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A quote: “The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” ~~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I’ll start with a story …
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The dreams have started. I find myself on an empty road. Sweating. Desperate. I’m looking for something …
No, scratch that.
I’m looking for someone. Someone under this dome of clear blue sky with an ocean of waving grasses stretching out from horizon to horizon. I hear soft laughter and turn catching just a glimpse of flashing eyes and calico blown by the wind. I start to run and my feet tangle. I’m falling …
Down next to her body
I bolt out of bed telling myself it’s just another case. Why can’t I remember if I’ve gotten it yet?
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Donna Beriont says: An orange monarch gracefully touched down to join the millions fluttering around the seaside goldenrod bouquet near the beach bench where Mom reflected–moments before the doc confirmed her fatal diagnosis. In another place her daughter gets an emergency call and is headed down the Parkway to console her. The monarch’s flight is purposeful as is the daughter’s. The butterfly’s message was certain. I’d keep losing you over and over. The day the butterflies migrated Mom also learned about her exodus and was as elegant as the monarch who delivered the message of hope and her inevitable flight back home.
Dupin says: Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.
Don’t know if it’s grain, but it’s amber. Is it edible? It’s been so long since we’ve eaten, I’ll risk it. Do I boil it? That’s gets rid of poisons in some plants. Parts of pine trees are edible, but I don’t see any. Maybe nut trees?
I’m a city girl, but we escaped. They’re imploding…no food there. There’s food here, I’m sure, but how to find it? No internet anywhere, no Google to help me out…trial and error for me and the little ones. Gather these and find out.
Andrew says: The illusion was so good. I plugged in, and it was another world. I just got a sample—a field of flowers, light and waving, a whole visual experience, and they were even soft against the limb I had.
“That’s just a sample,” the dev team said. “There’s more—a lot more.”
I would start tiny and grow. Someone already in the game would guide me until I grew up. I would forget where I came from.
The dev team had a goal to make it interesting—but not always pleasant. That would be boring and I was already bored.
“Are you ready?”
Lewis says: The line is faltering, hazy, getting blurry. Each day is a new suggestion, a new rule, a new demand. Each evening an accounting for the day’s work, the ability to stay current. The desire to say on track with both job and self. Good and evil, here and there, then and later.
It’s a bit twisty, gut wrenching and headachy. Is it worth it? Need there be conflict every minute of every day? Any difference in the world for all this angst? Please, just shut up, do it, the paycheck is good, the hours, the benefits……
Okay, time to quit.
Marjorie Taylor Scream says: Times had turned rough for Bimbi Bobo after she was elected.. She was glad to have some time to herself in nature, even if the time was brief. She reached out her hand and caressed the grass, lovingly stroking the green and amber blades and seed heads as the soft breeze caressed her lily white skin. “Damn, Bimbi said to herself, “I wish it hadn’t come out that my husband exposed his dong at a bowling alley. Shit,I could use some meth right now. Fuck.”
Cameron says: The plants were going wild in a riot of pinks in the sunlight. My fingers brushed one and sent an annoyed ladybug flitting away.
“I never expected sentimentality from you,” my wife said in amusement.
“Oh, I can appreciate little things like this and have a sense of humor.
“What do you mean?”
I pointed at the field. “This was where we scattered his ashes. The place where the flowers are strongest are where the highest concentrations landed. I like thinking that the alcohol in his system caused that growth so he did one good thing on his way out.”
Navig8r says: Look at the pretty picture.
It’s problematic.
What do you mean problematic?
It promotes tolerance of carbon dioxide production and therefore global warming.
But grass absorbs CO2.
“All flesh is grass.” We debated it in school. Look at all that pre-flesh. Flesh produces CO2.
You’re making a logic error. The truth of a statement has no bearing on whether or not the converse is true. Not all grass becomes flesh.
LOGIC IS AN OPPRESSIVE RACIST CONSTRUCT! So it is racist too! And you are a racist for saying it and for liking a racist picture! I’m reporting you to HR!
Billy Bob Kraker says: “Oh,” she sighed, “It’s so nice to be out of the reeducation camp. I just want along with them so I could get out,” she said to her boyfriend. As they gazed out across the prairie they saw the figure of a man approaching. Eventually they realized the man was Rafael Ted Cruz. “Oh holy hell” she said. “I didn’t go through all of this to be greeted upon release by Cancun Cruz.” “I couldn’t agree more,” said her boyfriend, “We must agree from and now forever forth to refer to him as “Cancunt Cruz.”
“Keep your oath.” It was the refrain of every video Captain Waite had recorded, ever since the Kitty Hawk Massacre had rocked the entire American space community. A reminder that every Federal official and employee from the President to the lowliest GS1, everyone in the military from the Joint Chiefs to the lowliest E1, had all sworn an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution.
Autumn Belfontaine considered how that applied to her. Nominally at least she was still an employee of a commercial radio-broadcast company. However, the Expulsions meant she could no longer go back to Earth and her old job, and wouldn’t stay on their payroll for long, even if she was filing stories for them.
Which meant her only real choice was throwing her lot in with Shepardsport, and its commandant’s crusade.
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