Chanuka

"Aaaaah….." He woke up with a thud. He saw on both his sides. He was in a small room with bunkers. The paint on the walls was scraped, and the room was dimly lit. There was no one in the room. He was all by himself. He looked at the ceiling and began to examine it. He was in a room and not a camp. He got up from the bed and began to examine the bulbs… they were actually bulbs and not gas lamps.

"Phew…" he let out a sigh of relief. They say this happens when a person is suffering from an acute stress disorder. This is common in the contemporary world, and it has been common in the past as well. Psychological shocks are common among people who have witnessed terrible and traumatic situations in their lives. Not only teenagers of any time, but it is common among war veterans, soldiers, and army combat doctors.

As the 20th century witnessed the end of World War II, when America bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki as its signatory move; it was evident that the bombing didn’t only have physical effects on the people of the land, but it also retained its psychological effects.

Psychologists in the 1950s reported that teenagers who were relatively young when the bombing occurred showed signs of the effects it had caused. Not only this, the victims and witnesses also showed neurotic symptoms of general fatigue, dissociation, and feeling immobile. Whilst the trauma continued; these people became a victim of autonomic nerve imbalance. On account of the devastations that the atomic bombing caused, they would occasionally feel a sense of chill or burning through their veins; known as palpation.

Echos

In the calm of the night, whilst deep in his sleep, Joseph was abruptly awakened out of his slumber. His eyes opened wide and stared into the abyss of darkness ahead, as he gasped for air. He sat upon his bed and looked around to see what was going on. In his head, he kept hearing his mother's voice, like a ghost who would silently haunt his existence; her voice was always there with him. Ever since she had died and moved on, Joseph was under the impression that she was still there, not in reality, but in some sort of supernatural way like one would see in the movies. During the eerie hours of the night, a breeze blew in from the window, and Joseph began to shiver on the spot. Gazing out of the window, the rustling of decaying leaves coupled with the snapping of twigs riddled the air with an almost horror-movie like vibe. He slid out of bed, locked the window shut, and waddled over to the kitchen to get a glass of water. It was still the early days of autumn, so little remnants of the summer still showed up here and there and were sometimes accompanied by a peculiar rise in temperature.

Joseph stood in the kitchen, glass in hand, sinking into a trance of thought before snapping out of it and returning back to his bed. He cranked up the AC and pulled the covers over his head. Underneath the sheets, he wept as he began to miss his mother, as she had passed away three years before, after struggling with diabetes for much of her adult life. The condition had riddled her with pain, and doctors' visits started to become more frequent as her end drew near. Joseph always stood by his mother's side to make sure she was as comfortable as possible. He did everything that he thought and believed would be enough to support her, but in his head, he always wondered if he had done enough. Did she get what she was entitled to; did she leave anything out when caring for her? These questions were always swarming around his head, and he wondered if they were true. A direct result of this wondering was that she now always lived in his head, not like some sort of disease, but as a part of who he was. It is for this reason that he always felt as if she was right there with him, even if it was just in spirit.

The next day, Joseph decided to dress better than usual for work. He pulled out a powder blue shirt, dark blue dress pants, and a dark blue blazer. He added to this a red tie and silver cufflinks, he felt he looked like a man ready to make a difference. He did not always dress this way and would often barely dress appropriately for the occasion. However, the nature of his work forced him to dress in a way that he wasn't comfortable with, but because his job brought in the money, he had no choice. He walked out of the door, locking it behind him. He walked to the bus stop and waited for his daily commute. Standing next to him was a mother and her baby in his cart. While Joseph was scrolling through his emails, he felt as if someone was looking at him, he looked around, and everyone seemed to be minding their own business. When he looked down, the little baby was staring at him with his eyes and mouth wide open. Glistening against the morning sun, the baby's eyes stared at him lovingly, which made Joseph smile from ear to ear.

Reckoning

Ear-splitting noise and the terrifying sensation of being thrown out of bed woke Camelia to a world in flames. Her first thought was that it must be an earthquake, but as her eyes flew open and she looked around, she knew something else must have happened. The shaking walls and thick smoke flooding the room through her open door told her there was a fire nearby. She saw the flickering hues of red and orange that danced upon the door and froze in fear.

A ragged breath introduced thick smoke into her lungs, and she began to cough. The cough felt as if it nearly tore her lungs apart and finally motivated her to get on her feet. Her mind screamed at her to find an escape route out of the burning home. She looked towards the door, but even from a few feet away, she could feel the heat of the inferno. As she looked out into the rest of her home, she saw nothing but flickering orange and red mixed with rolling waves of black and gray. The wood from the house was being consumed by the flames, and she didn’t have long left to escape.

The sound of something crashing outside of her bedroom echoed throughout the house, distracting her for a second and enhancing her fear. It sounded like the world was coming down around her.

She remained stunned, frozen with disbelief, when flames rolled rapidly into her room through the open door, engulfing the walls with blazing scarlet. Again, her brain reminded her that she was running out of time. The house was built on wooden pillars, and if the fire weakened them enough, the house would collapse and bring the whole roof down on her.

Glancing behind her, she realized that the window was the only escape she had. The previous occupant of the house had painted the bedroom, including the window, and had managed to seal it shut. She’d meant to fix that problem since she’d moved in but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. She’d have to break the glass to get through. It would be simple enough to break the glass, but she had another problem to deal with. The window was almost seven feet off the ground. It wasn’t the biggest drop, but right below the window was a small border of stones that ran along the house’s outer boundary. If she didn’t jump far enough, she would end up landing on them, and that could mean broken bones.

The idea of HIM

I'm awaken by my phone ringing. It’s an unknown number that flashes across my screen. I hit the silent button, laying my head back on my pillow, and fall asleep.

I am sitting on the couch watching tv, while my dad is in the kitchen frying fish from a great weekend at the cabin. He comes into view as the sun is shining through the dining room window before it's time for supper.

"Dad, do you need any help with dinner?" I call out to him. He doesn't reply to me. I call out to him once again, and there is no response from him. He doesn't even turn to look at me. He's just standing there staring out from the window. Beams of light shine on him as the sun is setting. I leave the couch and walk towards him.

As I approach him and place my hand on his shoulder, I softly say, "Dad?" He vanishes, and there are dust particles where he was standing. They are floating around through the air in the beam of sunlight.

I spring awake in a panic. I’m dripping with sweat and start to cry. It is the first time I have dreamt about my dad since he passed away. I am confused as to why he will not look at me in my dream nor answer me. I swear the dream felt so real. It was like he was there staring out of the window.

I walk to the bathroom while collecting myself from that bizarre dream. The light at the top of my phone is blinking. I swipe the screen to unlock it. I see that I have a missed call from Jason and an unknown number. There are three text messages from Jason, as well as a few messages from coworkers, and Troy.

Communication - A Phenomenon

In the previous chapter, we spoke about effective communication. In this chapter, we will go into detail about what that actually entails. Whenever you communicate with anyone, you will realize the other person is continuously missing your point for one reason alone. That reason is unclear communication. This is a phenomenon that’s very prevalent in parent and child communication, especially grown-up children. Effective communication requires clarity. You need to make sure your child completely understands and doesn’t get the wrong meaning. Grown-up children are quite sensitive and can easily be influenced by others. Teenagers are more vulnerable in the category of grown-up children. It’s kind of a time of self-discovery for especially teenagers.

Let’s talk about teenagers here first. When they enter middle and high school, later on, they start seeing themselves going through a lot of changes. Their hormones are active, resulting in physical and even emotional changes within them. They’ll face a whole myriad of issues that would include relationships with the opposite sex, crushes, confidence issues, and peer pressure, and other such issues. At these times, teenagers are also quite impressionable. They will face their first romances, heartbreaks, and breakups, and that could lead to a lot of negative behavior and depression. These are times when your teenager will want to look up to you. You should be his first point of contact when it comes to any of these issues instead of getting advice from others. Any such negative experiences can push them towards drugs and other substance abuse. You need to guide them effectively, which means clear communication. When there is clear communication, then the teenager will understand you much better and apply your suggestions and recommendations better. This also goes back to what we discussed in the first chapter. This is the time you can talk about your own days as a teenager and relate to their issues that way. You can adapt the strategies of your time to today if need be, but it needs to be explained properly.

