Have you ever awakened in the middle of the night? You look around and all your clocks are flashing. Blinking, on and off, on and off. You think to yourself, was it supposed to storm tonight? You decide the best way to find the solution is to check outside.

A long time ago, in a place far, far away, it was storming, wind blowing, the sound of thunder cracking like a whip. It was me and my brother, and we were lost in this far away land.

On the way to the hospital I could feel no pain, but I knew what he had done to me earlier that day. I had just flown in from Kansas City, and it was my first day in Vegas. My dad had already gone to work, and grandma was out back mowing the lawn, unable to hear the sounds around her.

A class clown attempted murder today.

A mother’s little boy,

a child’s best friend,

a teacher’s beloved terror,

stood over the monster who raised his freckly faced son

like the animal he’d become,

clutching a knife.

Before time was invented, there was a city. Half of the city was as light as day, and the other half was as dark as night.

He woke up shivering, the cold hard floor having been his bed for the night. His brain throbbed as he pushed himself up, making it hard to remember what last happened. He held his head in his hands as he thought it over until an eerie sob bounced off the walls.

It was raining outside, and our weary Traveler was on a gravel road, walking. With a large sack slung over his shoulder, he crept along at quite a slow pace, monotonously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He had no cloak, and so he was drenched in the cold rain.

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there were two kingdoms. The Thintassia Kingdom was led by King Blue Man, and all of the people tried to be like King Blue Man and eat as little as possible. “Skinny is beautiful, skinny is beautiful,” the King would exclaim; the crowd would go wild.

“Davidson! That tree is flying! It’s going to crash into your house,” Gary warned me. “You’re right, Mr. Franklin, and here, it’s coming in for a landing,” I replied with calm reserve.

There once was a man named Ed. Ed had a wife and three kids and worked at a very successful job. His life was perfect. But as time went on, his children grew up and went off on their own to form their own families, but soon Ed became a grandfather. And once again, life was perfect.

I felt as big as a mountain with the bolt cutters slung across my shoulders. Three weeks ago, when the summer had reached its solstice I had found them packed deep down in the trunk of my car.

Every summer I had to go down to my aunt and uncle’s house in Nebraska. There was never anything to do. They didn’t live near any kids or other people to accompany me. They didn’t feel like they needed cable TV or internet because they were just all-around boring people.

Unaware, small,

Self-sufficient, put together

Strong, very smart,

Follower, talker,

Experienced, funny,

Selfish, make-up

I wish…

I could run like an Olympian

I could draw without restrictions

I could dance like nobody is watching

I could sing as pretty as a mockingbird

I wish…

I could be a world traveler

DIM… DIM… DIM… DIM… DIM… The soft, high note of the last key on a piano rang through the night repeatedly… and it was keeping someone up.

It looked a bit like Lila, but it wasn’t Lila. I don’t know why people say that when someone dies they look like they’re sleeping. Her skin was dull grey and colder than ice. Her long body lay limp and heavy on the stainless steel table. Her clothes were dirty and rumpled.

Rain danced gleefully across the tombstones as if mocking the dead. The now wet moss on older parts of the graveyard made the ground slick. It grew where other forms of life refused for reasons of their own, yet sparingly did the moss do so as if even it respected burial grounds.

It began with the fire’s havoc, then rained the wild water. Next came the dancing wind, then the fumbling forming earth. At first everything was peaceful but the elements did not get along well.

Marina Green had always been the epitome of normal. She got good grades, but they were nothing phenomenal. She was pretty enough, but no great beauty. She had friends (did one count?), but was nowhere near a social butterfly.

One vision, that is all it took to know how it all ends. That was the idea behind the product 32F, nicknamed the Death Box. There were 380 of us, we were the test subjects who willingly volunteered for the test. Truthfully, I was just in it for the money.

They called her Little, but Little was big. Little was tall, with stooped shoulders and an odd, loping gait. Mostly, though, Little was lonely.

She was like a dandelion in a field of perfectly cut grass—bright and beautiful to some, but ugly and unwanted to others. 

I was age twelve when I first drew her.

There are only three rules for survival: no contact with meat, dairy, or humans. He’s already broken two of them.

A girl sits at a table in front of a coffee shop, eyeing the charming boy lounging next to her. They observe one another as if their friends don’t exist, his eyes catching hers like a blue wave crashing on the beach. “Well, I’m not ordinary.”

Allez means go, and I go. Allez is his title but he has no name. We work well together, he and I. Born of trying times, our relationship is as strong as the aluminum forged in it. Flying across stretches of hard-packed cement is what we do.

The girl with the sunset eyes and the boy with hands like glass.

He fell in love with her because she was so beautiful when she cried.

He hated to see her in tears, but when she cried, streaks of blue and orange and yellow and pink fell down her cheeks.

They hold the spirit of Christmas, the Thanksgiving meal, the laughter, the family cheer, and the lost ones that we held near.  Every single Christmas, Thanksgiving, and family get together, my grandmother concocted the most delicious deviled eggs.

“People just choose to be pink, everyone is born blue.” “People with pink marks are going straight to hell.”

“There are places to go to get your pink mark made blue again, so why not go?” “These millennials with their pink marks.”

“Blue marks are the superior marks.” “Hello.”

Aria pointed at the little flower on her ankle with a short, chubby finger and asked her mother in her unpracticed, fragmented English about what it was. “Pretty,” she said, her ‘r’ little too rounded and her voice broken up by her childish laughter.

The night before my first day of sixth grade, I studied the piece of fabric laid out on my bed with uncharacteristic placidity. It was no work of art; plain cotton fabric, dyed black, with a single strip of black lace for adornment.