No, it’s not “moist”
I love words. They are the tools I use to create art. They help me to make sense and beauty out of life.
But I don’t love every word.
I’m sure there are painters who cannot stand a particular colour, musicians who find a certain song or note or chord sets their teeth on edge.
For me, there is one word in particular that I loathe.
I can’t even articulate why I hate it so much. When I hear it said or see it written, it sends tremors of revulsion up and down my spine. …
Tales of Summer Camp
Sabre was the sweetest horse I ever met. He was a beautiful blood bay Arabian gelding who had been trained to follow without a lead rope. He was tiny, so slim as to be almost skinny. Once, he stepped on my foot and I hardly noticed.
Flickers was the boss of the herd, a tall strong dapple grey quarter horse mare with a malevolent glint in her eye. She bit me once when I was walking with her on a lead, her head darting in like a snake striking to leave an ugly bruise on my stomach. …
Robin’s Arrest — A Ficlet
Scarlet opened his computer on the rickety table and looked at the faces gathered around him where he sat in a folding chair in the gloomy basement. “I should warn you,” he said, unusually serious. “This is hard to watch.”
John’s stomach swooped, and he clenched his hands together, digging the fingernails of his right hand into the back of his left.
Scarlet tapped the screen, and the video started.
A figure stood in the middle of the video feed, hands raised. Police officers with guns moved in from all around, and the figure’s head turned. His face caught the…
Ewan confronts his high school bully | A Drew and Ewan Story
Ewan couldn’t articulate how it felt to be here again, in the high school gym where he’d spent so much time trying and failing to learn some kind of sport. While the people milling around him were a mix of vaguely familiar and completely strange, the echoes off the walls and ceiling, and the smell took him right back.
Standing by the wall, Ewan watched the crowd ebb and flow around the table and chairs and each other. He had changed a lot since the last time he was here, but he still felt on the outside in crowds like…
A poem of colour and life
I was in university the first time a writer freaked out at me over a review I gave them.
The internet was still a wild west space of chat rooms and dusty streets at high noon. I was a writer looking for a place to share my words and I found a site called Authors Den where anyone could post anything poetry, fiction, or essay and read others’ writing. There was a rating system where you could give a piece stars out of 10, and leave comments/reviews.
I have always been a voracious reader and I’ve been writing almost as…
He was only human
My bully’s name was Bart, a name that still brings a bad taste to my mouth whenever I hear it. He used to sit in a certain section of the school hallway with his friends, and they would yell at people, mostly girls, walking by. One of the teachers told me this was sexual harassment and I should report it to administration. I’m unsure why she couldn’t report it, but she said the report had to come from a student.
I avoided that section of hallway for four years.
“Hey, Esther?” Bart’s voice was softer than usual. He was somehow…
