Game

Steven was playing from behind from the start. Every time he made a play to get within striking distance, the deficit grew to the point it seemed out of reach. It didn't matter how aggressively he attacked or how ferociously he defended, the cards were always stacked against him.

If Steven had an opportunity to reflect, he might have suspected someone had rigged the outcome so there was no way of winning. However, that realization was simply too cruel to contemplate, and it hadn't crossed his mind until it was too late.

Steven never even heard his opponent call game.

What Made Me Cry...

It wasn’t your lifeless body accompanied by sympathy cards and my childhood stuffed animal, not your workplace name tag displayed in your shirt pocket, not the sermon praising your altruism, not the incense that uplifted our prayers, not as a pallbearer guiding you to your resting place.

It was the blasts of a three-volley salute followed by the silence of two soldiers that lifted the flag off your casket and with precision folded it into a perfect triangle, and my realization that if you didn’t survive war and didn’t start a family, I wouldn’t be standing here missing you, Dad.

From Guest Contributor Charles Gray

What In Hell Is A Soul?

The super highway of data flowing back to the Dyson Sphere brought several questions to mind. Are all the math numbers being crunched supposedly from bitcoin to dogecoin just souls caught in the Mandela effect? Seemed illogical. And yet?

The more one reviews the simulator of life. The more questions one has to think about. Does thinking make anything right? No.And often times thoughts bring about new ideas. The question is any of this real?

Then the realization even if this was not real. Here I am today. And here you are too? Which begs the question in hell.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

The Veil Of Light

My body wakes to join my mind in shock as scenes of a distorted world vanish, and realization sinks in. The darkness of the world I inhabit dissipates, and the light arises once more. Haunted by the past and present, but none so terrifying are they to the unknown of the future. That eldritch thing that lurks behind the veil of light, creeping across the land and praised by the Cult of the New Dawn. I lie here in fear, hoping and praying that I possess the strength to face it once more, to conquer the daemon of the day.

From Guest Contributor Michael Atherton