Oh, your messy desk. Three stacks of papers in front of your three monitors. The small terra cotta pot that holds your pencils is tipped over and the pencils are strewn about. And legos. The kids have been in here again. Or did you bring them in here? You don’t even know. Ugh. You see that coffee mug stain. Will it ever come out of the wood? You know it’s a second-hand desk, but it’s so ...

“Who is that?” Jenny shouted above the roaring river.

Her husband, Jesse, paused to look at the silhouette of the man. He just shrugged, never letting go of Jenny’s hand. Then, he looked down in front of his feet and they continued their methodical plodding across the shallow, but treacherous river.

That was the thing Jenny thought. Concentrate on each step, and they just might make it across...

You have just ten minutes to come up with a rhyming poem about creating rhyming poems under a deadline. (You are in charge of timing yourself.)...

Your protagonist is a writer who does not like prompts but is compelled to do so for thirty straight days. What is his or her rant?...

“Yes, Jason. I trust you. Even though we’re meeting in this alley. Even though you have a knife to my throat. I still trust you.”

Jason takes the knife away from my throat. I turn to face him. He drops his hands to his sides. He still has the knife. He is still a stone cold killer. But we’ve worked together for so long. We’ve got a trust that few operatives have. Yes, even spies need t...

“Whatcha watchin’, Kurt? _Armageddon_?”

“Nightly news.”

“Ah c’mon, Kurt. You’re pulling my leg, right? I mean, there must be hundreds of movies with asteroids, comets, or whatever destroying the earth on impact. This show must be one of them. Right?”

Kurt flips through the network channels. Every broadcast is the same. What looks like a still picture of an asteroid in space is on the scr...

“Why aren’t you worried?! Why aren’t you panicking like I am?! Like everybody else in the whole world is?!”

“What good would that do?” my sister asked. “Besides, you’re being hysterical enough for the both of us.” She rolled her eyes and tsked. “And you’re supposed to be my big brother. Taking care of me, and all that.”

“I… You… Oh…” I spluttered.

“Very articulate, big brother.” She r...

O Lord, let me be a full moon. Let me reflect your light as fully as I am able.

I know that I started out as a new moon. No reflection at all. Just darkness. Full of myself. No light at all. And what light could I ever have? My ego said that there was light in me. Plenty of it. But even as I bragged, I realized that I had no light. I was the new moon. Dark. Cold. Empty.

When you fou...

A month. That’s all I’ve got to get the job done. One measly month. It usually takes months of planning. I was brought out of my own thoughts by the client’s voice.

“New moon to new moon.” He smirked.

I had to laugh.

“What’s so funny, Slick?”

“Huh?” I rubbed the back of my neck absent-mindedly. “Oh nothing.” I looked into the client’s eyes. “Just thinking about werewolves. You know. ...

Harold asked, “Do you have the…”

“Got it.” Jen answered her husband before he could finish.

“How about the…”

“Yep.”

“Well, how…”

“Got that too.”

“Well, then. I think we’re off.”

“Wait! I think we’re forgetting something.” Jen was standing in front of the front door.

“No. You said we have the diaper bag, the stroller, and the camera. You provide the extra food.”

Jen rolled her eyes. ...