Join us for Volume 1 of Pillbug. In this book Warren R. Smith trundles down the path of flash fiction and short stories. Among other anecdotal excursions, you’ll find within; the story of a Taxi driver who must come to terms with the truth depth of his daughter’s independence. Read the Speckled Egg, magic realism wherein two children, in saving their lives, must change shape. In Jack-O’-Lantern and old woman invites herself to be haunted. In Pillbug, the story is about the risks of day labor. In Purple Hippo, a Hippo decides it's time to shake the world up. Jack and the Magpies is written in defense of a worthy appetite. Contemporary mainstream and humorously literary, you’ll find this collection chock-full of five-minute wisdoms and imagination....

Yes, it was a crazy season for rabbits. Everywhere they hopped and nibbled — even in the office. Daily I had to sweep them off the desk before I could get a thing done — and I leaned into the task with the whole of my arm and an imprecating grunt because sometimes that’s all there was....

Introduction The Red Paint Flaking English As A 2nd Language Like Caffeine Sweet Nothings Individually Wrapped The Speckled Egg Troder of the Mish'dee Orb Dotting Tigers Jack-O'-Lantern Candy-Corn Angel On Religion Pillbug A Walking Tour Paused Purple Hippo No Man Left Behind Laundromat The Last Thing A Memory Without Name The Girl With the Sheep Animal Magic Jack and the Magpies About The Author...

The book keeper of the hospital of a small provincial town came one day home very tired. He had not the least desire to have dinner and so he decided to lay down at once and to sleep. In recent years it often happened, that he, after coming home in the evening, had dinner and immediately went to bed without a word to his already grown up children or his wife. She became more and more grumpy in view of his seclusion. He only wanted to sleep, to sleep soundly till daybreak of the next and probably again undesirably day which he always impatiently anticipated, only to immerse again in his coma. For any reason he remembered this evening his childhood in a state between vigil and slumber....

Two bank employees, one married male and the other unmarried female happened to mark affinity for self in the other. This unmarried person was the boss of the other one. In view of the mutual affinity, this boss visited the other’s residence for delivering in person the `invite` on the occasion of her marriage with an NRI doctor. In a couple of years, the marriage of both these persons reached the stage of irretrievable breakdown, as both were feeling suffocated with the behaviour and attitude of their spouses. By the by, they happen to divulge to each other the emotional injuries suffered at the hands of their respective callous spouses. However, they happen to be neighbours by virtue of the flat allotted to them by their bank under the self-financing scheme for its employees envisaged to reach them a surprise bonanza in a unique `no profit, no loss` basis. The events at the inlaws family in the case of both of them brought them physically closer, with the blessings of their parents. Thus, they happen to be `a circumstantially evolved couple`. ...

“It appears to me that almost every religion tends to circumscribe the reasoning potentials of its followers. The self-styled custodian of the religious beliefs would not take it upon himself as a duty to seek the explanations of the `deviating folk`, unless an explosive situation emerges,” Nidhi expresses her opinion in the presence of the lone listener … She says, “Even at this moment, some kuchcha structure is visible. A notice board is also clearly visible from here. I think, let’s move towards that hut, to check, if that hermit is still using that hutment even after a period of fifty five years has gone by.” He looks undecided, but his wife almost drags him towards that sign-board. It reads the same contents. The door seems to have been bolted from inside. They move away awfully, lest they disturb the hermit’s peace. …. Nidhi often happens to recall her days when she had once heard from Anirudh that Smriti’s father is a doctor in a government dispensary and has been living an ostentatious type of life. It had resulted in his daughter always complaining of the total absence of modern amenities for leading `a moderately c...

An intriguing short story about solving the mystery of the cosmos and the metaphorical identity of Kafka's and Shakespeare's mistress.

