After the unexpected turn of events with the interview, Sarah had asked why Malachite had chosen the name. Colour Sergeant Grant answered with a slightly skewed smile.

“Malachite is spiritual it means the essence of joy. I believe the stone helps to bring personal growth and has benefits when a person decides to change.”

After the previous poem, this appeared overnight in an odd sort of backlash. Have fun!

I've been lurking here for a long time but writing fiction is not my thing. Recently, in the comments of a story, CindySadnya mentioned that she found me very good with words and hoped to check what I've written here, and this got me thinking. While I'm still convinced that my mind is not built for writing stories I might nevertheless produce something that people here would consider worth reading. So, let's try this mood piece about days long past.

Bob and Tessa’s Place, Ocean Front Condo, Virginia Beach, Va.
Bob looks over towards Tessa, who was sound asleep on their bed. They just got back from California last night. Dr. Jessica Blake was successful in transplanting the reproductive organs from Tessa to his body, without any problems.

Authors Note: I think you'll get it from the prose, but this story begins on Sunday morning around 10:30AM. Then immediately goes back to fill in events from the previous week. I really enjoyed writing this.

Chapter 6 “The Crash”
Ashton

Ashton looked out the passenger window of Marie’s 80s Volvo wagon because she couldn’t look at Marie.

“I’m sorry, Ashton, I’m not trying to push you into anything, it’s not like that. I just want you to see that you’re not alone,” Marie said.

The Au Pair
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

To succeed in anything, you need to be prepared to be ruthless. If you want something, you need to take it without thought for the desires or feelings of others. Think about the consequences perhaps, but what other people expect of you should never come into the equation. It is better to be thought of as brutal than to spend your life worried about the opinion of others. It has always worked for me, although I suppose it led to me being alone. Brutes have few friends.

Chapter 5

We went out for shopping, moving around between the three cities and never using the same supermarket more than once every three months. We had our weekends off and went out on our own. We listened, we filtered, and we built up a knowledge of the gangs, both criminal and right-wing. Whenever we had a new name, we added it to the filter list, so enlarging the database.