dreamszilla

Set in 1973, Chris is an asset on the football field on account of his size, but when he reaches high school things get complicated. Image generated with OpenAI I was always big for my age. At birth, I tipped the scale at ten pounds, twenty-three inches. My poor mother. Growing up, I was usually the biggest kid in class - or at least top two. You'd think it gave me an edge. Sometimes it did. Other times, like when some older, undersized kid with a chip on his shoulder decided to beat me up just for being bigger - not so much. I was always picked first in basketball and football choose-ups. I was also the first of my friends to shop the Men's Department at John Wanamaker's. My feet were big too. Dad loved making the same dumb joke whenever we bought sneakers: "I hope you have some oars to go with those canoes! Yuk, yuk, yuk!" I'd been playing football as long as I could remember - loping across fields like a modern-day Paul Bunyan, tossing kids aside. I modele...

An Airbnb hosts a ghost for Eric. Image generated with OpenAI It did not look like a haunted house. Rather, it looked like all the other houses in the neighborhood, undistinguished, ranch-style with vinyl siding and a basketball hoop in the driveway for children long-since grown. Whatever, though. Eric grabbed his duffel bag from off the passenger seat, exited the car, walked to the door. Above the doorknob, nestled in a brushed steel plate, was a smart lock. He typed the code given to him by the BnB host, waited for the green light to flash, then turned the knob. Inside, it was dark, the only light coming through the windows and hitting the floor to expose each grain in the hardwood. There was a strong smell of pine-scented cleaner, nary a trace of dust in the air. Not very gothic. Certainly no budding cobwebs or eerie statuary threatening to lend the home a hint of character. The house opened onto the living room, with a big leather sectional couch facing a glass-topped coffee...

Danielle seeks inspiration for her writing from the patrons of the Strawberry Café, but feels like an imposter in her own life. Image generated with OpenAI Danielle Bennett used to find inspiration through observation. And she found it everywhere. At the Strawberry Café, for example. Faces spoke to her; eyes were emotions, wrinkles were experience, expressions were attitudes. Little pieces of life, tiny pictures. It didn't matter if she got people wrong because it wasn't judgement, it wasn't criticism, and it wasn't personal. What she wanted was free, and it used to drip faster than sap from a spring maple. What she wanted was detail, visual facts, gritty reality. Stubbly faces or worn-down hoodies. Restless legs or doom-scrolling thumbs. First date jitters or teary breakups. She got impatience, she got acceptance; petulance, grief, vanity and misery. Faces spoke to her in short, angry bursts and long, dull conversations. She used to get it all at the café. And then t...