In the cold grip of death and high alert, stands the silent land of the Lost Winds. Moral degradation has triggered a mass exodus. Those who were at great risk and in imminent danger have fled the atrocities of the regime by a boat called the Blue Moon to seek protection in a new land. Battling over the high seas through many violent tempests, their sea unworthy vessel, Blue Moon sailed for days until one evening it was spotted under the roaming beam of the light house on murky waters. The boat has finally reached the shores of Draviland. In the meantime, unfathomable pondering rage in Nalia’s head in Lost Winds, as she explores the chaotic, dark fate of her mates. Unpredictable times have created such people, deemed as riders of the howling seas....

"The presence of the paradoxical absence of the ONE, and His selective random process as to who won and who didn’t was one of those many unresolved puzzles. However, His existence was as immutable as the law of gravity to the faithful. P. 131."...

Red Tempests Ash Woodlands Black Streams Orange Soils White Vines Purple Waves Gold Foliage Turquoise Roots Emerald Luminosities Sapphire Skies Crimson Fields Pink Honeycombs...

Twenty-eight year-old Jesse Caldwell is painfully shy, lives at home and hates his moronic life. Miranda Huffington suffers from a gimpy leg and equally stunted personality. This is not your standard Harlequin romance....

Marie Augustin, an Haitian nurses aide, is blindsided when one of her elderly clients, Peter Marsoubian, asks her to accompany him on a trip to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform in Tanglewood. Does the green-card immigrant, who witnessed first hand the endemic violence in her native country, follow agency protocol or bend rules to accommodate the absurd whim of a dying man?...

Ripe with literary and current-culture allusions, this book combines elements of world history, science fiction, political science, and satire. It's at once a brutally-serious and bitingly-humorous novel that, as one early reviewer noted: "Demands a lot from the reader, is a wonderfully-wild ride, and is well worth the time and energy invested."...

Jake's Diner Saturday, July 13, 2024 Even though it was only 8:15, the intense Minnesota morning sun dumped waves of shimmering heat upon the thirsty wilted corn...unquenched by expensive center-pivot irrigation systems. A loosely-organized row of aggressive-looking pickup trucks--drearily-colored, indeterminate in age, manfully backed into position, and universally-equipped with locking tool boxes giving purpose to otherwise empty beds--had formed a defensive line on the torrid gravel in front of Jake's. By day a respectable diner and by night a bar that promised totally exotic dancing--whatever that meant, since no local dared investigate--Jake's was the social epicenter of Blue Earth...an ever-diminishing farming town that might as well have been located in Iowa for all the difference the unrelentingly-flat, hot, and wind-ravaged prairie landscape made. Although it had been decades since smoking had been banned in public places--with the exception of those wastefully-expensive new mobile home parks--the lingering smell of tobacco still clung to the tables, chairs, and walls…adding to Jake's unfinished-plywood, grease-en...

This book is written in a diary format without chapters. Author's Foreword Dedication Text Appendix Image Attributions

Swimseye is a mostly lighthearted story centred around a group of five swimmers as they endeavour to meet their potential.

This moderately sized novel opens before the reader, with an episode that took place when, after having driven over a hundred kilometers relating to the pleasure trip from Delhi to Kosani,a tourist resort situated in the Kumayun Hills a range of the Himalayas in the North of India, being undertaken by a group of very intimate three unwed oldies, all retired college teachers, when one of them is accosted by the owner of the roadside `Dhaba` (an indigenous restaurant) where they had halted for refreshment. It triggers one of them to recall his boyhood days. Again, at their destination, the other one is accosted by an ex-girlfriend of his, in the distant past. The `trio` who are given to such type of tours, happen to meet two other ladies, while staying in a very beautiful zone of Goa. Here, each of these women have had been connected with either of the two other Professors, who hasn’t yet met any such female pupil of his, during the various other tours, undertaken by them the `trio` till then. These chance meetings brings forth during the next few years, a bond of a purpose for a meaningful solidarity, eventually turning int...

