dreamszilla

Cameron Spencer's character is having the best day of the rest of her life. Image generated with OpenAI Good Friday. A half day, then a long weekend. Sts. Peter and Paul University was one of the few remaining Roman Catholic universities that observed all the holy days - and many not so holy - and adjusted the academic schedule to accommodate them. So, Easter Monday would be another free day. Of course, this meant doubling up a few assignments occasionally, or even deleting others because of time crunches. But nothing could vex Professor Mary Peterson at this point, because she had been awarded the fellowship that would allow her to pursue the research that had been fueling her ambition for the last seven years. At last, her stature as a scholar was confirmed. Receiving the Trustees Fellowship Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Irish Studies was testimony that she had risen from being a talented disciple of her mentor, Paul Kevin O'Malley, venerable...

Kat heads to a baby shower, torn between Envy and Contempt; by Anna Braverman. Image generated with OpenAI Kat's high-waisted skirt was making driving unpleasant. It was cutting into her ribs and making her strain when she breathed. Damn these fancy clothes! They looked good on her, but didn't make her feel good. Or rather, they made her feel good about how she looked, but caused a constriction of spirit. She was not by nature a fancy skirt kind of person. Well, she felt she had no alternative but to dress up today. She was on her way to a fancy baby shower and she knew people would be dressed up. There was no way she wanted to spend the whole party worrying whether she was underdressed, especially since she knew that she was destined to stand out anyway and she was actively trying to minimize the surface area to which scrutiny could attach itself, like perfume to a knitted scarf. In reality, it was pretty damn certain that no one was going to be inclined to scrutin...

The ancient demon Harborym possesses eighteen-year-old Harold at the Burning Man festival, but struggles to tempt a Millennial mind; by Adam Strassberg. Image generated with OpenAI "I have lived eons before and I will live eons hence, yet each moment spent trapped inside this mortal's body is an eternity of suffering to me." The demon Harborym, the Dark Lord's renowned Master of Misery, was now mastered by misery himself. He cowered in a small corner of his possessed human's mind. He had become emaciated, pale, shrunken, long grown hairless and hornless, seemingly powerless and thus depressed. Harborym, a grand duke of demons, had been shamefully reduced to but a small incorporeal puff of temptations, just hovering about, fluttering there aimlessly in the back of Harold's mind. "The one thing we demons too often forget is that when we possess a human's body, they are possessing us as well. We are trapped together, entangled into one anot...

via American Short Fiction https://ift.tt/bV3KCls

Time Barrow's character has an incredible talent that he parlays into an underwhelming magic trick. Image generated with OpenAI I can do one trick, that's it. One. But I'm mighty sure it's one no one else on the planet can do. And it's technically not even a trick. I stood sweating in the 119° August heat on the back porch of a swanky Scottsdale home, a couple dozen 5ish-year-olds sitting cross legged on the well-groomed grass and yelling disappointed lines at me like, "Mister, don't you have any tricks that work?" This wasn't my first birthday magician gig, but as usual, the out-of-my-element discomfort made it feel like it was. Somehow, I just never mastered the ability to shuffle cards mid-air or palm them or guess the one you picked or get out of the way of my own disappearing sheet fast enough or... really, I couldn't do any of it... beyond the one. I squinted through the sun and into the face of a small girl, wispy red ...

Jim and Julie move into a New York apartment with a charismatic and distracting neighbour; by J L Higgs. Image generated with OpenAI During our lifetimes, we each encounter countless numbers of people. Most are soon forgotten. But then, there are those like Lindsay. Three years running, my relationship with Jules was beyond the excitement stage. We'd grown "comfortable" with each other. So, quitting my job with the local newspaper in Michigan seemed logical when she received a job offer from an accounting firm in New York City. The Monday after our arrival, she attended her new employee orientation while I went food shopping. I was juggling the grocery bags on the stoop of our new apartment building when I heard someone say, "You look like you could use some help." That's when I met Lindsay. She was a few inches shorter than me, with stunning hazel eyes, and her honey blonde hair was in a French Braid. In the sleeveless V-neck top and pleat...

Peg enjoys her solitude, but can't stay uninvolved when Amy and her aggressive husband Aaron move in next door; by Tom Ray. Image generated with OpenAI Peg wore her two-piece bathing suit to the community pool whether anybody liked it or not. If her leathery skin and bony old body bothered them, tough. Sitting by the pool in a lounge chair, she felt good about herself when she saw her neighbor Janet come through the gate from the parking lot. Better to be skinny and tan than fat and pale like Janet, even if Janet were twenty years younger. Janet dragged a lounge chair from the other side of the pool to sit next to Peg. Janet's two grandsons followed. She set her straw tote down on the deck and took out suntan lotion that she rubbed on the kids. The boys, both well under ten years old, ran and jumped in the water. Janet sat down and began rubbing suntan lotion on her legs, arms, chest, and shoulders. "How you doing, gorgeous?" she said. "Fine swe...