Scrooge really doesn’t get it, someone thought. Perhaps he needs a little shove. It was a fine Christmas Eve, and Ebenezer Scrooge was at home eating his supper. He had done well that day. Corn sold at above the market rate. Debts collected from people who couldn’t afford it. He’d put Bob Cratchit in his…
* “No!” yelled Evelyn at the apparition. “No! You’ve got it all wrong!” “As I was saying,” the ghost intoned, “you will be visited by three spirits.” “Yes, I know. Christmas past, Christmas present, Christmas future. Everybody knows that. It’s been done and redone. But it doesn’t apply to me.” The ghost looked mildly disturbed,…
Let your voice be heard!Don’t hold back!Announce it with fanfare.Tell my people they’ve left,Veered right off the path. Even so, they keep looking for me,as though they really like my way.They act like they’ve been righteous,Coloring inside my established lines.They want me to judge righteously,as though they really want to obey. “We’ve fasted. Why don’t…
I’m making two earlier Christmas stories from this blog sticky and linking them here. I may manage to write a new Christmas story, but these two have been on my mind today. There are at least two ways of going off the rails with charity. One is becoming a scrooge–a stick in the mud, miserable…
“I don’t see where I have anything to be thankful for,” said the 95 year old man grumpily as he trimmed roses in the garden of his suburban home, and looked across the yard at his wife. (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)
As the committee meeting started to wind up, the chairman, Randall Cummings, a true elder in the church, turned to the young visitor and said, “Well, you haven’t commented very much. I take it you think these are good ideas or you would have told us.” Virgil Moore had just turned 21, and was visiting…
“We’re here to install your new Complete Health Solution,” announced the cheerful voice. “But I didn’t order any such thing,” said the old man. “You didn’t have to! This is all paid for by the Department of Health. There will be no cost to you, and you can pretty much forget doctor visits and taking…
The itinerant storyteller was old and gray, but while they showed the wear of travel, is clothes were of good quality, and he carried a sword and bow that were much above the average in the village. Such was expected of a successful storyteller. So there was a huge fire that night in the center…
“Your body maintenance nanotech package has been infected by a virus,” said the laughing voice via my virtual reality streaming implant, as I gasped for breath and felt my consciousness slip away. (In a possibly ironic twist, the featured image was generated with AI.)
The moment Andrew laid eyes on Jake’s smiling face he knew that life in heaven would be hell for him, knowing that depraved sinner was there as well.
But’s it’s well within Women’s History Month! I’m calling two of my past short stories to the front, and making them sticky for the rest of the month. The first is directly about International Women’s Day (A Day for Men to Talk about the Women in their Lives) and the other is Our Pastor Is…
It all started rather innocently. Or so it would have seemed to those involved. Nobody intended to hurt anyone else. It started during the special collection for the needy taken up early in Advent in order to buy needed supplies to distribute just before Christmas This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any…
