Tag: danger

  • danger

    A kitchen, a house in the country — dry and dusty, very little greenery. A little boy with dark hair and a baby face sits at the kitchen table playing with an old wooden birdhouse. I see a yellowjacket crawl sluggishly over the back of the birdhouse. Inside I see the telltale paper comb covered…

  • a tornado, two corpses, and a leather sofa

    Inside the house, people are starting to panic. The sky outside is dark and green, the wind bending the trees to almost impossible angles. We can hear the sirens and, in a house this old, there is no safe place . . . every room has windows, the elderly frame flexes and creaks in the…

  • the right to bear arms

    …I’m stunned to see the President of the United States at the door. He bustles in before I can get my head around his sudden appearance. He is alone and clearly in peril. He slams the door and locks it behind him, thanking me for letting him in. It is strange to see him scared,…

  • eastern promises

    I find myself on a tour of a city somewhere in Eastern Europe. It is a dank, darkly industrial place — all smokestacks and ornate spires, brick walls stained with soot. Tagging along with a friend from junior high — he has made this trip many times before — I wander through the streets and…

  • weird stuff

    I said to my daughter “Get behind me.” “What’s wrong?” “I’m not sure. Something weird’s going on.” “I can handle weird, dad.” I looked at her. “My kind of weird.” She got behind me. [I’m guessing at the date on this one, based on something I posted to Pinterest seven months ago. Apparently this dream…