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The following are previously published short stories and novelettes. Real Life, heartache and sacrifice, celebration and joy, fantasy and even romance are included herein to hopefully bless all. Thanks to every one of my friends here who served and who yet serve on our behalf.

This is the conclusion to the interconnected Amy Amstel stories started in “My Date as a Teenage Girl Model”. If you haven’t read the earlier stories I suggest you start there (330+ Kudos clickers can be wrong but the odds are in your favor). The stories about Amy Amstel are mostly self-contained though.

Transatlantic flights seldom are fun. If you start from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport terminal 2 you don’t exactly get off on a good start either. If you really are a bit too tired to work it’s even less fun. Flying west I try not to sleep on the flight since that really messes up my sleep-cycles. I was a bit surprised to find a scraggy teenager in the seat next to me. Not the usual passenger in first class. I decided that a long chat with the boy would be preferable to pretending to work. It didn’t start too well. When I introduced myself, Harry Howard, and told him that I was editor–in-chief of the most important fashion magazine for men the boy looked horrified. Apparently not a fashion aficionado. Well, I could have told that from his clothes. Jeans and white T-shirt as well as disheveled hair. Despite that he had a “groomed” look if you looked closer. Actually if you looked very closely he was kind of “pretty”. Shaped eye-brows, holes in his ears, just a hint of mascara remaining on those very impressive eye-lashes. Intriguing.

Photo by Wilson Vitorino from Pexels
 

Part 28 of 29

Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Even though he officially retired some years ago, Grandpa is still a force to be reckoned with at the library. If he needs the community room on New Year's Eve then naturally he gets the community room on New Year's Eve even if the place is shuttered tight. He says he knows just where all the bodies are buried and there's no budget for re-interring them so they just have to let him do what he wants.

There was a lot of screaming on the car ride back. Usually, this would bring me to a bad mood, but I felt powerful and in control this time. I felt like whatever my dad keeps yelling and threatening me with didn’t matter. It can’t matter. My smile kept and even turned into my wild grin a few times throughout the ride. I realized that he’s not really yelling at me or even cares about actually punishing me. He only cares about how indignant I was to him. How disobedient. He would not ever punish me because that’d take energy and time. He doesn’t really wanna put in the effort.

Part 5

The nurse took me back to my room where I was put back into bed and given a shot to allow me to sleep. The next day Francesca came to see me and she told me that I was no longer her maid but would now be classed as family, as will Mario when he recovers.

It was almost three when my parents came in with dad’s signature, “Hey buddy, how you feeling?” He always comes in with that when I put myself in the hospital accidently.

“I’m fine I guess.” Mom came up to me and put a hand on my shoulder

“You gave us quite a scare with that stunt you pulled.” Dad’s voice nice yet with a tone of ‘you’re so fucking dead when we get home’. Why can’t he just be an asshole all the time and not put up this stupid act?

Nancy helps a friend and tries a new persona.

The Spirit of Christmas helps George discover the hidden powers of his wife’s body wash.

The parents of a troublesome teenage son finally had enough and sends him for special training. He gets more than she bargains for.

Another Side of My Life
Chapter 9
By Julie D Cole

Jack prepared the drinks whilst I opened some potato chips to place on the tray with some serviettes. I was glad I wasn’t joining them for dinner to keep at arms-length from Laura. She didn’t look at me as I delivered the drinks even though the others chatted and laughed about events of the afternoon.

The past is the past was one of the worst platitudes ever uttered by a fool trying to sound like a sage. Even if this overused cliche was not worn out, the advice in it was useless. People would use this saying to try to push an issue under the rug. Not treating the past with respect was just ignoring your life to move on. In fact, following those so-called words of wisdom had a high probability of damaging someone. An insightful person would know the best way to follow the path of Confucius was to study the past if they wanted to divine the future.

Deliveries
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Photo by Wilson Vitorino from Pexels
 

Part 26 of 29

Monday, December 16
Oddly, I got the answer to finding Mary Ann's gift in the psychology exam this morning. There were questions about family relations and - of course! - dysfunction. Which made me realize I should call her brother Dale and ask him if he has any bright ideas. I had to slap myself and put my mind back on the exam after getting another bright idea.