When it comes to clear communication, it needs to be done both ways. Clear communication would require you, as a parent, to listen to your child properly. You can perhaps, as a therapist, take notes when your child is speaking to you about his or her issues at school. Let’s say your teenager comes to you and is discussing a recent breakup with you. He or she is extremely heartbroken and upset. He or she feels rejected and depressed. He or she even feels that the world is caving in on them, or it’s the end of the world. You need to let them vent to you completely.

Once they have done venting, you should respond to them with the utmost clarity. Be their support and lend them an ear. Embrace them if need be so they know you are there for them and feel their pain. If you have to cry with them, then do that too, so they know you both are on the same page. You need to remind them gently throughout the conversation that it’s not the end of the world, and things will get better. You can help them in two ways. You can try to explain to them clearly if there is a way to mend fences with their former significant other. Or, you can help them provide closure so they can focus on their future relationships properly with a fresh start. Empathy here is very important because you need to be the first person they come to when they have a breakup. You should guide them properly through the healing period. You should be very sensitive as they will have mood swings. This is also a time where you should be giving a lot more of your free time to your teenager. You need to make sure that if there is anything she or he is concerned about, he or she could just turn to you. What I mean to say here is that you need to put yourself in their shoes so that effective and clear communication could take place between you and them.

In Search of the Absolute Truth

Do your best shoes have an FBI file?

Y’all ever heard of the time some wacko put a bomb in his shoes and tried to blow up a plane? Pretty famous news story, I tell you. Ever since then, the TSA’s turned into one of those creepy guys in your social media DMs asking for feet pics. Now, if you ask me, the TSA’s always been kinda scummy; all those body scanners and body checks; can’t a woman get some privacy in this world? But this? This was preposterous, asking us to strip off our shoes and reveal our bare feet? OUR NAKED BARE FEET? I could not believe the world would ever be okay with that, but here we are now, slaves to our shoe-stripping overlords.

Now, being the chatterbox that I am, I had a good job in sales. Funny how just a little convincing and some sweet talk has dollars raining down on you. I was so good at ripping people off of their money that they even gave me an award. Outside of the office, they’d probably put you in jail for that, but it’s not even close to the weirdest thing you can go to jail for, as you’ll find out soon enough. So, I’m traveling to Saint Thomas with my co-workers for the award trip and bless the airport security’s souls for making the process smooth. On the other hand, damn the airline, the pilot strolled off to get a donut, and we landed too late to catch the connecting flight. To top it off, I had to throw down money on a hotel room and wait for the next flight. The room smelled of death and cigarettes like a zombie coming out of the grave to hit that one last puff.

Now I’ll tell you; when you’ve had to spend money on a trip that was supposed to be free, broke up with your boyfriend who’s now a million miles away on some god-forsaken planet called Australia, and woken up smelling like you’ve engaged in adultery with a druggie zombie, you won’t be in the best of moods. The worst part was that I cried all night thinking about my now ex-man, closed my eyes for barely a minute, and then it was 5 in the morning. To other people, that might not matter, but I really am not a 5 a.m. person.

I strutted down to check-in wearing jeans and my pride and joy; red patent leather silver studded Stuart Weitzman sandals. These babies had the chunkiest heel you’d ever see in a sandal. I stepped up to the counter as a buff check-in agent scanned me from top to bottom. Damn, I thought; this girl was towering over me like The Hulk; I wouldn’t want those hands anywhere near me. Now She-Hulk here eyed my Weitzman sandals with what I could only describe as immense lust. I met her eyes with a stare that clearly said, “No bitch, mine!” As if she had read my mind, she ordered me to take them off. No uh. Nope. No way was she ever put her filthy hands on these babies. But I looked back up at her, towering above me, a poster child for some steroid company, and decided against taking my chances.

The Coffin World of My Closet

“Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

The evening news was wall-to-wall war and conflict. It was 1968, and the Vietnam War Tet Offensive was in full view to American families at dinner as every frame after bloody TV frame of the carnage for history passed with each second. America was on fire with students protesting the war and race riots in every major city. For me, a highly sensitive 12-year-old boy, it was virtually impossible to escape the horrors on and off the screen. It was self-evident, I suppose that no one escaped the horrors happening across America. My mom and dad were concerned that I was “too sensitive” and were always imploring me to stop being so touchy-feely. If it wasn’t my laugh that threw my dad into a tailspin, it was being too perceptive and reactive, which made the tailspin whirl faster. In the coming years, they would try everything to break me of this unmanly, overly perceptive behavior as well.

During the chaos, I attended Middle School at Newark Academy, one of the oldest prep schools in America. It was also recognized as one of the best preparatory schools in the country. The school’s Mascot, the “Minute Man,” was adopted during its founding, as many of the boys and teachers were enlisted as “minute men” in Washington’s Revolutionary Army. I was the second person in my family to attend NA, as my father also attended the Academy when he was my age. Now, what are the chances that a father and son would have the same 8th grade, math teacher? A zillion to one? Whatever the odds, Mrs. Catherin Lynham taught us both, and she and my dad were good old friends. To add some sparkle to the friendship, my father was a member of the Schools Board of Trustees. I imagined that that had to be the reason I was ‘elected’ as the 8th Grade class president, despite not running for class president. What a weird surprise, I thought. Oddly, no one in the class was upset at the outcome. I supposed Mrs. Lynham’s friendship with my dad was so strong that she must have added several of her own votes to ensure my election and thereby make one happy friend and father. While that was suspicious enough, even more weird was I never passed one of Mrs. Lynham’s math tests. After geometry, when I hit Algebra, I hit the wall. Not to worry, Walter, your class president.

I liked being president as I liked all my classmates, and they liked me too. I was a popular kid and, while not a math student, smart in every other respect. My “sensitivity” underscored my ability to perceive finer points in my studies. It also gave me a strong ability to understand others and to empathize with my classmates. I credit my sensitivity to my popularity, and as time would tell, I went on to successfully run and win in two legitimate elections for class president of my freshman and sophomore year.

I advanced in school and developed a love of the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts, and participated in school plays and sang in the school glee club. I also participated in sports and was part of the Cross-Country, Fencing, and Tennis teams. I was a good runner and an exceptionally good tennis player, but my dad was disappointed that I didn’t play football or basketball, you know, more manly sports. That may be the reason he never attended any of my sporting events. Fencing was for sissy’s, I suppose. But above all of my extracurricular activities, there was one thing I loved doing more than anything: playing the piano.

The Eleventh Hour: Fight against America

As the world can see, America is being stripped of the power she once possessed and is blinded by multiple tactics of the following: The removal of the World Health Organization, the Iranian Arms policies, Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), and a suffering economy. The American dictator, Donald J. Trump, has contributed to these injustices the most. He lacks leadership attributes, acts recklessly, and controls America like a Mob boss instead of leading it like a President. Trump has deprived American citizens of their basic rights and has used code words to incite, activate and cause divisiveness among his followers and citizens who are not a part of his ideology of Make America Great Again (MAGA). Other racist antics, remarks, code words, and phrases of incitement used by Trump include “vicious thugs,” and “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” (what do you have to lose? Referring to black people). Trump has divided this country and shows no empathy for Blacks. He plans to implement the Anti-fascist (ANTIFA) Bill (categorizing the far-left peaceful protesters as terrorists), an excuse against those who would exercise their freedom to protest for their rights, which differs from his support for the Boogaloo boys and their extremist ideologies[A1] . Every time Trump publicly mentions or Tweets MAGA, he is sending a subtle message to his followers. America is on the brink of a civil war between Trump supporters, white supremacists, and ANTIFA’s political movement. A war that is on the people of color. His tweets subtly indicate violence, and they indirectly cause damage and hostility amongst Americans. He then justifies these uprisings against the marginalized community by putting the onus on the governors for not doing their jobs efficiently and failing to restore order. It is about time to keep your eyes and ears open and understand Trump’s message loud and clear. Trump is seizing America’s civil liberties, one policy at a time, both nationally and internationally. For example, international trade and security, relations with foreign nations, interactions for organizations and corporations, and system citizens of the United States. Trump has disrupted foreign policies, to name a few – Nuclear Arms Treaty, International Arms Treaty, and the Open Skies Treaty Withdrawal. This disruption has affected the stability, transparency, and has adversely affected the security of allies and of the United States. Trump did all he could to win a second term Presidency, and even though he didn’t win, he still managed to gain a lot of votes.

