Untethered

Odd remembrances haunt my lazy brain unbidden at odd times. Family legend has me nearly drowning after falling out of a boat when very young. The woman who is now great grandmother and widow that I made out with in my car sixty years ago. A small clothing store that I walked past in West Portland fifty plus years ago. Now there is a freeway where it was. I think it was small, isolated and named Mode O’Day. The traumatized beauty that abruptly rejected me while in college. Did she ever care for me, or was it completely one-sided?

From Guest Contributor Doug Hawley

Doomed To Repeat

Alexander’s Eastern campaign had gone well until now. But Bactria was different. He sat astride his beloved horse and studied the valley below. These lands were ruled by tribes and the fighters were unpredictable, as was the weather. Would he be able to rule this land once he had subdued it?

General Gromov looked back across the Afghanistan border and sighed. The last of his Russian troops were safely out. Nine years and thousands of Soviet deaths later, there was no victory.

American General Miller looked down from his Blackhawk and mused: what was that saying about history repeating itself?

From Guest Contributor Janice Siderius

The Boss Man

"The Boss Man is coming!"

The shout was uttered every morning--though later than was expected of the rest of them--tinctured with fear and disdain. They all hated the man, but there was no hope of escaping.

He was a modern day tyrant, controlling his domain as surely as Alexander controlled the Dardanelles. His employees learned quickly to fear him. Those who did not were generally shot in the head and left for dead on the sidewalk down below.

In this economy, no one dared to quit. Everyone acknowledged it was better to get executed than to risk unemployment.