My Little Angel

Ever hold an angel, wondering if every breath might be her last?

Ever hold an angel, marveling at her ability to touch hearts?

Ever hold an angel, struggling to communicate?

Ever hold an angel, smiling because of her infectious laugh?

Ever hold an angel that loved to fly so high?

Ever hold an angel that slipped away in your arms?

I was blessed enough to do so, and now my angel flies on her own.

I love you Angela.

I Smell Dead People

“I smell dead people,” Johnny said as he looked around the cemetery.

Anna hit Johnny in his arm, making him stumble and almost fall.  “Ow,” he said.  “What’s that for?”

Anna gave him the look.  “Dead people?” she asked.

Johnny leaned forward and gave Anna a fierce kiss.  “That’s why you wanted to come here, isn’t it?” Johnny asked.

Anna faked another punch, causing Johnny to jump back and trip over a headstone, landing flat on his back on the loose soil and grass, and knocking the breath from him.  As Johnny laid there trying to suck life giving oxygen back into his lungs, Anna looked back and forth not knowing what to do.  When Johnny was able to force his lungs to work again, he began to laugh.  Anna looked at him like he had completely lost it.  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Anna asked.

Johnny put his hands over his chest like he was posed in a casket.  “I keep falling for you over and over,” he said.

Anna looked down at Johnny with that look again before a smile broke out.  “You are so full of it,” she said.

Johnny tapped the grass next to him.  “You’re so far away,” he said.  “Get closer.”

“Here?” Anna said.  “You’ve got to be joking.”

Johnny propped himself on his side.  “You did want to go someplace where we can be alone,” he said.

“But in a cemetery?” Anna asked.

“Worried dead people might see something?” asked Johnny.  He paused before continuing.  “I know I’m dying to.”

Anna stamped her foot.  “Johnny Baker, you are impossible!” she said.

“Trust me Anna, right now I am quite possible,” Johnny said.  “Let me show you how.”

Anna looked around, hesitated, then gracefully sat on the ground next to Johnny.  “You bring me to the nicest places,” she said.

Johnny reached up and stroked Anna’s hair.  “Only the best for my girl,” he said.

“If this is your best then maybe I should give Rondo a chance,” Anna said with a smirk on her face.

Johnny pulled back.  “If I were you I wouldn’t want to be caught dead with him,” Johnny said.  “Then again, he’s so stiff maybe he’s already here.”  Johnny gestured to the cemetery around him.

Anna threatened to hit Johnny again.  “One more pun about the dead and I’m going home,” she said.

Johnny rolled back close to Anna and gave her an awkward hug from the position he was in.  “What ‘s got you so crazy?” asked Johnny.

“Cemeteries freak me out,” Anna said looking around her.  “I can’t not think some dead person is going to reach up and pull me in.”

“I’ll protect you,” Johnny said as he hugged her even closer.

“Awe, that’s sweet,” Anna said.  She kissed the top of his forehead.  “You’re right.  Going with Rondo is just a bad idea.”

“All this talking about Rondo is killing the mood,” said Johnny jokingly.

Anna sighed and pushed her way out of Johnny’s embrace.  “I told you I would go home and I meant it.”  With that Anna stood and began walking away.

Johnny got to his feet and ran to catch up.  “Wait, I’m sorry.  I don’t know what came over me,” he said.  Anna kept walking, not looking at Johnny at all.  “Please, just give me one more chance.  Maybe we could try somewhere else?”

Anna never broke stride.  “Maybe you should try someone else,” she said.

 

Two skeletons pushed their way up from nearby the gravestone that Johnny had tripped over.  “I thought they would never leave,” commented the one skeleton as he pulled out his hat from the loose soil.

“Why come to a cemetery to make out?” asked the second skeleton, dusting off her torn dress.

“That’s why we came up,” commented the male skeleton.

The female skeleton laughed.  “True, I’ve been dying to do this all day,” she said.

The male skeleton laughed.  “That’s what he said,” said the male skeleton.

The two skeletons fell into each other’s arms as the full moon blushed.