His most recent disruptions were to dismantle the postal system. This would affect the mail-in of absentee voting ballots and reject further funding to the postal system. If the post office is not funded, the absentee ballots cannot be mailed out to their full potential. He stated that he would not lose the 2020 presidential elections to Joe Biden (former Vice President of former President Barack H. Obama). Apparently, Trump did all he could to interfere with a fair election, like a partisan. His fear of losing the second term presidency was obvious.

During the 2016 election, rumor has it that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President meddled with the U.S. votes. That’s how Trump was able to win the rigged 2016 elections, and he is labeled as an illegitimate President of the United States of America. Our foreign allies and the world looks at America with sorrow and disbelief. Our Nation is strong and does not have a place for a dictator like Trump.

The Coffin World of My Closet

“Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

The evening news was wall-to-wall war and conflict. It was 1968, and the Vietnam War Tet Offensive was in full view to American families at dinner as every frame after bloody TV frame of the carnage for history passed with each second. America was on fire with students protesting the war and race riots in every major city. For me, a highly sensitive 12-year-old boy, it was virtually impossible to escape the horrors on and off the screen. It was self-evident, I suppose that no one escaped the horrors happening across America. My mom and dad were concerned that I was “too sensitive” and were always imploring me to stop being so touchy-feely. If it wasn’t my laugh that threw my dad into a tailspin, it was being too perceptive and reactive, which made the tailspin whirl faster. In the coming years, they would try everything to break me of this unmanly, overly perceptive behavior as well.

During the chaos, I attended Middle School at Newark Academy, one of the oldest prep schools in America. It was also recognized as one of the best preparatory schools in the country. The school’s Mascot, the “Minute Man,” was adopted during its founding, as many of the boys and teachers were enlisted as “minute men” in Washington’s Revolutionary Army. I was the second person in my family to attend NA, as my father also attended the Academy when he was my age. Now, what are the chances that a father and son would have the same 8th grade, math teacher? A zillion to one? Whatever the odds, Mrs. Catherin Lynham taught us both, and she and my dad were good old friends. To add some sparkle to the friendship, my father was a member of the Schools Board of Trustees. I imagined that that had to be the reason I was ‘elected’ as the 8th Grade class president, despite not running for class president. What a weird surprise, I thought. Oddly, no one in the class was upset at the outcome. I supposed Mrs. Lynham’s friendship with my dad was so strong that she must have added several of her own votes to ensure my election and thereby make one happy friend and father. While that was suspicious enough, even more weird was I never passed one of Mrs. Lynham’s math tests. After geometry, when I hit Algebra, I hit the wall. Not to worry, Walter, your class president.

I liked being president as I liked all my classmates, and they liked me too. I was a popular kid and, while not a math student, smart in every other respect. My “sensitivity” underscored my ability to perceive finer points in my studies. It also gave me a strong ability to understand others and to empathize with my classmates. I credit my sensitivity to my popularity, and as time would tell, I went on to successfully run and win in two legitimate elections for class president of my freshman and sophomore year.

I advanced in school and developed a love of the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts, and participated in school plays and sang in the school glee club. I also participated in sports and was part of the Cross-Country, Fencing, and Tennis teams. I was a good runner and an exceptionally good tennis player, but my dad was disappointed that I didn’t play football or basketball, you know, more manly sports. That may be the reason he never attended any of my sporting events. Fencing was for sissy’s, I suppose. But above all of my extracurricular activities, there was one thing I loved doing more than anything: playing the piano.

Captive

I finally arrived at Miami Airport, and it was just how I had imagined. Feeling a combination of joy and excitement, I was ready to take my initial steps towards a brighter future. Whether did I know that a storm had nearly just begun?

Life had started out quite good for me. I remember being a good student, with a good family of my mother, my father, and two brothers. Up until I was sixteen, life was good and mundane. I was athletic and took part in sports activities in high school. It's strange how once an incident can flip everything around in just a matter of time. Life can be good at one moment and not so much at the next. To my disappointment, I experienced this at quite a young age.

One day "we need to add where you and your friend were standing, like did you just get done with something or were you waiting for someone? Basically, how should we start the story? The story continues from the information we have available.

The guys promised my girlfriend and me to take us home. It was a gloomy winter night. We had no such thoughts of suspicion at the time, mostly because there was no evidence to the contrary. These guys were part of the crowd who we used to hang out with at the time at the local coffee shop after school. That is why there was never any suspicion that the situation could go wrong; my girlfriend and I had seen them around often. After a while, the driver pulled over at a forest in the city. His friend told my girlfriend that he would like to talk to her, and they got out of the car. The driver got out and sat next to me in the car. (He was very friendly, and he was not a bad-looking guy either but definitely had some brain damage. He spoke a little weird, I thought, and I think the other guy was the one in control, and the whole thing was his idea. He was fat and looked genuinely evil. When I saw that they were not going in the direction of our home, I was just hoping that we would survive to get out of the situation with little to no damage. But I started to get scared when the only thing I saw was the forest and fog surrounding us. I had the feeling that this wasn't good at all. When he locked the door, I was scared and just wanted to get it over with. They opened the glovebox on the way and had a gun on them; these guys were both very big. So, I thought that the best way to ensure the least possible damage was to say nothing. I noticed that he locked the doors and started to pull his pants down. He pushed my head on himself and forced me until he had an orgasm. He opened the locks after, while I was in a complete and utter shock. I got out of the car and told my friend that we needed to leave.

Mirage

I still remember it as clearly, as if it were yesterday. Maybe because of the scar it left behind. Back when my mother was washing clothes under the pomegranate tree, I was playing alone nearby my mother as usual. I had just taken a bath and wore a soft, off-white dress with a square embroidered collar. I felt so pretty. However, I was hungry, and the avocado trees in the backyard had only green avocados. I kept looking at the fruit trees to see if something was ripe to eat. The fruit was rare in the house and luxury to eat because grandma Elsa sold the fruit as soon as it ripened. However, it seemed to be my lucky day, as I discovered a pomegranate hiding at the top of the tree, up high. Excited, I told my mother to cut it for me. She refused, saying, “The other children will see you and will want some too.” I added, “But if you cut it for me, I will not let anybody see it. I will go to the end of the yard and hide until I finish it. Besides, there are no children around.” I convinced her. She brought a tall stick to pick the pomegranate. As she tapped on it, it fell down.

At that very moment, all the cousins were coming in, running, from the street. They had been playing, and they saw the fruit falling down. My mother picked the fruit and began to open it. She then gave everyone a piece and gave me a little “leftover” piece. My blood boiled as she gave away the pieces to the other kids, and by the time she gave me the last bit, I had thrown it down on the ground and said firmly, “I don’t want it. I wanted it all. I saw it first! It was mine!”

