If a genie from a lamp offered me three wishes, I wouldn’t wish for lots of money.  I’d wish for something really neat like having my picture taken with my favorite New York Mets player, right fielder Darryl Strawberry .  Or being successful like my Dad who is an insurance agent or being less […]

    “My rights got violated not once but twice,” sputters a wolf his eyes ablaze. “My rights got violated not one but twice. You have to help me get these bastards! “Sir I would like to help you, but I need you to get your emotions under better control first, please take some deep breaths […]

  The air feels cool as it blows gently against me during an evening walk.  Within moments  I arrive at a park I have been to many times before.  I head for the Barnes path, my favorite spot and where I have taken meditative walks. All is quiet except for the leaves and tree branches […]

    My plan was perfect I’d target the sweet tooth of a child with the aroma of candy and gingerbread cake.  A combination a kid with an empty or full stomach can’t resist.   And all unsuspecting of his or her fate to become part of my gingerbread and candy house. It is easy for me to […]

  Meeting King Richard III…in the afterlife A gentleman with neatly trimmed black hair and circle beard; wearing a tailored dark gray suite with faint light grey stripes steps out of thick fog to greet what he believes is another “Richard III enthusiast.” Until the twentieth century he rarely dealt with anyone and then Richard’s […]

  My name is Lily and I am here to tell you the fairy tale life is terrible. Here is why, years  ago when I was a young, around the holidays my Father, a wealthy merchant asked my sisters and I what gifts we wanted. My Father easily obtained the diamonds and the pearls  for […]

  Solution: Part 3 of Radio Waves A 191 days later Othi Xouqphon and his sister Baitair Dang stare at an illuminated light bulb, an ancient device, adopted by their Kind as one of the symbols for solution.  Within moments the light bulb disappears. In its place appears a black square with a round blue and silver-colored button. […]

  221 days later – A breakthrough   Othi Xouqphon is lost in thought when suddenly a musical scale fills the Still Liquid around him.  It comes from an application in his laptop computer that he uses to receive e-mail messages.  Othi Xouqphon scrambles to located it in the Still Liquid.  His Quantum computer is […]

  An electromagnetic waves oscillate in front of scientist and technician Othi Xouphon’ eyes. A repeated pattern of high and low pressure that emits a hissing and static sounds.  Only instead of creating  images that Othi Xouqfon and his Kind can understand these sound waves remain as they are. However, this does not mean Othi Xouqfon  […]

Dear Bonnie, I easily pictured in my mind what the kittens got up to in your sister’s condo. It made me laugh! Thanks for the snap shots of your vacation. I enjoyed seeing where you have been. Good news! I caught up at work.  In two weeks I will be at the beach house.  I  […]

  Dear Liam, I think it is very admirable of you to encourage your brother by changing your eating and life style habits with him.   I know from when I had to change my diet because of diabetes, it was tough but eventually it got easier and easier.  Now it is second nature.  So too […]

  Dear Bonnie, Thank you for the kind words,  I really appreciated them. My brother came home from the hospital on Saturday and is trying to adjust to his new diet that does not include simple starches, salt and fatty foods. His whole life he has disliked eating fruit and vegetables. For a time he […]

Dear Liam, I am sorry to read about your brother. My thoughts and prayers are with him,  you and the rest of your family.   I can understand the shock you all are in to find out about a hidden illness.   While this is not much at least the TIAs are known about now and changes […]

  Dear Bonnie, I got a call last night from my young brother and it has left me shaken. I do not know if you recall  me telling you this before, but when my brother was in his thirties he was diagnosed with MS. Over the following decades he was able to adapt and manage […]

  Dear Liam, You’re right I am SO looking forward to my trip.  These last few weeks have been hectic!   It will feel great to visit Springfield and re-experience all things Lincoln.   Among the things I will do is visit a natural history museum and a house that belonged to an artist and poet, neither […]

  Dear Bonnie, Gee whiz you made me all misty eyed! The feeling is mutual of course.  And yes we WILL go another fifteen years and beyond that.  Easily! My sister and her husband, who as you know came for my birthday, are staying on for Mom’s birthday this coming Sunday. We’re planning to take […]

  Dear Liam, Can you believe it, today marks our 15th year writing to each other! I remember searching the Internet looking for a site to gain a pen pal and found a website called Friendship.   I checked out different profiles not expecting much then I see your smiling face. You were wearing a […]

  How could she have been so wrong about Marcos?  When she met him, he seemed liked just the kind of  man she wanted to get to know more.  He appeared honest, very intelligent, well-educated, and a respected doctor not to mention quite handsome.  After their second meeting, she made discreet inquiries through her father, […]

