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This is a collection of short stories that I've stuck in my "pasture" folder, meaning that's where they're going to stay because they're either destined never to be published, are incomplete and I've lost just lost the idea or thread, or they're just not right in some but still entertaining stories.
RECENTLY ADDED:Digging in the Dirt
This story came to me while I was waiting for my wife to get done at work. I remember it really well: I was sitting in the car reading, when I saw this old guy park in front of me, go to his trunk and take out his metal detector and then proceeded to search the part for valuables. It was the genesis of a story idea, so I took out my laptop and started writing it and in a couple of hours I had the story pretty much done. Sadly it's not really something that would work in publication, but I like what it became.Bell Tower
This is one of the first incomplete stories to appear on the "Out to Pasture" page. I started it way back in 1999. At Long Beach State there is this weird pipe-shaped small tower about twenty feet high along one of the walkways. It's hollow and people can walk in it -- some take picture of people in it -- and it also has a mechanical bell that rings on the hour. It's known as the Bell Tower. Pretty much from the first time I saw it, I thought it an unusual structure and I thought one day wouldn't it be interesting if it were some sort of teleporation device. There's a hole in the top, so what it at a certain time, someone were to go inside it and then be teleported to say another planet. I started the story, did as much as I felt like at the point and sadly never got back to it. But you can at least see what I was intending to do with the story and then you can let your imaginations finish it.Motion in Motion
This is my first effort at metafiction, which I did in December of 2005. I've always been fascinated with the butterfly effect, and the idea that one action affects another which affects another and sets off a chain reaction. I can remember having conversations with my friend about this and how he'd start with one thing and then I'd go on with the next, and he go on with the next, and so on. While the result isn't as great as I'd hoped, and therefore not really publishable, it's an interesting endeavor nevertheless.
The Lonesome Road
This is one of the first short stories I ever wrote, I think back around 1995. There were a couple of stories I wrote around that time that haven't survived except maybe in my high school newspaper I edited. This story was also published there, which I was very proud of, and which received a lot of positive feedback. I wrote a sequel that went into the next issue and that's all that survives of it -- I can't remember much about it now. "Lonesome Road" is about being in a helpless situation and instead of assuming you can't do anything, you just react. I also changed the regular roles around making it a little more unusual. While I believe I sent it off to a few magazines, it was never picked up, because it's just to simple but a good example of some of my very early work.Outside the Chamber
I wrote this story I believe in 1999. I felt passionate about how with the Holocaust there were so many German officials that murdered all these people without question, so I wrote this story about one official saying no to the Final Solution. After I finished it I was quite proud of its message and intention, then in college I took a Holocaust class and after that semester of harsh reality, I reread the story and it didn't have the same meaning anymore. I just didn't believe it's message. Nevertheless, it's still a pretty good story.Connecting . . .
This is my effort at a science fiction story of a doomed world. I used a diary entry format and I did it a little different using a chat program style which I thought was new and interesting. And it is, only the story is formulaic and predictable, and yet there are still some interesting nuances to it.