Bennet asks if they can start doing the Tai Chi again, which naturally provokes questions. Ursula examines Larna's injured ankle before following Hanida down to the lower floor to assess how much the water level had risen.

The Voyage of the Visund

A tale of Anmar by Penny Lane

108 - Talk and Exercise

Dr Wiggins performed the post-mortem the next day at the Morgue in Stevenage. He had an audience of DCI Pascoe and Chief Superintendent Montgomery. The presence of the Chief Super told Dr Wiggins that these children were important to a lot of people way above his pay grade.

Barreled
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

“Barreled - verb - drive or move in a way that is so fast as to almost be out of control.”

Cute Coed Cheerleader

After four years, I had a chance encounter with Christina, a friend from my past. We had been best friends and next door neighbors until her Mother got transferred to her company’s branch office in Texas. Now they were back, not next door, but in the same neighborhood a little over a half mile away. Her Mother was now the new CEO of the company, their corporate offices here in town. Christina was registering for college here, along with several of her girlfriends, when I ran into her.

Destination Female

My girlfriend and I had been going steady for almost six months. I was already working, though I had only recently graduated from college. Sherry was still in college, finishing up her last semester.

I was working in the IT department of a local corporation. The job was fairly easy; the only problem was the hours around the weekend. If the gods were with us, the weekend could be enjoyed, but if the servers were acting up on a Friday, the hours piled up as we had to make sure that all was back up and functioning normally for Monday morning’s business.

Maltese Escape
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

They called ours a family, but it was not as you understand that word. A family is supposed to be a safe place to bring a child into the world, to nurture that child when very young, and to support him or her in at least the first part of a journey through life. That is what a family is supposed to be – not a money-grubbing enterprise where every member is expendable.

A Bimbo Experience

I was heading to the salon to pick up my sister, her appointments at the salon only scheduled till eight today. She is one of their stylists, working for them for six years now. Her car was acting up again, thus my ferrying her to work and picking her up at closing. When I pulled into the parking lot the place was jammed. I found a spot near the back of the parking lot and made my way into the salon.

The three story town house in the outskirts of Birmingham looked occupied. The curtains were up and at the press of a button they closed as the day ended. The house was tidy and a pair of cleaners arrived once a week to keep everyone in order, but Graham was in the house on his own, and apart from a bit of dust there was little for them to do. Maisie and Jane tried to engage Graham in conversation but they often gave up after a series of monosyllabic replies.