Three chronic bachelors, on their way to Kosani (Kumayun Hills), have just completed their breakfast at a roadside modern `Dhaba` and the cashier for this solid group of three looks towards his companions, as if to seek their consent to signal the `boy` to bring the bill. So, in a broader sense, we used to be treating each other as `neighbour`, during those days. He is younger to me by a couple of years, but his physique and mannerism suggested his equaling me in age. Of course, he always remained conscious of my superiority, because at that point of time, I already had schooling for seven years, whereas he was thoroughly illiterate. …………………. Kundan happened to be the only `writer` available, had a brisk business almost for a fortnight. "I think that it was here that I actually began to earn for months at a run. One day, my earnings went to as high as Five Rupees and 14 Annas, I decided to place it before my mother, instead of handing it over to my father, as usual. …………. "Well, Khanna Ji, how long you had to work with this medico, before resuming your interrupted schooling?" This question was asked by Mr Nepali. "Of...

Gabe and Marie share a mutual disgust for the light-skinned Negro who never cleans up after her Great Dane at the Oak Knoll bird Sanctuary. For the lonely widower and lesbian thespian, their meeting is a textbook case of Jungian synchronicity, a serendipitous wink from the cosmos. ...

Sylvia Mandelstam boasts what a wonderful time she had at the international literary symposium in Moscow. Truth be told, the trip was an unmitigated fiasco not unlike her marriage and personal life. She can lie shamelessly and dissemble to everyone - even Danny O'Rourke, the unassuming mason who arrives one summery day to repair her damaged brick wall. But not indefinitely....

Jerome Spellman, the simple schizophrenic in Grace’s eleventh grade class, acts like an extra in a B-rated horror flick - Night of the Living Dead. Grace prays for a miracle, while Dr. Rosen, the school psychologist counsels, “Think positive but plan for the worse.”...

Jerome Spellman, the simple schizophrenic in Grace’s eleventh grade class, acts like an extra in a B-rated horror flick - Night of the Living Dead. Grace prays for a miracle, while Dr. Rosen, the school psychologist counsels, “Think positive but plan for the worse.”...

Pearl Singleton, a forest ranger at the Pemberton Wildlife Preserve, is going to show eighteen year old Shawn Mariano her Osborne Smoke Finder, all six varieties of New England ferns, a beaver dam, and something he never bargained for....

Following his divorce, Dr. Stanley Gilford, chief of cardiology at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, restructured his life on the guiding principle of maximum gain, minimum pain. So what is the well-heeled doctor doing with Ruby, a high school dropout and waitress at the local greasy spoon, and what are his options visa vie the pallid, five year old boy whose damaged heart beats in three-four time?...

A disaffected German comes of age and sets out on a lifelong journey to discover himself through sex, drugs and, ultimately, spirituality in Mitze’s novel. Walter Herzog was born in a small town outside of Frankfurt to an emotionally detached mother and a Nazi-sympathizing stepfather at the tail end of World War II. Teenage Walter and his pals come to school drunk and oversexed; eventually, they skip classes altogether to make out with girls and earn drinking money. Over the years, restless Walter finds himself loving numerous women. He gets drafted into the German military and relinquishes his service by claiming pacifism. Later, he discovers marijuana and finally settles with a beautiful girl, Hilde. But a stable relationship isn’t enough to stave off Walter’s mounting depression and intense desire to find meaning. When he and a friend visit the United States in the late 1960s, he falls in love with an unlikely place—Oklahoma City—where he encounters psychedelic drugs. He moves there with Hilde to open a restaurant, before returning to Frankfurt, addicted to psychedelics. One summer, while living with Hilde at his parents’ home i...

Walter Herzog was born in a small town near Marburg, in the state of Hessen, about fifty miles north of Frankfurt. Looking back at his life, one can only say that it was and is like a dream—a dream filled with the spectrum of all colors imaginable; a life full of love, drama, and fear, with inner richness but disenfranchised. It was a life and existence of courage on the verge of desperation, as if madness tried to find guidance through him. He experienced deep depression, loneliness, and indescribably awesome bliss. From when he was born in the forties of the last century until the year 2000 may not seem like a long time, but to remember standing at the crossroads of a small town in the middle of Western Germany when John F. Kennedy was assassinated seems like the brink of eternity. Walter had been locked up; had survived stabbing; was spit on, yelled at, and cursed; and had stuff thrown at him. One Sunday morning, however, he was fortunate enough to ask a true question at the proper moment. *** Tree leaves had already fallen to the ground after turning red and yellow. It was a melancholy season in Germany, with a certain smell...