During the chaos, I attended Middle School at Newark Academy, one of the oldest prep schools in America. It was also recognized as one of the best preparatory schools in the country. The school’s Mascot, the “Minute Man,” was adopted during its founding, as many of the boys and teachers were enlisted as “minute men” in Washington’s Revolutionary Army. I was the second person in my family to attend NA, as my father also attended the Academy when he was my age. Now, what are the chances that a father and son would have the same 8th grade, math teacher? A zillion to one? Whatever the odds, Mrs. Catherin Lynham taught us both, and she and my dad were good old friends. To add some sparkle to the friendship, my father was a member of the Schools Board of Trustees. I imagined that that had to be the reason I was ‘elected’ as the 8th Grade class president, despite not running for class president. What a weird surprise, I thought. Oddly, no one in the class was upset at the outcome. I supposed Mrs. Lynham’s friendship with my dad was so strong that she must have added several of her own votes to ensure my election and thereby make one happy friend and father. While that was suspicious enough, even more weird was I never passed one of Mrs. Lynham’s math tests. After geometry, when I hit Algebra, I hit the wall. Not to worry, Walter, your class president.

I liked being president as I liked all my classmates, and they liked me too. I was a popular kid and, while not a math student, smart in every other respect. My “sensitivity” underscored my ability to perceive finer points in my studies. It also gave me a strong ability to understand others and to empathize with my classmates. I credit my sensitivity to my popularity, and as time would tell, I went on to successfully run and win in two legitimate elections for class president of my freshman and sophomore year.

I advanced in school and developed a love of the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts, and participated in school plays and sang in the school glee club. I also participated in sports and was part of the Cross-Country, Fencing, and Tennis teams. I was a good runner and an exceptionally good tennis player, but my dad was disappointed that I didn’t play football or basketball, you know, more manly sports. That may be the reason he never attended any of my sporting events. Fencing was for sissy’s, I suppose. But above all of my extracurricular activities, there was one thing I loved doing more than anything: playing the piano.

Numbness and Tingling

Getting too old to stand on one's own two feet

Today starts like every other Monday morning. At 6:25 AM, Dr. Naomi Leostein grabs her lunch bag from the fridge and then places it next to the laptop in her handbag. She then blindly reaches for her plaid winter coat before rushing out of the front door. However, this morning provided a little surprise. Four-year-old Nate jumps out from behind the coat rack and shouts, "You found me, Safta." Safta is the Hebrew name for grandma. She was not expecting him to be there at all. She thought that he was still sleeping. Naomi likes it when Nate and his two-year-old sister, Leah, call her Safta. The name "Safta" paints a picture of a youthful grandmother who is loaded with enough energy to keep up with the pace of active grandkids. She is young at heart, mind, body, and soul.

"You scared me. I didn't know that you were hiding there!" Naomi says to her grandson. Little Nate then shrieks with glee. Dr. Naomi says to him, "I will play with you and your sister Leah later. I need to leave for work right now." Naomi asks him, "Do you know if Saba left for work yet?" Saba is the Hebrew name for grandpa. When Naomi asks him about Saba, she is referring to her husband, Ethan. Ethan and Naomi have been married for over 30 years. Little Nate and Leah are the children of their eldest child Shayna. Shayna has been married to a young man named Michael for almost six years now, and they have been living in apartments for most of that time. However, Shayna and Michael have recently purchased their first house. It is located in Fresh Meadows, New York, and this is quite exciting for Naomi and Ethan. Fresh Meadows is located near to them. The name "Fresh Meadows" is a bit deceiving. At the time the colonists settled in Fresh Meadows centuries earlier, it was suffused with meadows fed by freshwater springs. However, by the 1960s, apartment complexes and post-war tract housing would eventually dominate the landscape. The physical presence of fresh meadows is a bit of a rarity now. Shayna and Michael have just bought a cozy, 1200 square foot, three-bedroom house in the Fresh Meadows neighborhood. Despite its small size, it is certainly spacious enough for Shayna, Michael, and their two kids. It has the added advantage of being less than 1.5 miles from Naomi and Ethan's home, which is located in Jamaica Estates, Queens.

In addition to their daughter Shayna, Dr. Naomi and Dr. Ethan have two other children who are also now grown adults: Rachel and Adam. Their second daughter, Rachel, is currently engaged to a young man named Dov Heisner. They are planning to get married in the spring at the Crest Hollow Country Club located in Woodbury, New York. This is also where Naomi and Ethan's wedding took place, thirty-plus years earlier. Their son Adam currently lives in Washington, DC. He has a steady girlfriend named Laurie Spreck. Naomi and Ethan greatly miss the everyday hustle and bustle of having their children around them. However, they are happy that Shayna, Michael, and their grandkids are temporarily staying with them while renovations are being completed on Shayna and Michael's new home. After several weeks of construction, the workmen are almost done with the renovation. As soon as the asbestos dust, caused by the removal of the old kitchen floor, is cleared away, they will be ready to move into the new house. Naomi is not eager to see her grandkids, little Nate and Sarah, leave her home. She so much enjoys having them around.

Understanding Mental Toughness

“The strength of your mind determines the quality of your life.”

To talk about mental toughness, we need to understand what that means. In the book “Developing Mental Toughness” by Peter Clough and Doug Strycharczyk, it is defined as “the personality trait which determines in large part how people deal effectively with the challenges, stressors, and pressures… irrespective of circumstances.” A lot of times, how effective we are at tackling life’s problems is determined by our mental toughness, or in other words, the strength of mind.

The same book states that “according to the 4 Cs model, the overall mental toughness is a product of four pillars:

1. Challenge: seeing the challenge as an opportunity.
2. Confidence: having high levels of self-belief.
3. Commitment: being able to stick to tasks.
4. Control: believing that you control your destiny.”

If you’re mentally strong, then you can take on any problem that comes your way or deal with tragedies that would happen to you or your loved ones. When you look at a challenge, you turn those moments into opportunities. When it comes to confidence, you need to know that in your heart and mind, you can take on whatever comes your way. You are very sure of yourself. Commitment means you don’t back down from what you set to do, you stick to your guns, and you will complete the tasks you set out to do. Control means that your destiny is in your hand. You are in charge of your life, and you are secure of yourself. These four traits are very important to have. You need to have these four traits inside you to be mentally tough. It’s extremely important to understand the opening quote of this chapter. The strength of the mind does determine the quality of life. If you’re not mentally strong, you can’t make decisions period. It’s not about making just 31decisions; it’s about making the strong and right decisions.

Your quality of life does get affected as you can slowly slip into depression and self-destruction. You are easily overcome by peer pressure, drugs, alcohol, and substance abuse. If you don’t want to go down that path, you need to develop mental toughness.

Self-awareness

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” – Ralph Ellison

I finally arrived at Miami Airport, and it was just how I had imagined. Feeling a combination of joy and excitement, I was ready to take my initial steps towards a brighter future. Whether did I know that a storm had nearly just begun?

We all want to have confidence and surety with the things that we do in our day-to-day lives. When one talks about being self-aware, what does it mean? To be self-aware or to strive to attain self-awareness is to be able to understand and acknowledge the different things that go on in our heads.

Self-awareness can be as simple as seeing how you feel when you are around friends. While you are supposedly there to unwind and relax, there can be a million things on your mind that have you both consciously and subconsciously troubled. The setting is that of a BBQ with your closest buddies, and you huddled around the grill. The smell of beef cooking and the sound of a beer bottle opening can be everywhere. There is a wholesome and positive vibe going around. While you are laughing and evidently having a good time inside your head, it is a completely different story. There are insecurities that you are battling, worries that are wearing you down, problems that seemingly have no solution in sight. These things take a toll on you inside. Knowing that, acknowledging that, and understanding that is self-awareness.

