Tag Archives: family

Spirit Guide

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SPIRIT GUIDE

“Hey, mate,” a familiar voice said from my left.

I looked over to see the garden gnome sitting on the arm of the couch. A sigh escaped me after I blinked my eyes a few times.

“Great,” I muttered. “You again.”

“Exactly!” the gnome said without moving its lips. “Me again.”

“Go away,” I mumbled. “You’re not real.”

“Are you sure about that?” the gnome asked slyly.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

I reached out to the gnome, sure my hand would pass right through it since it was nothing more than a figment of my imagination—a figment that had followed me around for the last three days after a binge on what I had thought was absinthe at a local watering hole in San Elira. I still didn’t know what I had consumed, but I knew it wasn’t absinthe even if it was the same electric-green color. My fingers bumped up against the solid ceramic gnome, sending it crashing to the floor.

“Owwww!” the gnome cried, its voice muffled. “What the hell, Mike?”

I peered over the arm of the couch to see the gnome face-down on the wooden floor. I blinked a few times. This isn’t real, I reminded myself. None of this is real.

“I’ll ask again,” the gnome said, still face-down on the floor. “Are you sure?”

“Fuckin’ great,” I said, reaching down to pick the gnome up. “Now you can hear my thoughts as well. What the hell was that shit?” I asked myself, remembering the silky, smooth, slightly sweet taste of the liquid I’d gotten smashed on.

“It’s what the locals call ‘Silandra,’” the gnome answered after I put him on the roughly hewn coffee table in front of me. “I heard it was a beverage the natives concocted a thousand years ago.”

“That’s what you heard, huh?” I asked, deciding to go along with the hallucination.

I checked my surroundings beyond the couch. I was in a small bungalow or shack somewhere near the beach. The low roar of ocean waves breaking on the sandbars mixed with the slight rustling of tropical vegetation outside the shack.

“And what exactly is this ‘Silandra’?” I asked after turning my attention back to the gnome.

“It lets you talk to the gods,” the gnome said solemly. Continue reading →

New Release – “Alive, or Just Breathing”

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I’ve just published the ebook version of “Alive, or Just Breathing” at Amazon and Smashwords. The paperback version will be out soon, as will the propagation of the ebook into iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc.

Devin Fischer lost both of his parents when he was nine.
His controversial mother was taken from him in a freak accident. His father made him an emotional orphan that same day. Devin’s goal is to leave small-town Southern Idaho and the legacy of his mother’s sensational death behind. The only obstacles in his path are the last two years of high school, and the many enemies he’s made with his quick fists and quicker temper.

Melinda Liddy dreams of the day she can escape from the nightmare her life has become.
Her life has become a bitter tug-of-war between the need to escape from her drunken, abusive father, and her inability to leave her mother behind to face the monster’s explosive, unpredictable violence alone. As Melinda struggles to hold on long enough for an academic path, instead of becoming a runaway like her older sister Theresa, she finds a kindred spirit in Devin.

Together, they attempt to navigate the minefield of broken families, high school society, and the chaotic, sometimes confusing emotions that come with falling in love for the first time.