  Terror grips Marcos just as it did years before when Reverend Father Alexis shouted at him in Greek demanding a demon leave the boy’s body. Only this time it is Reverend Father Dimitrous. A few days before the boy’s was in police custody after his failed attempt to subdue Gavril and do another “miracle […]

Reverend Father Dimitris sits ashen faced and stunned across from Sergeant Areleous. Six years earlier he thought Reverend Father Nikias’s concern over a demon inhabiting his nephew was far-fetched especially after meeting the shy, respectful boy himself.  So he disregarded the request made to him to discreetly watch the boy for signs of a demon.  […]

  Six years later. Sister Anna recounts the boys in the eastern dormitory. Her frustration shows with creased brow and lips so tightly together that the middle of her top lip bumps out a little further than her bottom lip.  Four hours before she had monitored twenty-five boys getting ready for bed and then counted […]

  Dear Reverend Father Nikias, Your nephew Marcos has come a long way in a very short time.  Two months ago when I first met him,  I believed he was normally very shy and would stay so for the foreseeable future. As you know, although he agreed to meet the boys, he had great difficulty […]

  Marcos buries his face in the back of his uncle’s coat. Initially he put up a brave front after they reached the meteora’s (monastery) orphanage building. However when it came time for him to meet the head sister, Korina, fear took hold and  Marcos bolted from his uncle’s side to his back.  The boy’s […]

  All of a sudden Phoibe feels all atwitter and unable to focus on her work at the haberdashery re-hanging clothes on the racks that had previously been in the dressing rooms.  All she can think about is having failed Marcos. Last night Dr. Floros visited the apartment. He briefly treated Marcos to ease his […]

  Phoibe soaks her very sore feet in hot water with Epsom salt dissolved in it. After a few minutes she feels relief from her  long day walking through the surrounding neighborhoods near where her and her family live. Phoibe began these walks a little over a month ago. Mrs. Sanna, their neighbor across the […]

  Five and half years before Marco’s birth. Phoibe is crouched down near a small plaque marking the burial plot where her and Kallias previous children are buried. Her hand touches each engraved name. The first child she bore a girl, Tasia,  was felled by chicken pox at age four and her second child a […]

  Nikias sits to the left of his nephew in a carriage taking them to the church’s orphanage nearly three hundred miles away.  The boy leans into his uncle’s body as he sleeps a deep slumber.  Nikias wishes he could make like his nephew and rest as well. But for days now questions have not […]

  Marcos is awoken by a gentle shake of his shoulder.  His eyes shoot open and he is about to renew his pleas from before when he remembers he is no longer tied to the bed.  Marcos looks up to see who has awoken him and smiles at the sight of his uncle Nikias. “Are […]

  A dark haired boy with a tear streaked face and snot coming out of his nose cries heavily as an older man in black robes shouts at him in Greek – demanding the Devil be gone from his body. On and off for days when not crying uncontrollably, the child has pleaded for his […]

  A group of four dressed in black stand several feet away from a small coffin that lies next to an open-pit where it will later be lowered into for final burial.  A Greek Orthodox priest presides over the service.  Missing from the small group of mourners is Nikias, Kallias’s brother.  Their mother Avra whispers […]

  Two hours after Kallias left the church, he is in his in-laws apartment.  He fights tears as he attempts to break the terrible news both of his wife and of his son.  “Our neighbor Mrs. Sanna was watching Marcos…he started gasping and__” “Marcos is dead,” states Michel, Kallias’s father-in-law, flatly causing his wife Chara […]

  A married couple in their late forties face one another in a stone chapel just off a much larger church. The husband’s face is a deep shade of red, his anger pouring out of every pore as he hurls insult after insult at his wife. Phoibe has fruitlessly tried to placate her husband.   Finally […]

    The darkness oh, so terrifying hour after hour. Time is no longer present in my mind. I lay here my eyes open; light is not coming to them or any picture. Only darkness fills these gorgeous, blue eyes that long to see the light of day. A mere beam – bright or dim […]

  The blog post for today is a story I wrote over twenty years ago. I have made some changes from the original and tightened the grammar. As many of you read the story, I am sure it will be familiar. So without further ado the children’s story “The Youth, Who Could Not Shiver or […]

    The snow was falling in thick layers outside of my elementary school, and I was feeling on edge. At the start of this winter day, I awoke in bed hoping the snow had begun while I was asleep, and thick snow covered the ground. I took the covers in my right hand and […]