Chapter 1 – Helios
Alan knew he was in trouble as soon as he heard the vibrations from the passenger seat. The clock on the dash indicated it was already well past 7:30 PM, and he didn’t have to look at the cellphone’s screen to know that Liz was on the other end of that angry buzz. Alan hit the phone icon on the console. “Liz?” “Alan!” “Honey, I’m sorry I’m so late. I got stuck in the lab, and the guy behind the counter at the Chinese place was slower than molasses, and –” “Alan, listen to me –” “Please don’t cancel date night. I already have the food, and I can bring…
Backcover Blurb
Five college students. One message. A chance to save the world. “All is not as it seems …” At first glance, the enigmatic message from their MIA scientist parents looks like good news because everything seems really bad. A series of solar storms has knocked the world off the grid, food and water are in short supply, and a mysterious psychological illness is decimating the population. But the message suggests something more. It suggests that their parents may have figured out something the rest of the world did not, something that may prove to be the salvation of the human race. Their instructions are to head to a cloud bunker in Kansas…
Nate, Hate, and the Illusory Transformative Nature of Glass
Laura Cody ~ 4 min read ~ The first day I met Nate, he told me he was going to kill his dealer. I took it with a grain of salt. I’d been adrift for a while, floating between rock-bottom and moderate dysfunctionality after an epic bender had landed me back in Al-Anon. At forty-two days into recovery, I was keeping distance from my old friends who hung out with my old enemy, the bottle. In fact, the whole reason I was even in Miss Pamela’s Stained Glass Workshop that day was because my counselor said I needed new hobbies and new faces. (That Miss Pamela must’ve offered hefty kickbacks to every…
When You Wish Upon A Cloud
No coverage, not even one bar; the battery was dead anyway. It was still daytime, but there was an overcast and the sky had a perfectly even dullness, so there was no way to tell what time of day it was, much less which direction was north or south or anything else for that matter. A two-lane blacktop road snaked up into the distance and disappeared into some trees, or a forest if you wanted to get technical about it. It also snaked down toward some lumpy hills and disappeared there as well. What sounded like a two-stroke chainsaw could be heard in the distance, but it was impossible to…
“Curtains”
Graham Elder 19 June, 2022 – 5 min read Foreword This story was submitted as part of the inaugural New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) fiction writing contest last year. The Contest rules were very specific. No more than 1500 words, and contestants must either: Write about the doctor behind the curtain or invent the back story of the patient you didn’t meet until it was too late. I decided to try and accomplish both. Alas, I didn’t win, but it was a fun effort. “Curtains” All doctors have at least one case they wish they could take back – a do-over. A case that sits deep in the pit of their stomachs…
Unstoppable You
by Laura Cody May 27, 2021 – 4 min read Featured in The Best of CafeLit, vol 11; 2022 You linger an extra five minutes over your second cup of coffee, luxuriating in the quiet house after what virtually amounted to fourteen months of prison time in G-pop. With friends, you pay dutiful lip-service to the hidden blessings of the pandemic, the silver linings behind the sorrows. You say it taught you to slow down, to enjoy simple pleasures – a home-cooked meal, a jigsaw puzzle, a socially-distanced stroll in fading sunlight. You don’t mention how your house shrunk to the dimensions of a tuna can, how your husband set up…
The Little Killer
Graham Elder January 15, 2021 – 4 min read I was born of a freak mutation and evolved quickly to become a great terror. I am Anoroc Suriv, and this is my tale of global domination. How one became many and infiltrated all points of the compass rose, sending the world into a death frenzy with fear lurking around every corner. Huddled together behind walls of every kind, people trembled at my passing as they waited for rescue that might never come. My story begins in a small town, like any other small town. My first taste of blood was animal. The type of animal is inconsequential. What’s important is…
Bite the Bullet
Graham Elder November 15, 2020 – 6 min read The recent Netflix action movie 6 Underground features an opening high speed car chase scene where a “doctor” is attempting to remove a bullet from a co-conspirator’s abdomen in the backseat of an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio sports sedan. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8106534/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 Wait. Why does she have to remove the bullet with such urgency? Does the bullet really even have to come out? The presence of the bullet itself doesn’t necessarily kill you in the short term. It’s the damage the bullet causes on its way to being lodged somewhere in your body that potentially ends your life – primarily by causing you to bleed…
The Book Was Better
Graham Elder October 9, 2020 – 6 min read Invariably, when a book is developed into a movie or a television show, pronouncements are made as to whether or not said moving picture lived up to expectations. “Was it as good as the book?” Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve taken it upon myself to compare and contrast a variety of novels that have either been turned into full length feature films or more protracted Netflix-type series, or sometimes both. Some of these were featured on our twodocswriting Instagram page. Here is a rundown of my top ten, in no particular order, accompanied by brief reviews and recommendations. Feel…
Found: A Library in My Pocket.
Laura Cody August 10, 2020 – 5 min read No doubt about it. The last several months have been hard. Total garbage. But sometimes, buried in the dark, garbage-y muck, are small, unexpected treasures. I discovered one of these treasures when I stumbled upon the Libby public library app. Of course, it’s possible everyone else has known about the digital library for ages, and I am just late to the party. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time. But it doesn’t really matter, because now I know that I can link my library card to an online borrowing service and … read!And I mean read everything – new releases, hot summer reads, New York…