Imagination Boost

Mark looked at his ideas document and wondered again why he had such a bounty of ideas and so little written.  Then he heard Linda’s cry through the baby monitor and he remembered.  As the crying grew louder and more insistent, Mark closed the document.  Nothing was going to get done tonight, but then again nothing had been done for like two weeks now.  Still he pushed away from his desk and headed upstairs.  While the worlds in his imagination would wait for him, Linda wasn’t.  Besides, Mark had read lack of sleep helped with creativity.  He was going to be so creative for the next couple of years, it might kill him.

Acrostic Poem 2

Center of my universe

Heaven sent, a blessing

Inspiring me to be the best I can be

Love them to death and beyond

Despite lack of sleep, cleanliness, and the ability to listen to directions

Realizing mom’s curse of hoping they are like you has come true

Embracing every moment with them,

Never wanting to let them go, but loving watching them grow

A Dickens of a Test (in 100 words)

I watch my students pour their souls onto pieces of dead trees.  Their sunken eyes are wide open trying to make sense of the words dancing and leaping in front of them.  The students hope the blood red ink of my grading pen passes them by and doesn’t reanimate the dead paper pulp into a ghost that haunts their academic careers.  The grades of tests past weigh down the students like the Dickens’ chains of sin Morley had to bear.  What about the ghost of tests’ future?  That grave remains open for now.  The next test is in four weeks.

Cramming in 100 words

The pounding of her head offered a counterpoint to the song she had stuck on repeat inside of her head.  Normally Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi didn’t have a tympani playing eighth notes in the background, but today her brain decided to experiment with it.  It might have something to do with thirty two hours of consciousness and twenty-seven energy drinks that she had consumed during that time.  She just needed to make it another three hours until her test.  Her blinking elongated into something more and Bad Medicine was replaced by “Good night sweetheart, well it’s time to go”.

Circular Logic

The world is rocking me to sleep with the cold monotonous drone of negativity used to sell views of their ads.  Of course if I believe those ads, just by consuming their product the proverbial greener grass is just $9.99 away, and they’ll even throw in a second amount of happiness for free, you only have to pay separate processing and handling.  I would try to do the processing of all this myself, but I don’t have the energy for it.  If I did I am sure I would be a major contributor to global warming, but maybe the warming would thaw the cold negativity and that is rocking me to sleep.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Unusual Love (100 words of weirdness)

The car wept radiator fluid as it lay broken after trying to wrap itself around the tree.  The tree bent forward; its branches tenderly caressing the top of its crumpled one night stand.  Two things, one created and one grown, found a moment of love in time of tragedy.  As the snow draped the scene in a mind numbing white blanket, the only person to witness the joining of tree and car gently cooled; his last thoughts were of love and love lost.  The tree finished collapsing onto the car as sirens in the far distance wailed for the tragedy.

Cos She Knows Better

The two wizards stood at opposite edges of a pentagram drawn inside a large circle where the points of the pentagram almost pierced the circle’s edge.  They had eyes only for each other, not noticing the gathering crowd waiting to watch the spectacle that was about to commence.

Eric of the Purple Cloak waved his arms in a rotated figure eight, summoning the spirits of his dead ancestors to give him strength in the coming ordeal.  Luscious of the Red Order laughed before striking his staff into the ground, calling upon the life blood of the earth to pour into his magic.

The two wizards kept perfectly still, daring the other one to show weakness and be the first to attack.  The crowd began to get anxious.  They wanted to see what the two robed men were about to do, but it was cold out and the entertainment factor was quickly running out.  The crowd began to disperse with murmurs of idiots and cross dressing clowns.

This angered Eric.  He turned to address the haters.  Unfortunately for Eric, this was seen as an act of aggression for Luscious, and Luscious cast his attack spell, summing an elemental of earth to crush Eric’s legs.  Eric had to swallow his words and spin to defend himself, jumping into the air with gangly dexterity to avoid the perceived hands from accomplishing their mission.

Snickers rose from the crowd, but Luscious ignored their snide remarks.  He unleashed his next spell firing a ball of negative energy spinning toward Eric’s midsection.  Eric landed on the ground and managed to get his magically enhanced hands in front of him.  Eric caught the ball of energy in his hands, and with a brief squishing of the ball, he managed to flash it out of existence.  Eric then flung his arms forward and a howling filled Luscious’ ears as Luscious saw a spirit wolf fly through the air, saliva dripping from its ghostly jaws.  Luscious brought his arm up to fend off the ghostly beast, but the wolf sunk its translucent teeth into Luscious’ elbow causing Luscious to howl.