However, it is sometimes more complex than this as well. There are times when self-awareness is far more complex than all of this. Have you ever had a lot to do, i.e., work, school, assignments, obligations, which you know are important, but for some reason, you just cannot gather the energy to get up and get the work done? You lay in bed, staring into the abyss with the burden of your thoughts weighing down on you. It could be finals week in college with all of these deadlines coming at you, yet nothing is seemingly affecting you, or it is affecting you so much that you've raised a white flag and admitted defeat. This leads you to feel as if you are stuck and have nowhere to go. The impending thoughts of having to get all of this stuff done make you feel even worse than you already do. Realizing and knowing that this is something that is affecting you is self-awareness.

Thinking Beyond

When I turned 22 years old, I felt like my life needed a restart. We live in an era where movie franchises are constantly rebooted, so why can't we restart our lives. Movie studios look at those franchises and see where they went wrong, and by starting fresh, they can make a good movie that can spin off into sequels and beyond. Why can't we do the same with our own lives? We can also do a self-analysis and see what is wrong or right in our life and then see how we can improve things. Sometimes, we all even require a fresh start. We can take the good and improve on it while starting out fresh. So, on my 22nd birthday, I made a clear and concise decision to restart my life. What was important for me to analyze was the negativity in my life that was bringing me down. The negativity consisted of my ego, materialism (greed), jealousy, fear, worry, care, insecurity, and all other negative emotions that I had been feeling. Once I removed all these emotions from my life and personality, I felt like a rebooted movie franchise too. I felt like a new man. It felt like I was born again. Most people use the "born again" phrase for a religious reawakening or a spiritual reawakening, but I am using this phrase for a more personal reawakening that perhaps encompasses all that and more. These things are important because what we realize is that we are the ones who bring ourselves down. Having a fresh start in life is great, but we need to analyze what is not needed in this fresh start. You have to feel like a baby. You have to learn to discover new things as you've never done them before. You look at similar experiences in a new way. Your mindset and outlook in life have to be different and a whole lot more positive. It is important to think positively. It is important to know that now you will make a difference in your life and, in turn, others around you. To be honest, our insecurities are our greatest enemy, and almost all times, they create differences between ourselves and our loved ones, or rather those that matter to us. Once we get rid of those and other negative emotions, we feel renewed and refreshed. Our insecurities and fears will get us down and block us from moving ahead, and it's important we realize that we are bigger and better than that. We can't let them slow us down in the pursuit of our own immaterial happiness.

At that very moment, all the cousins were coming in, running, from the street. They had been playing, and they saw the fruit falling down. My mother picked the fruit and began to open it. She then gave everyone a piece and gave me a little “leftover” piece. My blood boiled as she gave away the pieces to the other kids, and by the time she gave me the last bit, I had thrown it down on the ground and said firmly, “I don’t want it. I wanted it all. I saw it first! It was mine!”

I wanted to think beyond my ego, insecurities, and other negative emotions. I felt it was important to rise above all this negativity to become a newer person. I also realized a few things. Most importantly, I was able to see the world and my own self a lot more closely than ever before and perform a much better self-analysis. I was able to humble myself and break free of all the mental and emotional shackles that had chained me forever. These negative emotions I speak of are like colored lenses. When we have, for example, ego, we look at everything in life through those colored lenses. We look at the world and form opinions and interpretations of everything inside it through those lenses. It forms our worldview, and that can, unfortunately, be an unclear worldview. The worst thing we do is that every action and interaction we do in the world is derived from that worldview. We impact not just us but those around us with our actions and interactions. Even worse is the life decisions we make based on this worldview we have developed for ourselves. Those decisions become disasters and have long-standing consequences that impact us all our lives. We have to live with the choices we make, and a bad decision can't be reversed in the same way a good decision can't be. A few long-term consequences are bad relationships and life failures. You feel uneasy, and not at peace at all with yourselves. You feel unhappy, and you increase and attract more negativity. Once it goes downhill, it keeps going downhill, leading to depression. That's not the state anyone of us wants to be in at all. Being in a state of depression is one of the lowest lows we can put ourselves in. We become super negative, and those negative emotions I have mentioned above increase ten-fold. When we reach this state where we've simply almost given up on life, we can do two things.

We can lift ourselves up by shedding the emotions and going through a restart, or we can choose to end things, and no one wants to go there. Suicidal tendencies are common in people suffering from such massive depression, which is why a restart is essential before reaching that state of mind. What I am explaining to you is a chain of events that negative emotions can create for us. In summary, these simply shape our worldview as they are akin to colored lenses, and we see our life through those lenses. Our decisions shape up our lives, and these decisions are derived from that worldview. The results can be disastrous for us, our loved ones, and everyone around us. We tend to ignore and overlook the impact of our decisions on our loved ones. To be honest, these are the ones that matter more than anyone else in the world. Having said that, every human being matters, but our loved ones feel more impacted by our negative and positive decisions than others.

Most importantly, we can totally lose ourselves in the process. That's when we find ourselves in this never-ending bottomless pit of negativity. It's a vicious cycle that we find ourselves in, and it's not great at all. The worst part is that we can't climb back up, and even when we can, it takes a lot out of us. Clearly, none of us want to be in that position at all. It's the worst of the worst, and to reach that point is only going to lead to self-destruction.

So, for example, when we do find ourselves sinking in the bottomless pit I mentioned above, we would tend to ask ourselves what's going wrong in our lives and what bad decisions I have made. Then we also try to find solutions to the problems posed by the impact of the decisions. There's one extremely fatal error we're making, and that is what we need to figure out. The answer is right in front of us, and it's very simple. We still have our colored lenses on! Even while we're doing our self-analysis, we are still doing it based on the worldview that we have acquired from the colored lenses. That's a huge hindrance for us because we keep looking for the answers inside of us. How could we look for those answers with the ego-tinted lenses that have formed our worldview? It's not fair to us either because we will not be able to judge ourselves accurately with those lenses. It's sad but true, but these are like shackles that have bound us, and we need to break free from them, which leads me to my first step.

Look for explanations, not excuses

"The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it." ― Jordan Belfort

Life has a way of going in one direction at one time and flipping on its head at another time. Our lives can change in the blink of an eye, and there is often not much we can do to avoid it. There are instances when things are going as smoothly as one can dream of, but then without a moment's notice, the tide comes in and washes everything away. Right in front of our eyes, everything that we worked hard for or waited to get was taken, and we are left wondering how it went so wrong. There are always reasons for this happening, whether it is your own fault or the deviousness of someone else. In both cases, you are the one who has to pick the pieces that are left behind. You are the person who has to make a choice where you can either pick up the pieces and start again or sit there in a mess, crying.

Now, I understand that it is never easy to be in a situation like this. You have just lost something that you hold dear to you and must now cope with the loss. Some people tend to succumb to this and begin plunging in a downward spiral. They begin to lash out at the people who might not even be involved in the incident and choose to blame others for their own shortcomings or loss. This is wrong. Laying the blame on others does not do much; it only pollutes a relationship because of unnecessary finger-pointing when the right way to move ahead would be to take a step back. Doing this gives you the ability to assess what has happened, see how far and wide the damage is, and formulate what your next step is. You will be able to get an explanation as to what went wrong and where. This way, you will learn how to do and also how not to do the same thing, which will allow you to build on your past mistakes and failures.

On the other hand, throwing a tantrum about it all will not get you too far. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, it is unfair. But it is also a reality, and we must accept it. The sooner we are able to look past this, the sooner we will be able to climb out of these tough times. In order to change the way that you think, according to my research, I have come up with a few tips and tricks to help with this.

• ● Consider the importance of adopting the change: The toughest pill to swallow is that of change. Abandoning a habit or way of life that holds you back is never an easy task, but it is the first step in changing your fate. One way of convincing yourself is by explaining the importance of it by personally doing a cost-benefit analysis. You will see how much your bad habits are holding you down from being somewhere that is a lot better than you are right now.
• ● Embrace the idea of experimentation: They say that when there is a risk, there is either loss or reward. Therefore, higher risk = higher reward/loss. You will never find out what way the seesaw might tilt, but until and unless you don't try, there will never be an answer.

