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A quote: “In short, Luck’s always to blame.” ~~ Jean de La Fontaine
I’ll start with a story …
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Shadow always got his older brother’s hand-me-downs. He was second in being served dinner. Brother, summer baby, got the lavish birthday parties while Shadow, born 12/26, got combo gifts.
Brother got a new car at 16, which he took to University, while Shadow drove mom’s gasping Rambler to junior college.
Then Brother swept away and married the girl Shadow had been dating.
The years of seething secondhood flooded through his clenched teeth at a pale and trembling Brother on the other side of Shadow’s revolver.
“Now, at least, I’ll be first at something!” Shadow shouted and pulled the trigger.
Click.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Bill Dumanch says: Silencing moods, sequential modes.
Realignment now completed, patrol composed of Special Pilot Certifications highlighted:
Policing America had arrived.
Searching now for the revelers, using the city’s former gunfire tracers as positioning, six-foot clearances make target acquisition positive.
The injections made mandatory tracing a suppression tool against independent thought.
“Arrived on scene, subjects (redacted)”
Navig8r says: The scientist’s whimsical balance beam exercise on the ledge during her daily jogs seemed hardly noteworthy, but when you are the junior agent stuck with reviewing the surveillance videos, you note things. All the three letter agencies were desperate to know the materials used in the prototype inside that lab, and even more desperate to win the race to find out. Technical eavesdropping hadn’t worked. Blackmail, bribery and seduction were out because they would reveal that the existence of the lab was known. She smiled. Her agency would win the prize when the techies analyzed the residue in her gum.
Lloyd says: SHADOW CHILDREN
Generally, they are not first-born,
And almost never the baby.
They are the middle kids:
Not invisible…just overlooked in the shadows.
They’ll not be labeled “Gifted & Talented”,
But each will be special in his/her own way,
Without receiving widespread recognition for it.
“Average” is what many will call them;
Not stars…just those who “also ran.”
Time, however, along with hard work and thick skin,
Complemented by love of family and a special teacher or two
Will set them free.
They will shed the shadow’s cloak,
Emerging to become pillars of community and society;
Destined, indeed, to inherit the earth!
Cameron says: “Every bad thing that happens has a good reason.” My old teacher loved saying that whenever bad things happened. I could never understand it but it he was always happy in life.
So when I decided to look at things that way, I stepped on the gum. The flash of annoyance left when I said “It could have been dog shit.”
Then I heard the roar of the engine from the car doing about 95 as he fled from the cops. Had I not stepped on the gum, I would have been in the crosswalk. The lesson suddenly made sense.
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