Tag: Writing
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When Nobody’s Watching
The afternoon sun hit her face. Keys in hand, she did the math. Rent in nine days. Electric past due. Javier needed new shoes. Not wanted. Needed. Forty-three dollars in checking. Then she saw it.
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Which Direction Leads Home
Once, a long time ago, I had a friend. He was someone who I knew didn’t agree with me on, well, pretty much everything, including politics. He called me an idiot for believing the way I did, and it was people like me who made it harder for people like him to give away money,…
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White Paint
Pledge wood cleaner. The scent of lemon washed over Marla the second she stepped through the church doors. A sharp citrus scent and underneath it, something much older, mustier, harder to scrub away. Old hymnals. Wool carpet. The smell ancient churches accumulate whether they want to or not. It’s a smell Marla notices because she…
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The Witness
Oliver walked out of Henderson Hardware into the late May afternoon, a plastic bag in one hand and a crowbar in the other. He wore what he always wore for weekend projects: khaki cargo shorts, a faded Cardinals t-shirt, and the old New Balance sneakers Sarah used to tease him about. She’d been gone four…
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The Missing Building – Part III
The shower didn’t help. Twenty minutes of hot water, and I still couldn’t figure out what to say to Agent Johnson. Or whoever he really was. After eight men show up at 3 AM looking for my cousin Ruby, I need answers. But when I dial the number on his business card, nothing is what…
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The Missing Building – Part II
An impossible photograph and a woman who knows too much. A grandfather dead for thirty years, alive. Paul’s quiet retirement? It’s over.
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The Missing Building
One unexpected photograph lands on the table at Dan’s Drive-In Diner, and the building in the picture? It might not exist anymore.
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He Knows My Name
A stranger in Pioneer Square quotes lines from banned books. Ink-stained fingers. Knowledge of old stories makes him dangerous. But it’s what he knows about me that turns my blood cold. In a world without books, how does he know my name?
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Say It Out Loud
Healthy relationships start when we learn to say what we actually need instead of hoping others will figure it out.
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Why You Are a Story Worth Telling
A quiet moment at Flaming Geyser State Park. A question to my dad. A camera around his neck. I didn’t know then how much that day would teach me about storytelling and why our ordinary lives might hold the most extraordinary stories of all. What if the one you’ve been carrying is the one someone…
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The Woman with the Cleaning Cart Who Changed How I See Worth
At 7:15 AM, she rolls her cart through the Gibson Center radiating what the patients are seeking. Most abandon it somewhere along the way. The secret I discovered will reshape how you see everything.
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525 Degrees of Truth: A Roofing Accident That Changed Everything
You can smell hot asphalt from three blocks away. But when you’re standing next to 525-degree molten tar, that smell becomes everything. The mid-June sun beat down on Timber Ridge Junior High that Friday morning. We had a new guy on our Arrow Roofing crew. Darrell claimed to be a journeyman. His handshake was firm,…
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Fighting for My Writing at Midnight
The coffee shop clock blinks an angry red glow—11:47 PM. My freelance article sits unfinished, due in eight hours. My finger hovers over the ChatGPT app. Three taps and I’m done. But fifteen years ago, a college professor taught me why shortcuts always backfire.
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Good Neighbors Gone Bad
“She said WHAT? Who says that?” “Hold on, they’re sayin’ somethin’ about meat…” “Attention shoppers, we have a special on Chuck roast, three ninety-nine a pound—” “Okay, I’m back. Yeah. Beth straight up tells her the check ain’t good till Monday!” “Lord, Crystal, that’s exactly the kind of mess I got tired of. Nobody in…
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Liquid Rocket Fuel
⚽ Twelve 8-year-olds + 200mg of caffeine + one mortified coach = the best bar story you’ll hear today. Trust us, you want to hear how this ends.