A little girl in the crowd pulled on her daddy’s arm.  “Daddy, what are those two men doing?”

Her daddy bent over.  “Those are cos players,” her daddy said.  “They dress up as someone else.  These two are acting out a battle.”

“But I don’t see them fighting,” she said.

“They are pretending,” her daddy said.

Just then Luscious managed to land a spell into the leg of Eric causing him to fall to his side.  Luscious wasn’t able to follow through since he appeared winded.

“Then I’ve got this,” replied the little girl.  Before her dad could say a word, the little girl moved to the front of the crowd and pointed her hands in the shape of guns at the two cos players.  “Bang bang.  You guys are dead, and I win,” she said.

The two cos players smiled, then gave their best dramatic death throws before collapsing to the ground amid applause from the crowd.  The little girl turned back to her dad and smiled triumphantly.  “See, Daddy?” she asked.

Her daddy nodded but just then two Robocop knockoffs rode up on Segways.  “Little girl, you are under arrest,” said the left knockoff in a metallic monotone.

The little girl put her hands on her hips.  “Why?” she asked defiantly.

The second knockoff got off the Segway.  “Killing wizards is a capital offense,” he said, almost keeping a straight face monotone throughout.

The little girl thought for a minute, then pantomimed putting her guns away.  “I’m a little girl.  I think it is a lower case offense,” she said.

That was it.  The two knockoffs started laughing and that infected the rest of the crowd, including the dead wizards.  Her daddy shook his head.  “And I was worried you would be weirded out by all the costumes,” he said.

“Remember daddy,” the little girl said, “I play dress up all the time.”

Her daddy rubbed the top of her head.  “You amaze me my little princess,” he said.

“Of course I do,” the little girl said.  “Now can we get an ice cream cone?”

Her daddy called out in a loud voice.  “Make way for my princess.  She desires the ice of cream.”

As the crowd separated to let them through, the little girl patted her daddy’s arm.  “And I’m not a princess,” she said.  “I’m the queen.”

Her daddy smiled.  “Don’t grow up too fast kid.  Pretend you’re a little girl for a bit more.”

The little girl grabbed onto her daddy’s hand.  “Okay Daddy, but I still want chocolate ice cream.”

A Major Relevation

Mason put down the magazine article and looked over at Brenda.  “I can’t believe we are ranked number one in crimes per student committed.  How am I supposed to tell prospective students that Alamata University is a safe place to be.  More importantly how are we going to convince their parents?” Mason said.

Brenda took off her glasses and sucked on one of the ear loops for a moment.  Her eyes lit up and the glasses came out of her mouth.  “I know.  We can claim we started a top secret new major.”

Mason looked skeptical.  “What major would that be?” he asked.

“Super villain,” Brenda said.

Mason shook his head.  “And how is that supposed to help our reputation?” he asked.

Brenda beamed.  “Simple,” she said, “We can use it to bring in new criminal justice majors.  They can get practice against the villains of tomorrow.”

Mason paused, thinking about what Brenda said.  “I like it, but why would we start up a super villain major in the first place?”

“Everyone will know the answer to that one,” Brenda said.  “We tell them we have an accelerated MBA program.  Right now for most people super villain and CEO are pretty much synonymous.”

Mason nodded.  “Okay, I can see that, but what happens if we do get applicants for this super villain program?” he asked.

Brenda was stumped.  Two times she was about to speak, but thought better of it.  After the third time she tried to come up with an answer Mason blurted, “We just start one up.  We have so much crime here anyhow no one would notice a small uptick.  Besides, we can up our tuition rates for the major to cover the extra lawyer fees.”

Brenda slapped her hand on the desk.  “You are brilliant, Mason.  We should get to work on that right away,” she said.

“We will,” Mason said, “as soon as we come up with a secret handshake, because you can’t have a secret cabal without a secret handshake.”

As the two of them worked on the secret handshake, one dorm burst into flames after being crashed into by a car driven by a drunk sophomore who was carrying a 2.1 GPA.