felt a deep sense of joy as together, they stepped though the door.

Outside, in a world that no longer mattered, the man lay in a hospital bed and took one final breath. Situated on his face was a smile, and all around him were the many paintings he had created while awaiting this day.

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Jonathon Meyers liked to tease Nancy King, and though she pretended to be bothered by his taunts, Nancy really wasn’t bothered at all. They were at the age when boys and girls begin to notice one another in different ways—the age at which teasing was really the only acceptable behavior between them.

Nancy knew Jonathon didn’t mean anything by most of the silly things he said, and she wasn’t especially frightened by the various crawling things he’d stuff under her nose, either. She hadn’t thought too much about it, but had she, she would have believed Jonathon was as unaffected by the occasional taunts she threw his way, and she would have been correct.

The pair had been friends since the day Jonathon’s family moved in across the street from Nancy’s, and that had been almost three whole years ago. In all that time, they’d never had a real fight, and in many ways, the two were as close as brother and sister—except they weren’t related, and Nancy had developed a crush on Jonathon. Of course, she had no idea it was a crush—she was too young to identify what she felt, but it was a crush, nonetheless. Jonathon was just discovering his feelings for Nancy, and this may well explain what happened the day Jonathon showed Nancy The Lady.

Jonathon had stumbled upon The Lady some weeks before while on his way home from Lake Thomas School where he and Nancy were both third graders. Although his mother and father made him promise not to take the shortcut through Harper’s Pond, Jonathon often broke this particular promise.

The pond was creepy, but as any kid knows, one of the ways to prove how cool you are is to pretend creepy things don’t bother you—and there was nothing creepier than the trail that wound around Harper’s Pond. (Being seen taking the trail was only bested by being seen leaving it on the pond’s other side. Daring to do such a thing—especially absent friends—was a sure way to raise your status in the eyes of your peers, and because Jonathon was the smallest boy in his class, any boost to his status was welcomed.)

Not surprisingly, it was a dare that initially sent Jonathon on the shortcut that circled the pond, but curiosity had dragged him back after the first adventure. He’d never told anyone what he’d seen that first time, and in truth, he came to believe he’d imagined it. Not knowing whether or not he had seen The Lady was the thing that led to his returning to the pond.

Like his first trip, his second took place on a sunny afternoon right after school, and like the time before, as soon as he was far enough along the trial not to be able to see the start of the path, everything seemed to close in around him. (There was one thing he’d confirmed.)

Jonathon kept to the trail and listened closely for the voice, but he heard nothing. By the time he’d reached the midpoint of the path, he’d begun to believe The Lady was just something he’d imagined—even if he had been right about the way everything had closed in around him.

Suddenly, he heard The Lady as clearly as if she were standing beside him. The sound of her melodious voice reached out to him, and he moved off the path and toward her. Oddly, though the path felt congested by the foliage around it, once Jonathon left it, the trees and brush seemed to open as if to let him though.

In a matter of moments, Jonathon was standing in a small clearing and looking directly at The Lady.

She was singing as had been the case the last time Jonathon encountered her, and while he would never have thought it possible, the tune she carried on this afternoon was even more beautiful than the one she’d been singing before.

Jonathon’s head would fill with questions later, but for the moment, he stood transfixed by the music emanating from her. As before, The Lady seemed unaware of Jonathon’s presence, and as before, Jonathon noticed she was not real.

The Lady seemed to be made of a thin sheet of concrete, so thin, in fact, that as she swayed with the highs and lows of her song, Jonathon could see she was less than an inch thick.

It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t possible.

But there she was.

Transfixed for a length of time he could not determine, Jonathon became aware of a desire to leave. As quickly as he had found the clearing, he was again on the trial on his way to his home, and he no longer heard The Lady’s song.

Jonathon ran into Nancy as he left the trail, and the two matched strides while heading home. Rounding the last turn, Jonathon touched Nancy’s shoulder bringing them both to a stop.

“Are all you girls afraid of Harper’s Pond?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“There’s something there I have to show you.”

