[fiction] I was twelve, intermediate school, when I overheard my math teacher claim I was brilliant. He stood to the side of his desk, illuminated in late afternoon sun, and my mom must have just risen from the nearby chair…

Some days are best for kite flying Others for balloons Softer days for bubbles And softer still for dandelions Dandelions need only air and light And one more thing, You. You lift them to your face You watch You see…

"When you wish upon a star...." and the indelible "Someday My Prince Will Come!" shaped many and many a girl's childhood, and sung by the irrepressible Jiminey Cricket and the porcelain-skinned Snow White, how could we all not have been…

I’ve lost the “we’s” of my life and become an “I.” I often combine my “I” with the “I’s” of others, other old women who have also had a husband die before them, or who never had a husband or…

Oh yes. this is what we did. and do. quested magic, not reality. what did we get? this and that. never what we wanted. and now? we are old and still and still wanting and waiting wishing for a star…

We're good at wishing, heck, we're brilliant at this form of hope that works for a while until it doesn't, until it turns hopeless all because I can't think quickly on my feet and you're so shy, so tentative, afraid…

As you can see I don’t think that will happen. I’m more of a tardy kind of procrastinator so flashes of brilliance are not in the picture. I’m hoping it’s not agonizing but quiet and everyday.I hope it’s peaceful. That’s…

I always thought it was cool how actors used to be able to do prolonged death scenes on stage without being thought comic. Knife fights are the best, lots of time to bleed out. Mercutio even gets to make a…

(Something short today. Follows on the other 2 pieces.) Before I could say anything else, the side door opened and the members of the Correy County Board of Supervisors came into the room. Orren Hegelson, in overalls that were identical…

My brilliance has turned into folly. I brilliantly supposed that my sons and daughter would be interested to read what I wrote, so I emailed a passage to them. Never again. None replied. Not one word. My daughter clued me…