One day, a fellow Marine named Shaffer shared a story with me. It was something he had seen as a young boy. According to Shaffer, Miss Jones was an elderly woman who lived near him and had a reputation for being eccentric. She lived alone in her large house and could sometimes be seen from the street, peering out from her attic window at passers-by.
When Miss Jones passed away, rumors soon began to spread among the neighborhood kids that her house was haunted. One afternoon, months after Miss Jones had passed away, Shaffer and four of his friends were gathered in the street in front of her house. The doors and windows were partially boarded up, and the louvered attic window was in clear view. “That’s where her ghost is,” said one of the boys. “She's probably watching us right now.”
They looked over at the window as Shaffer laughed, “You sissies! There’s no such thing as ghosts!” Opinions were then tossed back and forth until Shaffer finally announced that he would prove it by entering the house. The four boys agreed to accompany him. They entered the yard, went around to the back, and pulled boards way from the kitchen door to gain access.
Inside, they made their way through the kitchen, and through the living room which was crowded with sheet-covered furniture. Up the stairs, they found a rope that when pulled would lower steps that led up into the attic. They climbed the steps and were soon standing in a dark attic, dusty and filled with cobwebbed boxes of whatnots, where beyond sat the old rocking chair at the louvered window.
“See! I told you!” one boy announced, “That’s her rocking chair.” Motionless, it sat where Miss Jones had left it, shrouded by shadows, cobwebs, and streaks of sunlight that peek in through the window.
“So!” said Shaffer, “That’s doesn’t prove anything. There’s nothing up here.”
They soon began looking through some of the boxes and drawers. One of the boys even moved the rocking chair away from the window so he could see outside. After twenty minutes or so, they became bored and went back out to the street. That’s where Shaffer reminded them that they were a bunch of sissies.
“Since you’re so tough, let’s see you go in there at night,” one boy said. Without hesitation, Shaffer said that he would go there anytime; day or night—and they agreed to meet in front of the house at ten o’clock that evening.
That night, no one would volunteer to accompany Shaffer inside the house. Its electricity had been turned off so there would be no lights. It looked spooky even to Shaffer, but he wasn’t going to admit it.
“There’s no way I’m going in there,” one boy said, looking up at the window. The four boys agreed to wait in the street. Shaffer would prove himself by waving at them from the attic window. The window was illuminated by a full moon and striped with shadows from a nearby tree.
The boys watched as Shaffer entered the yard and disappeared into the darkness. Shaffer found the boards still pulled away from the backdoor and he made his way inside. That was stupid of me, he thought Shaffer, realizing that he had forgotten to bring a flashlight. Luckily, some moonlight peeked in through the boarded windows, through the cracks, enough that Shaffer was able to make his way through the shadows, up the stairs, and to the base of the attic.
He pulled on the rope which lowered the steps that led into the attic. His anxiety thickened as he climbed, and then peeked inside, scanning the darkness for nothing in particular, as dust particles floated on the moonbeams that poured in through the louvered window. Let me get this over with, he thought to himself, stepping fully into the attic. He paused to gather his senses; then began creeping towards the window. Something was wrong; he halted in his tracks, scanning more intently. The chair had been placed back in front of the window.
He tried to calm himself with the notion that someone was possibly playing a trick on him, but it didn’t work. He scanned the room once more, and then looked back at the chair. It had a high back, and it was facing away from him, outwards towards the window. He took another step, tilting his head to the right for a better angle—not wanting to believe that someone was there. Then, no sooner than he thought it, someone stood up from the chair and turned towards him.
His mind went blank, staring at the figure as it began to creep toward him. It was an elderly woman, and her face showed no emotion. Her eyes stared into Shaffer’s eyes, coaxing him not to run as she inched even closer. For a moment, Shaffer was in a trance. He then came to his senses.
The moment he thought about running, the woman’s expression turned angry. It was as if she knew that he would try to run, so she attempted to get between him and the exit. Shaffer was out of his mind with terror, darting as fast as he could, so quickly that he stumbled and fell down the hatch.
His body crashed hard into the floor below; then he continued running, stumbling, tripped and falling down the stairs. When he landed at the bottom, he quickly spun around, expecting the ghostly figure to be there.
The woman was standing at the top of the stairway, peering down at him. She didn’t come down after him, but it didn’t matter to Shaffer. He quickly shook off the fall and continued running towards the kitchen, crashing out the backdoor, convinced that the woman was right behind him. He fell out onto the porch, sprung up and ran around to the street where his friends were waiting. None of them believed his story—but as he told the story to me, there was a tear in his eye.
Mortal is the blade that cuts beneath my ribs
Daddy rarely spoke to me unless I was in trouble. So, I expected this time would be no different.
Through canyons and valleys, they traveled, man and horse, across a shallow river and beyond until their concerns of Alice had faded. Knuckles found the supplies he needed in a small town called Fudge; food, blankets, and other items. Shade is no pack mule, so Mother Nature would provide the rest.