“I guess I’m not afraid. What’s there?”

“I can’t tell you. You have to see it for yourself.”

Nancy suspected it might be a trick, but she wanted to show Jonathon she wasn’t afraid of the pond.

“Okay, I’ll go there with you. When?”

“Tomorrow. After school. But don’t tell anyone, okay?”

Nancy agreed while wondering to herself who Jonathon thought she might tell she was going to Harper’s Pond with a boy.

* * *

While walking home the following afternoon, Jonathon and Nancy meandered behind the other kids from their neighborhood in order to break off and take the Harper’s Pond trail unnoticed.

Nancy felt the trees and brush close in around her, but she said nothing to Jonathon for fear he’d think she was a sissy, and then she thought she heard singing. Jonathon stopped, and turned to Nancy.

“Do you hear it?”

She nodded her head.

“C’mon. It’s this way.”

The two left the trail, and each felt the foliage open up around them. They quickly reached the clearing and stood looking at The Lady.

“Do you see her, Nancy?”

Nancy gave a nod, and as she did, The Lady turned toward them. She looked at Nancy for a very long time, and as Jonathon watched, he thought he saw a tear begin to run down The Lady’s cheek. She had stopped singing, and with her silence, the clearing seemed to have gotten smaller and darker.

She turned to face Jonathon, and he was again aware of her impossible thinness and the certainty that she was made not of flesh but of concrete.

“Why?” was all she said to the small boy, and before he could answer, she had broken into more than a dozen pieces of stone and lay lifeless on the ground.

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1. Which comes first: the picture or the story?
2. Do you alter the images?
3. How do you come up with this stuff?
4. How long does it take you to write each story?
5. What made you start doing this?
6. How often do you write?
7. Do you always write this way?
8. What else have you written?
9. I have a picture that would make a great story: can I send it to you?
10. Who are you?

1. Which comes first: the picture or the story? I always start with the picture, but the choice isn’t random. I take a lot of pictures with the idea that some of them will turn out aesthetically pleasing enough for me to take a closer look. When I see a picture that sparks an idea, I go for it.


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2. Do you alter the images? Other than cropping and minor color adjustments (for optimum Web viewing), I leave the images alone.


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3. How do you come up with this stuff? The process is the same each time: I go through a series of images, and when one sparks an idea, I write the picture’s story. For me, the idea comes in the form of my hearing a line for the story in my head. The line varies: it might literally be the story’s first line I hear. Sometimes, I hear part of a scene. Other times, I hear a character’s name or description or action. Occasionally, I hear part of a setting.

   Generally, that first idea remains in the finished product; however, it may be altered and/or relocated as the story develops. For example, the spark I heard before writing “Family Business” was the opening line When he was younger, Lescott Brown learned the value of invisibility. In essence, that line remains as the story’s opening.


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4. How long does it take you to write each story? Generally speaking, I spend between three and five hours writing each story.


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5. What made you start doing this? This idea has been rolling around in my head for a number of years. My father is a watercolorist, and my mother is a bookworm: I grew up with images and words around me, so the old saying of a picture’s being worth 1,000 words has long fascinated me. Admittedly, I have found that sometimes an image cannot be matched by words, and at other times, I found the reverse to be true. I feel strongly about the pictures and the words on this site!


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6. How often do you write? I write everyday. I don’t always have the time, nor do I always feel like writing, but I always steal at least an hour out of every day to write, and on those rare days I am not in the mood to write, actually sitting down and writing seems to solve the desire problem.


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7. Do you always write this way? No. I often write without an image; however, one of the valuable writing lessons I learned from participating in the 2006 NaNoWriMo was how effective and enjoyable it is to allow the story to happen. Working from the spark created by an image allows me to do this.


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8. What else have you written? I have written lots of things, but the chances of your heaving read them is slim unless you were a classmate of mine (circa 1990), your are a friend, or a relative. (That’s a backhanded way of saying you won’t be able to visit your favorite bookstore and find any of my work. And that was a really obtuse way of admitting I’m not a published writer.)