Seductive love: Infidels and love birds

laire Winger was a beautiful woman, or so Ian thought. He was smitten by her eyes. They were a deep shade of green and shone like emeralds in the darkness around them. While she was beautiful, Ian wasn’t one to let the wrong idea in his head. The obvious baby bump hinted to him that she was or had been married but decided not to ask any personal questions in her present state of shock. He decided to wait for her to regain her composure before pressing for more information.

Ian felt sorry for her. The sudden loss of her house and nobody to go to for support would leave anyone distraught, he thought to himself. But he was there, and he knew that he could help her. His mind wandered to the Mansion; a shelter run by his good friend Paul. It would be the perfect refuge for Claire. Although it was quite a long way upstate, things would work out if he could manage to get Claire all the way there. Paul and Catarina always had a room empty no matter what, so a place to stay was guaranteed.

As he considered the prospect, he looked at the watch on his wrist. His shift was almost up, which meant that he could help her out almost immediately. He looked up at Claire and met her green eyes with his.

The idea of HIM

I'm awaken by my phone ringing. It’s an unknown number that flashes across my screen. I hit the silent button, laying my head back on my pillow, and fall asleep.

I am sitting on the couch watching tv, while my dad is in the kitchen frying fish from a great weekend at the cabin. He comes into view as the sun is shining through the dining room window before it's time for supper.

"Dad, do you need any help with dinner?" I call out to him. He doesn't reply to me. I call out to him once again, and there is no response from him. He doesn't even turn to look at me. He's just standing there staring out from the window. Beams of light shine on him as the sun is setting. I leave the couch and walk towards him.

As I approach him and place my hand on his shoulder, I softly say, "Dad?" He vanishes, and there are dust particles where he was standing. They are floating around through the air in the beam of sunlight.

I spring awake in a panic. I’m dripping with sweat and start to cry. It is the first time I have dreamt about my dad since he passed away. I am confused as to why he will not look at me in my dream nor answer me. I swear the dream felt so real. It was like he was there staring out of the window.

The Religion of Lust

An ecstatic tale of pursuing sexual realms with a nanny

How many times did they end up in the lounge like this??? Aidan thought to himself. It wasn’t the fact that people having sex was unearthly to him. He just didn’t expect to see that.

*Knock knock*

Aidan just came back to reality. Someone was knocking on his bedroom door. “Come in.” He replied. It was his father, Nicholas.

“Can we talk?” Said, Nicholas. “Should we?” Replied Aidan.

Nicholas sat by Aidan’s side. “Look, I know you didn’t want to see what you saw, but let’s be real, there wasn’t anything bad in that. Was there? I enjoyed it, and Julia enjoyed it. You just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time!”

“Dad…” Mr. Parker interrupted him. “Look! I was never happy with your mom and neither with all those one-night stands! But Julia… she has been a pleasure to be with!”

“And why is that so? If I am may ask!” said Aidan.

“She is… she is sexy, she is best in bed, she….” “Dad!” Aidan cut him. “Is that it to woe away all our worries? Good sex?” Aidan became defensive.

“Well… you’d know when you experience; if you have anything else to say, I’m just a call away.” With this, Mr. Parker left the room.

Aidan had his answers, at least to some extent. One that his father wasn’t going to give a shit about him even at this point in time; second, he had to find someone or something else to let out his anger and his frustration.

Unfathomable Love

I was dancing for money and was also affecting people with my touch. I had not forgotten what the psychic had told me and how my ability to heal people through touch and connection worked. I tried my best to heal and console as many people as I could during that time. I felt a sense of purpose when I did that, and it helped me a lot. I felt happy that I had helped them, and it gave me a good feeling. I was good at what I did and was making good bucks, but the healing aspect was also a significant part of it.

It is imperative to mention here that the Wall Street guy from New York reached out to me once again. I had forgotten him and all about that encounter with him, but as soon as he reached me, all the floodgates of memories started overflowing, and every second of the past encounter was playing in front of my eyes. My previous experience with him had been quite incomplete, to say the least, and had left me guilt-ridden. I had no contact with him, but he managed to reach out to me somehow. I was astonished initially, but he was a resourceful person and found me out easily. He offered me a very lucrative deal, ludicrous at the same time too! He offered me a huge amount of money and wanted me to be his travel companion on his trip to Las Vegas. It was a very substantial amount and could have potentially solved a lot of my financial issues. I informed my mentor about the whole offer and this sudden development. I told her that his interest was not only the tantric session; he wanted more than that. He wanted to be physical with me, and his motives were something that would have wronged my profession had I agreed! My mentor’s reply confused me and also shook me. She told me to act like I was romantically interested in him and should coax money out of him. He was filthy rich, and he had the money. I took the advice, but I questioned her morals after this conversation. I doubted her integrity and the face she had been wearing in front of us. Tantra is about honesty, healing, and love. This was quite the opposite of what she had always been preaching. I was baffled by this, and this confusion is what spurred me on, and I took his offer.

He flew me to Las Vegas in first class, and I had never stepped foot in first class before. The hotels we stayed at were of the highest quality and provided the best services. I was pretending to like him, but I had to admit that I was physically attracted to him. His power and his wealth attracted me, and the whole BDSM factor attracted me a lot as well. He was 50 years old, and he had a son from some other woman. I was momentarily attracted, but I could never see myself settling down with someone like him. I was perhaps still hung up on Conrad, the vision board guy! I went with him to hotel rooms and explored BDSM to such heights that I understood every aspect of it. He even took me on a helicopter ride to see the Grand Canyon, and he was being very generous. To return his generosity, I fucked him, oh I fucked his brains out. It was a steamy session of hardcore sex with bondage and kinky play. He taught me a lot about BDSM, and I learned it quickly. Before long, I was like an expert, and the pleasure was something I had never experienced before. He was a skilled love maker, and he satisfied me every time!

It was around that time when I noticed that I started to develop some feelings for him. This man had treated me like a queen, and I was starting to feel indebted, or perhaps those were genuine feelings of affection; I was a bit confused. I was enchanted by him and could almost picture myself living with him and marrying him. There was surely a connection that was building between us. I was still thinking about Conrad at times and Kundalini yoga at times in a small corner of my mind! I shook my head and decided to live in the moment; I wasn’t with Conrad, I was with him, and I decided to focus my attention and energy on him. Conrad was something from the past, and he was my present. I enjoyed a lot with him, but the trip had to end one day. I went back to LA, but soon after that, he contacted me again and asked me if I was willing to visit Mexico with him! I said yes even before his sentence had finished. He flew me in first-class again and gave me the most lavish lifestyle I had ever imagined. He fixed up bubble baths for me every night and treated me so well. He indulged me in BDSM again, and by this time around, I was trained and raring to go. I enjoyed the days traveling and the nights fucking! It was during these days that he started talking to me about his life and his childhood. He had led a very sad early life, and his childhood was a nightmare. He had been through a lot of traumas, and as he was narrating this to me, he broke down in tears. I had never seen a grown man cry before. I did not know what to do, and I tried to console him. I was flabbergasted when it struck me. It was time for me to excel as a healer and cure him. Destiny had brought him to me, and it was my utmost duty to cure him and heal him. He had told me initially that he had always faced difficulty while expressing himself, but when he was with me, he was expressing himself, and he was letting his emotions show. It was a huge improvement! This was divine intervention. I had a chance to heal him, and I was not going to let this chance go. The more he talked to me and told me about his life, the more compassion I felt for him and more and more affection for him. This was when the confusion ended; Conrad faded in the background and was now murky. As he talked to me, I felt love for him, I felt genuine love for him in my heart, and it warmed me to my core. I wanted to nurture him, I wanted to love him, and I wanted to shower him with my love to make up for the traumas he had faced in his childhood. He had been treating me like a goddess, and I was now ready to return him the blessings!

