He sat staring at the person in the train stopped at the station going in the opposite direction.

She

sat staring ahead, never noticing that she was being watched. Both trains began to move and he

knew that in another timeline or in another universe, they had been happy together.

It was easy to spot her. All you needed to do was look at her socks. They were never a matching

pair. One would be green while the other would be blue. One would reach her knee while the other

barely touched her ankle. Every other part of her was perfect, but never the socks. They were her

micro act of rebellion.

MaryLou wore the tiara with pride. There was something that made doing anything she didn't really

want to do a bit easier when she wore it. She really didn't care what those staring through the

window were thinking as she vacuumed her apartment.

Things aren't going well at all with mom today. She is just a limp noodle and wants to sleep all the

time. I sure hope that things get better soon.

It was difficult to explain to them how the diagnosis of certain death had actually given him life. While

everyone around him was in tears and upset, he actually felt more at ease. The doctor said it would

be less than a year. That gave him a year to live, something he'd failed to do with his daily drudgery

of a routine that had passed as life until then.

She didn't understand how changed worked. When she looked at today compared to yesterday,

there was nothing that she could see that was different. Yet, when she looked at today compared to

last year, she couldn't see how anything was ever the same.

It was going to rain. The weather forecast didn't say that, but the steel plate in his hip did. He had

learned over the years to trust his hip over the weatherman. It was going to rain, so he better get
outside and prepare.

Barbara had been waiting at the table for twenty minutes. it had been twenty long and excruciating

minutes. David had promised that he would be on time today. He never was, but he had promised

this one time. She had made him repeat the promise multiple times over the last week until she'd

believed his promise. Now she was paying the price.

Barbara had been waiting at the table for twenty minutes. it had been twenty long and excruciating

minutes. David had promised that he would be on time today. He never was, but he had promised

this one time. She had made him repeat the promise multiple times over the last week until she'd

believed his promise. Now she was paying the price.

The wolves stopped in their tracks, sizing up the mother and her cubs. It had been over a week

since their last meal and they were getting desperate. The cubs would make a good meal, but there

were high risks taking on the mother Grizzly. A decision had to be made and the wrong choice could

signal the end of the pack.

I'm heading back to Colorado tomorrow after being down in Santa Barbara over the weekend for the

festival there. I will be making October plans once there and will try to arrange so I'm back here for

the birthday if possible. I'll let you know as soon as I know the doctor's appointment schedule and

my flight plans.

Dave found joy in the daily routine of life. He awoke at the same time, ate the same breakfast and

drove the same commute. He worked at a job that never seemed to change and he got home at 6

pm sharp every night. It was who he had been for the last ten years and he had no idea that was all

about to change.
I'm meant to be writing at this moment. What I mean is, I'm meant to be writing something else at

this moment. The document I'm meant to be writing is, of course, open in another program on my

computer and is patiently awaiting my attention. Yet here I am plonking down senseless sentiments

in this paragraph because it's easier to do than to work on anything particularly meaningful. I am

grateful for the distraction.

"It was so great to hear from you today and it was such weird timing," he said. "This is going to

sound funny and a little strange, but you were in a dream I had just a couple of days ago. I'd love to

get together and tell you about it if you're up for a cup of coffee," he continued, laying the trapped

he's been planning for years.

Eating raw fish didn't sound like a good idea. "It's a delicacy in Japan," didn't seem to make it any

more appetizing. Raw fish is raw fish, delicacy or not.

Where do they get a random paragraph?" he wondered as he clicked the generate button. Do they

just write a random paragraph or do they get it somewhere? At that moment he read the random

paragraph and realized it was about random paragraphs and his world would never be the same.

He had three simple rules by which he lived. The first was to never eat blue food. There was nothing

in nature that was edible that was blue. People often asked about blueberries, but everyone knows

those are actually purple. He understood it was one of the stranger rules to live by, but it had served

him well thus far in the 50+ years of his life.

At that moment he had a thought that he'd never imagine he'd consider. "I could just cheat," he

thought, "and that would solve the problem." He tried to move on from the thought but it was

persistent. It didn't want to go away and, if he was honest with himself, he didn't want it to.
Stranded. Yes, she was now the first person ever to land on Venus, but that was of little

consequence. Her name would be read by millions in school as the first to land here, but that

celebrity would never actually be seen by her. She looked at the control panel and knew there was

nothing that would ever get it back into working order. She was the first and it was not clear this

would also be her last.

If you can imagine a furry humanoid seven feet tall, with the face of an intelligent gorilla and the

braincase of a man, you'll have a rough idea of what they looked like -- except for their teeth. The

canines would have fitted better in the face of a tiger, and showed at the corners of their wide,

thin-lipped mouths, giving them an expression of ferocity.