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9. I have a picture that would make a great story: can I send it to you? Well, yes—and no. I do what I do as a creative outlet for myself. The images and the words are mine, and they are a part of my pursuit of a career as a writer. If you have a picture, and you see a story in it, I encourage you to write it! However, I do run a monthly contest along these lines, and if you send a photo, and I pick it, I will write that picture’s story.


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10. Who are you? My name is Shawn Hansen. I am an adjunct faculty member of the Language and Literature Department of Sacramento City College, a position I have held since 1999. Before I was a teacher, I was a police officer with the Sacramento (CA) Police Department. While I wouldn’t trade what I learned in my time as an officer, the 1980s and 1990s were a period during which things like racism, sexism, and homophobia were an integral part of my department and many of its officers. This made it a place I simply could not work. I returned to school, tried to fit in as a 30-something student, and after lots of classes, homework, and papers, I had successfully traded my badge and gun for my red pen and grade book.

    I have wanted to be a writer since I was in high school; however, it was only last year that I began pursing a career in writing seriously. In addition to my fiction work, I do freelance writing and editing, and I am proud to say that my 2006 tax return lists two careers: teaching and writing.


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Long ago, it was known as The Mission in the Forest, and people were welcomed with open arms. This was before God’s War when the world was a different place, and the truth about God and Satan was still a mystery over which the war had begun.

Now, decades later, it is known as The Devil’s Towers, and few survivors of God’s War can recall when it was a place of peace and worship. To the masses, The Devil’s Towers is a symbol of the lies once told by books such as The Holy Bible and people claiming to serve a just God.

Most survivors of God’s War are afraid to go inside the building fearing the Devil, who is said to capture as his playthings the humans who enter his sanctuary. You see, some of what The Bible taught was true: there is a Devil, and there is a Hell, but the Devil never fell from Heaven. He left willingly after destroying everything it had once been, including God and all the hope that remained for living things.

Today, the Devil sits in his towers ruling over a world under his control while planning new ways to trouble the remaining living things on Earth.

Those who seek out and enter The Devil’s Towers do so out of greed, for along with the revelations about God’s weaknesses there are the legends of the Devil’s gold.

It is said that those who posses even the smallest quantity of the Devil’s gold will become immortal and be immune from his manipulations. The exact location of The Devil’s Towers is not known, and though many have set off to find the old mission, none have returned.

Some believe no one returns because those who go find their gold. They might be right, but if they are not (and most believe they are not) then the Devil’s playground is growing.

When God’s War ended, eleven clues to the whereabouts of The Devil’s Towers were scattered by the winds. The Devil did this to ensure that though the people uncovered the truth about their existence and the lie that was God, their greed would bring them to his playground.

What you hold in your hand is the last clue to the whereabouts of this monument, and as its owner, immortality and untold riches can be yours.

Sharon Ellis turned the note card over in her hand. She was taken by the picture and amused by the words. There was no return address information on the card, but she had a pretty good idea who’d sent it to her. It had Charlie written all over it: it was clever in a dorkish sort of way, and it was just another in a string of useless attempts on his part to get Sharon’s attention.

She glanced once more at the note card before tossing it on the counter and heading out the door for what was sure to be a long day at work.

The fifteen minute commute to the office was an exercise in rote activity, and on this morning, as was the case on almost every morning, Sharon wasted no time in multitasking while she drove. This was perhaps the reason she ran the red light and drove her BMW into the path of a fully-loaded semi whose driver had no chance to stop.

Sharon awoke flat on her back looking up at a sky that was hazy with smoke. She felt dazed, but as the events of the morning began to work their way together like parts of a jumbled puzzle, she laughed—she was alive!

Sharon slowly sat up, and as she did, she was surprised to find that while a bit stiff, she seemed totally unharmed. She was even more surprised to find herself staring straight ahead at a building which appeared to be a replica of the image she’d seen on the postcard from Charlie. Sharon stood up, shook the dirt from her clothing, and began walking toward the clearing and the mission. She was certain what she was experiencing was a result of her accident or the after-effects of anesthesia; after all, she could not possibly be in the middle of a forest staring at an old-world mission having only moments before been driving to work. She walked on anyway.