C O N T E N T S Acknowledgment Eternal Hula Directory of Individuals Pink Lotus Lisa Herzog and "Father" First Changes Challenges Life at Home First Love Madeleine Summer Holidays Military Important Decision Andreas, Ombudsman Hilde and Frankfurt Following Sardinia USA No. 1 More Changes Darkness USA Encore Homecoming A New Chapter Arrangements The East Greece Turkey Mehmed Persia Afghanistan India Going North Roof of The World Journey through the interior of India Dravida Approaching Territory Transition Alternative Course New Life Perception Internal Affairs The Becoming of an Author Cyclic Devastation The Road to Dead End Resurrection Margaretha Part Two Life Goes On Homeland Far East and back The Beloved Repeat Red Zone Chandra Getting Acquainted Contemplation Mêlée Small, Red Family Celebrations Chicago Another Community in Hamburg Poona Life without Center Curtain Call Edmonton, Alberta...

A collection of short fictions -- a miscellany of the aprocryphal and grim -- including a couple that reference the author's previously-published brain-in-the-vat stories....

This book represents a journey through the world through meditation.

My Secret Family aka Sugar Crash is a cult novel about personality and eating disorders, originally written as a short story in 1991 and published as a novel in 1997. The novel went viral in 1997. By 2005 the characters in the book, each represented by a personality disorder, were considered a 'pro-ana' secret language by the media, even though the book has no 'pro-ana' message. The story spread in an unusual fashion because it was originally published, not in book form, but as a collection of stapled pages in the form of a found diary, which readers copied and distributed at their own expense. The book has no copyright and an estimated 60 million copies have been made....

Suffer to be Beautiful By Ana I don't eat bread or chocolate cake, in dinners and breakfasts I do not partake, there's cherry plum pudding cooled fresh on the sill, it may as well sit there – to me it's all swill. I cannot remember the taste of dessert, when I climb out my dress my ribs creak and they hurt, I'm down three sizes to a minus 2, I need to put cotton in the sides of my shoes. I cry in my sleep for one last little bite, a glass of tap water stays my appetite, my lips have not tasted a real crème Brule, in so long my taste buds have just withered away. my doctor and mother share the same phobia - that my skin will stretch tight and eventually tear. I suffer and diet and look like a rake, but oh! What a beautiful corpse I will make!...

The Escape Artist Art House of Ana The Arc This Broken Art of Mine Stalking Luke Mall Rats The Poser Sugar Crash Ana Mia Sue Sophie The Riders of the Apocalypse House of Sophie ...

Winifred starts her story off in the first person, to create a personable feel for the reader; she then changed her story to the third person as it reads like fiction with all the colorful characters evolving. The reader must remember that everything in this story is actual facts of what happened in Winifred’s life; hence the story is a historical document as well. It is delightful to read, heartfelt, funny and also at times will have you in tears so be ready with your tissue boxes....

The light and the dark shadows danced in grotesque shapes on the freshly painted green and cream walls, at times, reaching out, in mythical movements, towards the well baked off-white of the ceiling. A loud ticking alarm clock, from its place of importance on the mantle-piece, disturbed the silence of the room, acting like a hypnotist’s metronome on the man sleeping in the deep old fashioned arm chair. Singed hair tumbled boyishly about his once handsome face. The slightest movement he made brought sounds of moaning from swollen lips. Flashing firelight revealed the cause of the pain. Blisters that hung in bunches’ like grapes, almost the size of walnuts, decorated his shoulder and wove themselves right down one side of his body. I slowly opened the door so as not to disturb my father and tip-toed my way across towards the wreckage of human flesh slumped on the chair. I was a child of seven with large curls of hair that ran down to my shoulders now sparkling gold in the bright glow of the flickering firelight. I had large blue eyes that held the fathoms of the ages in them; such was the wisdom bestowed upon me. Looking at my fat...