Lori lived her life through the lens of a camera.

She never realized this until

this very moment as she scrolled through thousands of images on your computer. She
could remember the exact moment each photo was taken. She could remember where she
had been, what she was thinking as she tried to get the shot, the smells of the
surrounding area, and even the emotions that she felt taking the photo, yet she had
trouble remembering what she had for breakfast.
She has seen this scene before. It had come to her in dreams many times before. She
had to pinch herself to make sure it wasn't a dream again. As her fingers squeezed
against her arm, she felt the pain. It was this pain that immediately woke her up.
Welcome to my world. You will be greeted by the unexpected here and your mind will
be challenged and expanded in ways that you never thought possible. That is if you
are able to survive...
It had become a far too common an event in her life. She has specifically placed
the key to the box in a special place so that she wouldn't lose it and know exactly
where it was when the key was needed. Now that she needed to open the box, she had
absolutely no idea where that special spot she placed the key might be.
He read about a hike called the incline in the guidebook. It said it was a
strenuous hike and to bring plenty of water. “A beautiful hike to the clouds”
described one review. “Not for the faint-hearted,” said another. “Not too bad of a
workout”, bragged a third review. I thought I’d hike it when I fly in from Maryland
on my day off from the senior citizen's wellness conference. I hiked 2 miles a day
around the neighborhood so I could handle a 1.1-mile hike. What a foolish mistake
that was for a 70-year-old low-lander.
It wasn't that he hated her. It was simply that he didn't like her much. It was
difficult for him to explain this to her, and even more difficult for her to truly
understand. She was in love and wanted him to feel the same way. He didn't, and no
matter how he tried to explain to her she refused to listen or to understand.
He had done everything right. There had been no mistakes throughout the entire
process. It had been perfection and he knew it without a doubt, but the results
still stared back at him with the fact that he had lost.
The amber droplet hung from the branch, reaching fullness and ready to drop. It
waited. While many of the other droplets were satisfied to form as big as they
could and release, this droplet had other plans. It wanted to be part of history.
It wanted to be remembered long after all the other droplets had dissolved into
history. So it waited for the perfect specimen to fly by to trap and capture that
it hoped would eventually be discovered hundreds of years in the future.
The boxed moved. That was a problem. Peter had packed the box three hours before
and there was nothing inside that should make it move. The question now was whether
or not Peter was going to open it up and look inside to see why it had moved. The
answer to that question was obvious. Peter dropped the package into the mailbox so
he would never have to see it again.
She didn't like the food. She never did. She made the usual complaints and started
the tantrum he knew was coming. But this time was different. Instead of trying to
placate her and her unreasonable demands, he just stared at her and watched her
meltdown without saying a word.
Debbie had taken George for granted for more than fifteen years now. He wasn't sure
what exactly had made him choose this time and place to address the issue, but he
decided that now was the time. He looked straight into her eyes and just as she was
about to speak, turned away and walked out the door.
There was a time when he would have embraced the change that was coming. In his
youth, he sought adventure and the unknown, but that had been years ago. He wished
he could go back and learn to find the excitement that came with change but it was
useless. That curiosity had long left him to where he had come to loathe anything
that put him out of his comfort zone.
It was that terrifying feeling you have as you tightly hold the covers over you
with the knowledge that there is something hiding under your bed. You want to look,
but you don't at the same time. You're frozen with fear and unable to act. That's
where she found herself and she didn't know what to do next
Turning away from the ledge, he started slowly down the mountain, deciding that he
would, that very night, satisfy his curiosity about the man-house. In the meantime,
he would go down into the canyon and get a cool drink, after which he would visit
some berry patches just over the ridge, and explore among the foothills a bit
before his nap-time, which always came just after the sun had walked past the
middle of the sky. At that period of the day the sun’s warm rays seemed to cast a
sleepy spell over the silent mountainside, so all of the animals, with one accord,
had decided it should be the hour for their mid-day sleep.
The song came from the bathroom belting over the sound of the shower's running
water. It was the same way each day began since he could remember. It listened
intently and concluded that the singing today was as terrible as it had ever been.
It was a simple green chair. There was nothing extraordinary about it or so it
seemed. It was the type of chair one would pass without even noticing it was there,
let alone what the actual color of it was. It was due to this common and unassuming
appearance that few people actually stopped to sit in it and discover its magical
powers.
There was something beautiful in his hate. It wasn't the hate itself as it was a
disgusting display of racism and intolerance. It was what propelled the hate and
the fact that although he had this hate, he didn't understand where it came from.
It was at that moment that she realized that there was hope in changing him.
They had no proof. He knew that they knew he had done it but they didn't have any
proof. It was a huge distinction and it was the difference between him keeping his
freedom or being locked away for decades. They continued to question him, probing
him for information that they could use against him or find the proof they needed
to put him away. He smiled and continued to block their every inquiry by feigning
his innocence for a crime they all knew he committed.
He heard the loud impact before he ever saw the result. It had been so loud that it
had actually made him jump back in his seat. As soon as he recovered from the
surprise, he saw the crack in the windshield. It seemed to be an analogy of the
current condition of his life.
He collected the plastic trash on a daily basis. It never seemed to end. Even if he
cleaned the entire beach, more plastic would cover it the next day after the tide
had come in. Although it was a futile effort that would never be done, he continued
to pick up the trash each day.