For the second time that day, a giggle escaped Sharon’s lips. She wondered to herself when she might find the Devil’s gold. Near the clearing’s edge, a cool breeze washed over her, and as it did, it carried her scent to the Devil.

Sharon Ellis reached the entrance to the mission and walked inside. The moment she crossed the threshold of the building, she realized something was very wrong. Instinctively, she turned to flee, but it was too late: she was surrounded by darkness and enveloped by the sensation of falling.

* * *

The driver of the tanker truck watched in confusion as a melon-shaped object spun up into the air, reached the top of its flight, and fell back toward the ground. As the object tumbled down toward the pavement, the trucker saw with grotesque clarity that it was the head of the woman who’d been driving the car that was now a twisted pile of metal lodged beneath the frame of his rig.

Frozen on the tumbling head was last look the woman’s face would ever wear: it was the look the truck driver would wake to in horror for the rest of his life.

The head struck the ground, rolled a few feet, and came to rest on what was left of its neck. As the trucker realized the head appeared to be looking up at the side of his trailer, he half-fell, half-staggered out of his cab while vomiting onto the roadway.

* * *
The first officer to arrive on the scene did his best to help the trucker cope with what had happened, but there was little he could do. Even he was a bit shaken by the head sitting upright staring at the truck’s trailer, and though leaving it that way was gruesome, he knew better than to disturb the accident scene—especially one involving a fatality.

Several hours later, as the investigation was wrapping up, the coroner’s assistant called the officer over to where he was working. As the assistant placed the woman’s head into a truncated body bag, he peeled a note card from the congealed blood at the base of what remained of the woman’s neck and handed it to the officer.

“Weird, huh?”

The coroner’s assistant nodded from the card to the trailer as he spoke to the officer.

The photograph on the card matched the image on the side of the semi-truck’s trailer: it was a large scale ad for a resort hotel called The Towers, and below the image was a caption that read,

Be as devilish as you want—your secret is safe at The Towers.

The officer placed the sticky card into an evidence bag and turned away for the coroner’s assistant while feeling the burn of bile rise in the back of his throat.

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The schoolmate insults leveled at Sarah began as basic chants of her name, but as she grew, the range of her peers’ creative name-calling grew as well. Eventually, the fact that her parents’ names and hers all began with the letter “S” led to refrains of “suh-suh-suh-sarah suh-suh-suh-simpleton.” (Timothy Renfield believed Sarah deserved one “suh” for each “S” in the family, and the rest of the kids went along with Timothy because he was the kid all the other kids wanted to be.)

As Sarah grew, the teasing became worse, and she folded more and more into herself. Sarah had no friends, and though several teachers were as vigilant as possible about stopping the teasing leveled at her, the truth was Sarah Simpleton was her name, and nothing and no one could change that—or the psychological issues having such a name caused.

Sarah developed an imagination well beyond that of the average young boy or girl who creates friends with whom to spend summer afternoons and rainy evenings. Sarah created an entire world of people for herself, and where most children imagined a world unlike the one in which they lived, Sarah’s fantasy world was identical to the real thing, except that in Sarah’s world, no one made fun of her name.

After awhile, it became apparent to those around Sarah that she spent a good deal of her time enmeshed in her own thoughts, and soon Sarah Simpleton became Scary Sarah Simpleton. By the time Sarah was dubbed scary by her classmates, she’d learned to block out the noise of the world around her, and more often than not, the insults hurled her way (along with the protective measures taken by the adults around her) went unnoticed.

Sarah’s parents were helpless during most of their daughter’s struggles, and while they did their best to assist Sarah through the taunts and teases, they had little luck reaching their child.

When Sarah had insulated herself from the outside world by means of her imagined one, Sally and Sam Simpleton agreed the best course of action would be to take no action. After all, once Sarah got a bit older, the teasing and ridicule would end, and Sarah would be able to get on with her life.

