ShadowWorldRed

You once pleaded with me to follow you through one of the Doors of Perception, but I didn't want to take that trip. No, I had my happy and successful future all mapped out, and it was supposed to put me on a different plane than the one you were flying high on. Yet you were the one who landed laughing. My trip ended in a crash. You are still seemingly young and wild and free. The world can remain your oyster, with you as its pearl. I am trapped here, where I have found myself encircled by walls which themselves are surrounded by trenches and barbed wire. This is a prison of my own making, a hellish price I pay for my deceit, my errors, my n

Whatever happened to the AOL Keyword? It turned out to be just another internet buzzword with a short shelf life. Today's Keyword is misunderstanding, because as I get older and find it harder to keep up with everything and everyone, I also feel that misunderstandings happen more frequently, at least in my circle of friends and acquaintances. Communication seems like a simple concept, but we humans can really complicate it if we want to - or without intending to. John Doe wants me to be sure to remember (this) about him, but his wife Jane wants me to never utter that word to her because it's a trigger word. Okay, I'll try to remember, becaus

I look out of the window at low-hanging gray clouds presiding over a pre-storm stillness soon to be pushed out by rushes of stiff, icy winds ahead of the white fury coming this way. I swallow hard, a sense of dread I have no reason to carry weighing my thoughts. I am safe at home, even as many are not. The birds and squirrels which had been noisily playing in the yards have gone ominously silent now. They sense the atmospheric changes coming, and wisely prepare. They have no need for internet, radio and television alerts, or forecasts and updated snowfall totals - human guesses based upon competing radar systems and meteorologists' best inte

"You don't look at all well," Annette Carpenter said to her longtime boss, Mr. Graham. "Keep your attention on the customers, please. It's what I pay you to do." Mark Graham scowled at his longtime employee and turned his attention to the three antacid tablets he gripped in one fist and a paper cup of black coffee in the other. He downed the tablets, then quickly put the cup to his lips and sent the warm, black coffee chasing after them. "You really should chew those first, you know - and not take so many at once." "You're a physician now too, are you? You've been wasting all of these years in retail sales," Mr. Graham said curtly as he ey