Cooker’s War on Boogers

It’s holiday time, and oh what fun. Fall leaves have fallen, Spring has sprung, and Summer was full of hot beachy sun. But now it’s time for Winter fun.

Winter was Timmy’s favorite time of year. Sledding, snowing, hot cocoa-ing, children’s Christmas lists were growing! Timmy simply could not wait; it was almost time for Winter break.

Timmy loved coming to school. His teacher Mr. Bookman was the coolest of the cool. And Timmy also had many friends, named Sara, Peter, Clark and Fin! His class was great, and they were extra jolly, it was only seven more days until their holiday party.

Though the classroom was decked oh so grand, there were a group of germs who had other plans. While Timmy and his classmates were being smarties, The Booger Gang was ready to ruin the party.

“I’ll make them sneeze!” said Snosie Spittersplat. “It’ll help the Germy Wormys spread this way and that.”

Mr. Coughinhog said “That will be grand! You know that kids hate to wash their hands! A little cough here and a big cough there, the Germy Wormys will be everywhere!”

Mucusmaximus boasted, “They’ll high-five their friends and give big hugs, they’ll share their food, and maybe the juice from their mugs. They’ll wipe their noses with their hands or their sleeves, pick their boogers and leave them places you wouldn’t believe!”

The Booger Gang put their plan into action, and upon their satisfaction, before poor Timmy and his friends could blink their eyes, the kiddos began to drop like flies!

Amanda and Alena go on an Adventure

Amanda and Alena are the best of friends. They do everything together: eat, sleep, run, and play in the field.

When Alena can’t see Amanda, she calls out to her friend, and Amanda calls back. The two friends are inseparable.

One day Amanda noticed that the barn door was left open just wide enough for both her and Alena to sneak through. They had to be very quiet because the farmer was fast asleep on a bale of hay.

Amanda being the curious, young, naive horse that she was, slipped past the farmer and out the barn door, down the windy path to explore the rest of the farm.

A wide farm stretched before her eyes; there was so much to see, so much to hear, so much to listen to, and so much to eat.

Alena being like a mother to Amanda, could not let her go out into the world by herself, so she decided to go after her but not before stealing a bite of hay from where the farmer was sleeping. “A little snack for the road,” exclaimed Alena.

Amanda was already halfway down the path when she heard the sound of hooves coming up behind her. Alena finally caught up to Amanda and said, “We shouldn’t be out here. If we get caught, there will be trouble.” Amanda said they wouldn’t be gone long and that it was going to be fun. And it was fun.

Tony, the donkey, ran along the fence line, “Hey girls, where are you going? Shouldn’t you be in the field?”

“We’re going on an adventure,” Amanda and Alena both let out a playful neigh.

Alena and Amanda saw all kinds of different things, from butterflies landing on their noses to bumbling bees landing on all the colorful flowers. It was a picture-perfect summer day.

They even made some new friends along the way. They met Nellie, the Border Collie, who stopped to say a quick hello before going back to herding the sheep into their pen in a perfect line.

Further down the farm, Penny, the barn cat, came running down the grass, “Have you seen Jerry, the house mouse? We are playing hide and seek, and I can’t find him anywhere.” Amanda looked around briefly but saw no sign of Jerry, “I can’t see him anywhere.”

It was then Alena’s turn to look for Jerry. Alena being the older, wiser mare, started to look and sniff around when she spotted the leaf pile the farmer had just collected. She nodded her head towards the pile where Jerry’s tail stuck out of the break in the leaves.

A bit too sweet

However, one fine day Angelo ends up going to the mall with his mommy and daddy for a quick shopping trip.

That day, surprisingly, the mall had a "sweet day." The mall was full of sweet-themed characters like people in Kit-Kat, Snickers, Mars, and other sweet-based costumes. Suddenly, Angelo got so excited after seeing the entire mall dressed up in his favorite sweet treats. It had been over a month since he had not had a single bar of chocolate. He got so excited and told his mommy and daddy, "Mommy, Daddy, look! There are sweet treats everywhere!" Mommy and Daddy got very stunned. They weren't happy at all. They wanted to leave the mall that very instant. Daddy told Angelo, "Son, you know what the doctor told you. These are bad for you. Let's go to GameStop nearby. I heard there are some new games out for the PlayStation." Angelo was ignoring his mommy and daddy all this time, but he only heard GameStop from his daddy. He then said, "Sure. Let's go to GameStop." Just as they were about to leave the mall, he saw a big and colorful sign that said, "Sweet Mart. This way, please!" Angelo started begging and pleading with his parents to go to the Sweet Mart. He shouted, "Mommy, Daddy, please let me go to the Sweet Mart!" His daddy and mommy said no, but he insisted. He dragged them there. All this time, daddy was saying that GameStop would close, so they should leave now. Angelo didn't care. He wanted to go to the Sweet Mart. Once he got to the Sweet Mart, it was like a dream house for sweet lovers. His mommy and daddy stopped him, but he started screaming. He ran away from them inside the Sweet Mart. It was a huge supermarket size store; all dressed up in chocolate and candies. There were tons of children there with their own mommies and daddies. Angelo had run inside, and his mommy and daddy went after him. They tried looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found. The Sweet Mart was a maze. There were so many kids, and they all looked like Angelo, so his mommy and daddy were very confused. They started shouting his name, but Angelo didn't hear them. They decided to talk to mall security.

When Angelo was inside, he couldn't stop himself from enjoying all the sweet treats on the walls and shelves. It was like a sweet, funhouse. There were chocolate shakes, malt drinks, and hot cocoa. Angelo forgot what the doctor told him and started having a lot of Candy. He forgot that he had a very bad stomach ache the last time in school. All this while, mommy and daddy were speaking with security officers to locate their son.

While Angelo was busy enjoying all his sweet treats, He started feeling a little dizzy. It was the same feeling he had before. Angelo was feeling a little sick. Suddenly, he passed out and was in dreamland. In his dreams, he could see himself enjoying all the sweet treats and snacks. He was loving all of it, and he could hear the doctor and his mommy and daddy, but he still enjoyed them. While he was enjoying himself, he heard a voice from afar!

Manners

John had to spend the weekend over his grandparent’s house. He went directly from his school to his grandparent’s place.

After getting back home from school, John entered into his aunt Petunia’s room and took her mobile phone without her permission.

He used his aunt’s phone for about one hour before he went to sleep on her bed

When John woke up in the evening He decided to finish his homework, but couldn’t find his pencil box anywhere He tried to find his box for as long as he could And found out that it was being used by his younger sister Alexis

This made John very upset and he felt uncomfortable He told Alexis that he was worried he had forgotten the box at school because he couldn’t find it And that she should have informed or taken permission from him before taking his pencil box Aunt Petunia was listening to all this from a distance (Illustration: boy explaining to the little girl, while a woman in the 30’s, a redhead, listening to their conversation from the room) When she saw John getting upset at this, she went to him and said, “I gave the box to Alexis so she could finish her work”

At this, John replied that she should have asked before taking his box Aunt Petunia sat down with John and explained to him that he is rightfully upset, and that no one should take his belongings without asking for his permission. She reminded John that neither can he use anyone’s personal belongings without asking for their permission.

A Serial Killer Explanation

“I kill her, and I will be fulfilled…But it never happens…So next woman, I will be fulfilled. But it never happens…So, kill again, I will be fulfilled…But, it never happens…Another girl…Another girl…Another girl…It will go on until I am stopped simply because…I will never be fulfilled! Before the kill, I will be fulfilled, I think I will but by history, I won't…”

- Ted Bundy (Florida State Penitentiary, couple weeks before execution)

A serial killer is typically, by law, a person who kills three or more people. Much of the psychological profile was made from conversations with Ted Bundy. Mental gratification is the usual motive for multiple killings. It does not matter what the FBI's psychological motive is. What does matter is it will never stop. The serial profile varies for different killers, but the real point is that, no matter what reason, the killings will never stop until he is arrested or killed.