Which is why it was both a shock and a pleasant surprise to Sally Simpleton when her daughter came to her one afternoon and asked her mother whether or not they might take a trip to the pet store. Along with her request, Sarah presented to her mother a short list of supplies:

• Cat bowls
• Cat food
• Cat collar
• Litter box
• Litter
• Toys

Sarah’s mother was taken aback by her daughter’s sudden want of a pet. For years, Sarah’s mother and father had tried to foster a desire for a companion in their daughter, but Sarah never showed any interest.

“Honey, isn’t there something missing from this list?”

Sarah’s mother spoke to her in a teasing manner, but Sarah didn’t seem amused. The girl walked up to her mother’s outstretched hand, viewed the list with a careful eye, stepped back, and replied,

“No. Everything I need is there.”

“The cat, Sarah—you didn’t put ‘cat’ on your list.”

Again, Sarah’s mother delivered her words in a tongue-in-cheek manner, and again, Sarah seemed unmoved by the humor.

“No. I didn’t forget. I have the cat. He showed up just this morning. I tried to shoo him away, but it seems he’s decided to stay. Obviously, he’ll need the items on the list if he’s going to be here for awhile. If you’d prefer, we can skip the toys and the collar as neither is absolutely necessary.”

Sarah’s mother could do nothing more than stand flat-footed and stare at her daughter. The joy she’d felt over what she presumed to be Sarah’s coming out of her shell evaporated into confusion over how to respond. She chose the direct approach.

“Sarah, show me the cat you want to buy these things for.”

“Mother, you know perfectly well you won’t be able to see it.”

“Well, if you can’t show me the cat, I can’t take you to the pet store.”

“Very well, but the cat will grow hungry and thirsty before too long.”

“Well then, you’d better think your cat the supplies he needs!”

Sally Simpleton had not meant to reply so crossly to her daughter, but she’d grown exasperated over Sarah’s fantasy world, and having glimpsed what she thought was a moment of lucidity in the girl, watching it disappear was more than she could bear.

Before Sarah’s mother had a chance to apologize, Sarah had turned and left, heading to the safety of her room and her made-up world.

***

Over the course of the next few days, Sarah repeatedly asked her mother to take her to the pet store, and her mother continued to refuse. When Sally caught Sarah sneaking food up to her room for the cat, she’d had enough.

It’s pointless to ground a child whose days are spent holed up in her room or alone in the backyard, so the only punishment Sarah’s mother could think of was to force her daughter to go with her on each and every one of her errands and club meetings when the child wasn’t in school. This kept Sarah away from her room, her people, and her cat.

Two days later, Sally Simpleton received a call from the principal of Sarah’s school. A camera had gone missing from the art department, and several students claimed to have seen Sarah take it and leave the school grounds. The principal was wondering whether or not Sarah had gone home.

Sally Simpleton assured the principal her daughter had not come home, and she was about to hang up and call her husband and the police when in through the kitchen door walked Sarah. In Sarah’s hands was a camera. Mrs. Simpleton hung up on the principal without realizing it, and as she was about to address her daughter, Sarah walked though the kitchen and headed upstairs to her room.

When Sally Simpleton’s “Young lady, you come back here this instant!” got no response, she went upstairs to confront her child.

She found Sarah sitting in front of her computer with the camera plugged in, and as she began to chastise the girl, Sarah turned the computer screen, so her mother could view it.

“There, you see? There’s the cat. I took his picture just now as he was disappearing. He’s been doing it more and more lately. I think he’s starving. Now, can we please go to the pet store?”

Sarah’s mother said nothing. She looked from her daughter to the picture, and back to her daughter, then she turned around, walked downstairs, and as she grabbed her car keys, she yelled out,

“I’m ready when you are, honey.”

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There was no return address, and the edges of the package were worn as if it had had a long and arduous journey. Whatever its history, the package had indeed found its home, for the top of the box contained carefully penned letters identifying its destination:

Podderson Family
54 Hulstone Place
Pittsburgh PA
15219

When Amanda Podderson returned from her shift at the diner, she kicked the package before she noticed it. It slid noisily across the concrete stoop and came to rest with a clunk at the edge of the threshold to the front door. Adjusting her armload of groceries, Amanda peered down at the box, rolled her eyes, and thought, “Not again, George.”

