Short Story

it is life, Mama!” Mama: “Oh—so now its life. Money is life. Once upon a

George Strait, the king of country music, opened the largest concert in North American history by singing a tribute to our fundamental view of love. The song introduces this story of a young girl, who radically changes a young boy’s world by her love. The opening verse introduces

Bailey sighed as she sat on the stool hearing the band members complaining. She rolled her eyes as she looked to Tristan. Smiling as he agreed with her, she took in a deep breath just as Kyle stood up. "Hey, guys stop. This is Bailey's song. If she wants to do it acoustic lets do it acoustic." Smiling she mouthed "Thank you." to Kyle who winked at her. If it was someone other than Tristan who would have her back it was Kyle. Including after Bailey had set him up with Johnny the bartender at the cafe and a close friend of Baileys. Biting down on her lip she listened as Tristan spoke before nodding her head to what he was saying. "See if it doesn't sound good acoustic then we'll bring the bass and guitars back in. Besides this song is kind of personal." Bailey spoke as

Aubrey placed her hand on his door and put her head down like she had something to hide. Then all the other girls appeared from the other side of the car.

Ready to step in for anyone at any time, Zendaya watches on the sideline cheering on her teammates. It is the sixth inning, tie game, and her best friend Nadia is up to bat. She hits the ball hard and gets a double. There is now two outs with Nadia on second. Can the cleanup batter do the job? She hits it to the fence, the ball bounces off the yellow, Nadia is heading home, but the throw is spot on. Nadia dives head first into home plate in hopes that she would be safe and add a run to the score board. When she dove head first into the plate, all she could see was the catcher blocking the plate and a cloud of dust. There was no going around her. She managed to get a finger on the plate before the catcher got the tag on her. The catcher

With a huff, she continued past Matt’s car and then George’s and headed for the entrance. A man inside approached the glass doors and let her in. “You’re with Caleb?” he verified.

constantly picked flies out of my milk pail and had to be careful that one wouldn’t land in my opened mouth. I once killed a fly by smashing it between my lips. I became desensitized to the tingling of their legs dashing up and down my skin. Maybe that’s how I built up an immune system that tolerated germs and made me less susceptible to getting sick. Like how a child would hold out a finger for a butterfly to land on, I would do that same with my hundreds of fly friends. The continuous buzzing sound of the flies throughout the farm almost became therapeutic to me.

Since he knew there was an memorial, seeing it and hearing about it, he wondered if their crosses were up. Or anything to remember them. Probably not, knowing how the world saw these two teenage killers. He didn’t think they would put up anything for them since they killed thirteen innocent people. Society doesn’t take those things lightly.

We wait and wait for about another hour or so. Henry still hasn’t returned and we are starting to get worried. I look over at Bertie to see how he was doing. He looked bad, he had cut his face next his noes on his cheek while we were running out of there, and the blood had dried on his cold face. He honestly looked like crap. He looked worried, cold, hungry, and pale. I wasn't in the greatest shape myself. I was terrified at, whatever that thing was. It was grey and left this, goo trail behind it as it walked.

Mateo watched, with his chin resting on his clasped hands, as Rider and Essie shared candy between them.

Kyle’s friend goes up for a layup, but it gets smacked against garage door. Kyle gets the rebound because there are no outs in this 1vs1 and shoots a three and it’s nothing but net. The score is a blowout Kyle’s demolishing Jacob. He gets another rebound after Jacob misses his shot and while Jacob is trying to get his own rebound, but Kyle easily gets it over Jacob because he’s taller than Jacob is. “Hey Kyle how about letting me get a rebound for a change?” asks Jacob.

Vengeance flings the driver’s door OPEN. He gets out and SLAMS the car door shut. He walks with a limp towards Jillian. Holding a butcher knife that drips blood onto the ground.

Jon moved to what had once been a gunner post when the helicopter was used for warfare. Now drones did the fighting of the new state of California, engaging in “peacekeeping” missions throughout the war torn lands of what used to be the United States. What was once a machine gun in the helicopter had been replaced by an ARC diffuser. At least they’re not sending us out there with machine guns against those fires. At least we have a chance, thought Jon. As the helicopter lumbered forward through the air, Jon trained his diffuser on the heart of the storm, and braced himself.

So, there I was, staring death right in the face. It had a strange smell of rotting corpses and was big, terrifying, horrid, and only a few inches from my face. Now you all must be wondering, what is that thing that was so close to me and why was it there? Well, I honestly don’t know and I’m never going back there ever again. You may also be wondering how I got to this point in time. I’m going to tell you right now.

“Well, we need to unload the car, still. Visiting hours are over at the rehab center, but I talked them into letting me see Cassie, briefly.