Fiction: Two Prisoners on the Eve of Battle

“Drink up, lads!” the king yelled. “Tonight we feast, and tomorrow we storm the castle!”

A cheer rose from manly throats eager to dine and drink.

But not from Thomas. He casually wandered away from the roast beeves and the hogsheads of ale.

He went off into the woods, alone. When he came to a little clearing, he sat on the ground and rested against a stout tree.

“There must be more to life than storming castle after castle on the say-so of a mad king,” he muttered.

“Couldn’t agree more,” said an unexpected voice.

Thomas looked up and saw a man emerge from behind a tree. The man was adjusting his lower garments, making it easy to guess what chore of nature he had been tending to.

“Who’s there?” Thomas asked.

“Nobody important. Just the son of the mad king who keeps ordering us to storm castles.”

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Fiction: Unraveled

Margaret busied herself with her knitting. When the dark green sweater was finished, she would send it, along with some other homemade treats, to Paul Jr. He could wear the sweater under his army uniform and be just a little warmer while he strove to make everyone safer.

At the rap of the door knocker, Coral, the family’s cat, leaped off the couch and trotted into another room. Margaret set her knitting aside.

She picked it up again hours later, long after the army men and then the Rev. Hauser had gone. She had done her work so well, but it had been fated to be wasted.

She took up her scissors and snipped the yarn close to the sweater. The ball dropped to the floor, and as she went toward her bedroom she kicked the yarn out of her way. She folded tissue paper around the unfinished sweater and packed it away in a shirt box.

The young man had been gone for months; he was out of Coral’s thoughts unless she walked past his bedroom and caught his scent. All she knew was that she had a new toy, and she played with it all night.

Fiction: The Weapon

“Your mother’s funeral,” Aunt Margaret repeated as they sat down. She spoke, as she always did, so Eric and everyone else at the table could hear her.

It was a gorgeous late spring day and the women of the First Baptist Church had set up the funeral dinner outside rather than in the church basement. Only the mildest of breezes blew and it was scented with lilac.

Eric said nothing. He had learned long ago to keep his responses to Aunt Margaret short and polite, whatever else he might want to say.

“Where on earth were you, Eric?” Aunt Margaret demanded from across the table. “What did you think could possibly be more important than being on time to your dear mother’s funeral?”

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Fiction: Little Drummer Boy

The ghost was back again. Every day in the early evening, just for an hour.

“Listen!” the ghost said cheerfully.

Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat.

Warren tried to work around it, tried to do the crossword puzzle in the newspaper, tried to wash the dishes, tried to weed the flowerbed. He could hear it wherever he went in and around his house.
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