After unloading the groceries and changing, Amanda returned to the front stoop, picked up the package, and put it in the laundry room. George would never find it there, and it’d serve him right, too.

By the time her husband got home, Amanda had forgotten about the package: George was drunk and late. In unplanned unison, George slammed the front door closed, and Amanda slammed their bedroom door shut. Amanda’s slamming was followed by the click of the lock being thrown. She’d be damned if that drunken no-good got into bed with her that night.

George didn’t notice the slamming of either door, nor was he aware of his wife’s banning him from their bedroom. He was ripped and only cared about hitting the sofa squarely before he passed out.

The next morning, George was up and gone before Amanda finished her shower. Had Amanda known this, she’d have skipped practicing the speech she planned to yell at him about his continuing to order things they couldn’t afford.

Thankful in part that he was gone, Amanda went to work and forgot all about the package.

When she got home that evening, she was surprised to find George sitting at the kitchen table. Even more surprising was his fist not being wrapped around a can of beer.

“Why ya home so early George?”

“I went in early, put in my eight, now I’m here.”

Amanda heard the smugness in George’s voice before she saw it hanging on his face.

“Since you’re here. . .”

“Since I am here, I wanna know why you ride me all the time about buying things when you bought that light and had it put in without saying nothing.”

Amanda followed George’s outstretched arm which ended with his pointing finger that was aimed at a light installed in the ceiling over the kitchen table.

“I had nothing to do with that. What’s this about, George?”

George grunted before answering, “That ain’t your light?”

“No, George, that ain’t my light.”

“So, what? We both go off to work, and some fairy comes to our house—puts in a light? What do you take me for?”

“I take you for a no-good drunk, that’s what I take you for.”

“What’d you say?”

“I said, you’re a no-good drunk, George. You forget coming home last night all tied up in a knot?”

George sat up in the chair, drew in a breath, and in a tone as condescending as they come replied, “I had a beer with the boys after a long day. A man deserves a beer with the boys now and again.”

As he spoke, the light the two were fighting about flickered and buzzed.

“There you go George. There’s proof I had nothing to do with that light getting put in. If I’d have had it done, it’d work right. Just admit you bought the damn thing and installed it wrong. And fix it before it burns down this house.”

“I had nothing to do with that light, Amanda, and you know it.”

“Well I’ve never seen it before.”

As Amanda spoke, the light flickered and buzzed again.

“We can fight all night about the light, George, but for now, you need to fix the damn thing.”

“Can’t. I got a meeting with the union boys, and I gotta leave right now.”

More flickering and buzzing.

Amanda gave up on the light and George and headed for the bedroom to change. Over her shoulder, she called out,

“Just make sure you’re quiet when you drag yourself home.”

Her words were punctuated by George’s slamming the front door as he left.

***

“Ma’am, can you tell me what happened?”

“Yes, detective. My husband came home from a meeting. I guess he’d been drinking a bit. I was already in bed, and the next thing I knew, I heard a crash. I called out to him, but he didn’t answer. When I got up to see what was wrong, I found him lying there. That’s when I called.”

Detective Westgrove looked up from his notepad as Amanda Podderson spoke. The out-of-place light that hung above the kitchen table was flickering and buzzing, and it was annoying.

“Ma’am, is there anyone we can call for you?”

“No. No Detective. I have no family other than George.”

“A friend perhaps or a neighbor?”

“You’re very kind, but no. I think I need to be alone right now.”

“Well, if you change your mind, just let one of the officers here know. It’ll take them another thirty minutes or so to wrap things up, and then you’ll have your house to yourself.”

Amanda nodded her head at the detective.

“And Mrs. Podderson, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you detective, you’re very kind. I really don’t know what I’ll do without my George.”

As Amanda Podderson spoke, the light that had arrived in a travel-worn package flickered and buzzed its response.

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