“I’m going to kill him!” echoed through the halls of her thoughts, as Alice flung the covers off of her and sprang from her bed. A stir had called her from her dreams; a dog’s bark and a faint ruckus coming from Shade’s burn. Somehow she knew that it was Knuckles.
One thing’s for sure. There’s no turning back—at least, not for now. Knuckles rubs his cold hands together, inches from the campfire that had warmed his supper, grits he’d bought in the small town thirty miles back. They now sit cold and half-eaten in a metal bowl at his side.
She seemed a bit disappointed when I told her that it was only going to be a prank.
Knuckles thought he had it all figured out—finally, the cure for a broken heart. It required a touch of anger, as he sealed his thoughts of her inside a box. He then imagined himself placing the box inside another, and secured it with a big rusty lock, in which he broke off an imaginary key.
I was a gullible little boy, sitting next to the coolest guy in my fifth grade class. Sometimes he took cheap shots at me; commenting on my raggedy shoes, or the clothes I had worn for the second time in one week. His timing was always perfect, and he only teased me when he had an audience.
It would be my last time to play hide-and-seek. It began with us sitting on the bench outside the Laundromat, Richard, Tyron, and me. We were bored, and waiting for Tyron’s clothes to finish. I don’t recall whose idea it was. One moment we were watching the cars go by, and the next, Richard and I were looking for a place to hide while Tyron counted.
Growing up, I was always scheming up new ways to get rid of the fire ants in our front yard. Then—in the wintertime, while they remained inside their anthills eating the foods they had gathered all summer—I would somehow miss them. Springtime would return, and our bouts would begin again.
In this dream, I'm narrating, as, on a sunny day, a small group of teenagers and their high school science teacher are walking through a peaceful meadow. Up ahead, the teacher notices a beehive. It stands approximately 7 feet tall and resembles a building. The teacher is excited, rushing over to the hive as the students follow behind him.
One day, a fellow Marine named Shaffer shared a story with me. It was something he had seen as a young boy. According to Shaffer, Miss Jones was an elderly woman who lived near him and had a reputation for being eccentric. She lived alone in her large house and could sometimes be seen from the street, peering out from her attic window at passers-by.
When I was twelve, Stephan was one of my best friends, though we sometimes had our difficulties. I don’t remember what it was he said. It had something to do with my bike, and I was offended. Stephan sugarcoated nothing. In fact, sometimes he could be downright abrasive, blurting it out with his hands on his hips.
I was twelve when I first began to practice meditation. It was my private way of relaxing. I imagined myself on a secluded tropical beach, barefoot, and walking across the sands. The crystal blue ocean was calm, and on its surface, amid shimmering sky-born lights, were reflections of distant places old and new. The sands gently massaged the soles of my feet, and as I entered the waters, they sank from warm to moist. Its waves lapped against my ankles, as slanted sunrays rested across my chest. My legs and thighs committed to the waters as I softly inhaled heavens mist. Then I submerged. Underneath the waters’ blanket, I had left all my earthly concerns behind. The perfectly warm waters gradually cooled as my body fell to deeper depths. They were still the perfect temperature when I found—against the seawall—the entrance to secret caverns. I entered them, where I found magical underground shores, more tranquil than those above. There, I had found my sanctuary
Knuckles ponder, “Perhaps I don’t deserve happiness.” He believes that his purpose is to suffer; and that he might as well accept his misery with a big fake grin. He smiles invisibly, as inside he embraces his most loyal companion – pain. Adversary or friend, Knuckles wonder if pain is intelligent. That if Knuckles becomes content to suffer, would pain then become his friend. Would they share secrets and laugh at the misfortunes of others? Would pain eventually lower its guard that Knuckles might sneak away; or would pain keep an ever-watchful eye, even as they smile, even as they cry.
One day, my cousin John and I were goofing around in the backseat of the car while our grandfather drove. I was ten years old, while John was a chubby eight. “Shut up!” Granddaddy suddenly barked, “And stop moving around back there!” I could tell that he was serious, but John giggled in mischief. “I said shut up!” Granddaddy warned once more, “Or I’ll give you a backhand knuckle-slap in the mouth!” John finally got the message and tried to behave. “Hmm,” I thought to myself, “I’ve never seen a backhand knuckle slap before.” Then I silently reached over and took some of John’s thigh between my index finger and thumb, pinching him as hard as I could, twisting and meanly digging my fingers into him. John tried to push my hand away, but I was too strong. Finally, he cried out; but before he could finish the first note, granddaddy -without looking- swung backwards and gave John a hard backhand-knuckle slap in the mouth. “I told you to shut up!” granddaddy yelled. John cried, holding his mouth as if he had lost a tooth, while I silently had a hard belly laugh, so hard that tears rolled down my cheeks. 
A small detachment of Marines from my command deployed to the Philippines. They had authorization to setup their radars in the boondocks, where they found themselves surrounded by thick jungle. They were far from the party scenes, and scantily clad women that many of the younger Marines had envisioned.
