“More bloodshed followed, as brother fought brother and religion battled religion in the age-old nonsense of settling whose method of worship was the holiest to our Creator, who, for all our murderous efforts, most likely despises the lot of us.”― Steve Alten, The Loch A man begins a religion as a joke. Bored with his life, his …
Tag: fantasy
The Highwayman
And still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,When the road is a gypsy's ribbon looping the purple moor,The highwayman comes riding--Riding--riding--The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.― Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman It's a stormy night and well past …
The Book in the Hollow
I want the scissors to be sharpand the table perfectly levelwhen you cut me out of my lifeand paste me in that book you always carry.― Billy Collins, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems Abby found the book stuffed into the hollow of a tree. At first it just seemed like someone's old notebook …
Beyond Sight
“A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that's lacking.”― Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame He was born with one working eye, or so they thought. For most of his life up until now, his left eye only saw darkness. Recently, however, he thought he was getting …
The Thief
“There is only one sin. and that is theft... when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.”― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner There was a creature in the woods called The Thief, and it could steal anything. If you told it your name, it would steal it and you would forget. The villagers …
Accidental Magic
“In a way, her strangeness, her naiveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings, had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the …
The Purpose of an Immortal
“You can't have living without dying. So you can't call it living, what we got. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road.”― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting The life of an immortal is generally pretty boring, but Jack enjoys watching the centuries go by. He loves the new gadgets and gizmos that humans come …
A Tiny Heart Beat
“I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby She was a toxicologist and often found herself wondering the woods to admire plants and fungus. She had a sort of "tender curiosity" for them, and liked to watch the way the local fauna reacted with them. Being …
Three Strikes
“I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.”― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex In life, Charles had been pretty mediocre. He had homicidal tendencies and often daydreamed of brutal murders, but because he enjoyed his luxuries, he decided not to act on them lest he end up in jail. In death, upon meeting Satan …
Wasting Time
“Time is the longest distance between two places.”― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie Time had never been much of a problem for Alex because he could stop it whenever he wanted. As long as he could remember, he could command time. Slow it down, speed it up, and stop it all together. When he was a kid, …
LAMP 