Mick finally got a date with Melissa. He had been in contact with her for years. They knew each other for a long time through different friends, although they went to different high schools. It was the summer before they both went to college. They were going to different associations, but both academic societies were in the same city, so they were excited. Mick knew to keep the date hush-hush; fewer people knew of any relationship, the better. He told her he would make supper for her and they would watch some cd movies afterward, told her over the phone to tell her parents that she was going out with friends, be back whenever she did just that.

Mick looked out of the front window and saw Melissa’s car pull up, he thought. "Her car…have to take care of that later." He watched her walk up to the front door. He looked around as best he could to see anyone watching; he saw no one. His mom went to see her sister this weekend, so she would be gone the whole week. He quickly remembered when his mom and dad got divorced when he was a kid, the loud arguments, dad slapping mom several times. He felt useless for not helping mom, but at the time, he somehow felt it was not his problem. Melissa looked very good as she walked up to the front door, with long blond hair, a white t-shirt, and blue jeans with legs torn off. Awesome.

"Hi Missy," he opened the door for her without her knocking, got her into the house quickly.

"Hey Mick," she came in and put her purse on the coat hangers, and took her shoes off. "Oh, smells good."

Capsule Reality

“Yeah, I dug the buffet, just had me a French omelet and a strawberry shake, and I still feel hungry…” David responds.

“Your stomach’s full, you idiot, your hunger ain’t,” Ray says; oh well, you got that right, said Ray in a seductive tone, and winked at David.

David laughs and says, “not like that, you ass!” “So, what's the schedule look like?” he asked ray.

His answer was, “well, we have the presentation at two, so we go on as usual. There's a quality analysis case study scheduled, which we will be over with by the time the presentation starts. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, the CEO of Barbs corp. Mr. Mark Doherty!” The crowd applauded. Why wouldn’t they? This was their boss, who they needed to suck up to or else face the repercussions. Anyone who has worked in an office knows how it is and just how important it is for an employee to fake it in front of their boss.

The crowd was a mix of employees. Businessmen, media, government officials, and lawmen all made up the crowd that was in the office. No one was unnecessary, and each person was a cog that worked the machinery of the company so that it could achieve its goal. A crowd had come together to see what the CEO had to say to his employees. People's faces were painted with both curiosities surrounding the future as well as dismay at being made to listen to someone speaking so early in the morning. Most people are ok with it, but for the ones who aren’t, this can be nothing short of torturous.

David and Ray come quickly in between the crowd and manage to get a seat further away from the stage. Ray wasn’t the biggest fan of listening to his CEO ramble on about different things, so he decided to sit at the farthest possible seat in the crowd.

“Ah, I can barely see the man from here,” said David, to which Ray responded: “Who cares? All that food makes me sleepy anyway.” Said Ray as he hunched down the seat.

Mark is seen coming to the stage with a big smile and his hand high above, greeting the crowd and stepping towards the mic. He is in his late 30’s to early ’40s, white, tall, blonde slick black hair, and wore a navy blue three-piece with a white shirt and brown shoes.

Extra-terrestrial

It was a cold winter night. The wind was howling. I, Sally Cooper, was lying in my bed. “What is life?” I thought to myself. I was rather sad. For reasons beyond my control, my heart ached.

I had a difficult childhood. Among other things, I was a sensitive child. I couldn’t share my mother with anyone... by anyone, I mean, not even my siblings. She was on a mission to destroy my father since their breakup, and still to this day, don’t have kind words to say, and because she blames me for everything or says I'm not doing right leaves darkness in my heart. I love my mother, but I think she was abused as a child since all of her children were.

I like my stepdad, but there is a lot he doesn't know. He loves my mother a lot, and I respect him for this. However, I still didn’t like sharing mom with anyone. This isn't because of jealousy; this is because she hates the fact that I'm smart and pretty. And tries to control me. She is the most two-faced woman I have ever met and has dark secrets that ever surfaced would shame her. Even this doesn’t bother me anymore.

After all, she was my mother. A part of yearning lingered in my heart. Undiscovered territories of love were yet to be conquered.

Not that, something which gave me enough yearning and affection helped me in sharing my mom with other people around me, but it gave me satisfaction, and it gave me a sense of belonging.

For a moment, that happened too abruptly... I didn’t expect the best thing in my life to come like this. It was dark. I turned off my reading lamp and was about to delve into the world of dreams, where everything was perfectly fine.

Kill with a Shot

Abraham Beaumont was tired of the war in front of him, "Damn Germans," he whispered. He felt as though WW1 would be coming to an end soon. He viewed the bunkers, barbed wire, wounded soldiers, trenches for communication, and food for starving men. The front he perceived, he judged, had enemies 50 yards away, ingested their trenches. He was a French Captain, been in the Ypres Salient for over a year, and it was towards the end of October 1918.

Edgar, a mere private but Captain Beaumont's favorite inferior, crawled up slowly near the captain and gave him a monocular, whispered, "What do you see, Abee?”

He used his aunt’s phone for about one hour before he went to sleep on her bed

"Not much," he whispered back, put the monocular up to his left eye, "I have seen the tops of men's heads moving south in their bunkers. I think they are trying to move heavy stuff, a new canon or chemicals to throw in our face."

"Those fucking bastards," replied Ed, "I would rather be shot than breathe that crap they throw like grenades."

"They are desperate; they are losing this war and this battle. Desperate men would do anything to turn the tide in their favor."

Ed looked at his captain, he knew he was sharp-witted and intelligent when it came to analyzing and scanning the enemy, but his entire time, Ed never saw Abee kill anything. He gave orders; that was pretty much it.

"Abee," said Ed. "We have some more soldiers coming in to end this war, the general and all the upper management think these are the final days for our enemy, we must know to ourselves and them the end will be soon, more backup will let the Germans know that too."

Chanuka

"Aaaaah….." He woke up with a thud. He saw on both his sides. He was in a small room with bunkers. The paint on the walls was scraped, and the room was dimly lit. There was no one in the room. He was all by himself. He looked at the ceiling and began to examine it. He was in a room and not a camp. He got up from the bed and began to examine the bulbs… they were actually bulbs and not gas lamps.

"Phew…" he let out a sigh of relief. They say this happens when a person is suffering from an acute stress disorder. This is common in the contemporary world, and it has been common in the past as well. Psychological shocks are common among people who have witnessed terrible and traumatic situations in their lives. Not only teenagers of any time, but it is common among war veterans, soldiers, and army combat doctors.

As the 20th century witnessed the end of World War II, when America bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki as its signatory move; it was evident that the bombing didn’t only have physical effects on the people of the land, but it also retained its psychological effects.

Psychologists in the 1950s reported that teenagers who were relatively young when the bombing occurred showed signs of the effects it had caused. Not only this, the victims and witnesses also showed neurotic symptoms of general fatigue, dissociation, and feeling immobile. Whilst the trauma continued; these people became a victim of autonomic nerve imbalance. On account of the devastations that the atomic bombing caused, they would occasionally feel a sense of chill or burning through their veins; known as palpation.

Echos

In the calm of the night, whilst deep in his sleep, Joseph was abruptly awakened out of his slumber. His eyes opened wide and stared into the abyss of darkness ahead, as he gasped for air. He sat upon his bed and looked around to see what was going on. In his head, he kept hearing his mother's voice, like a ghost who would silently haunt his existence; her voice was always there with him. Ever since she had died and moved on, Joseph was under the impression that she was still there, not in reality, but in some sort of supernatural way like one would see in the movies. During the eerie hours of the night, a breeze blew in from the window, and Joseph began to shiver on the spot. Gazing out of the window, the rustling of decaying leaves coupled with the snapping of twigs riddled the air with an almost horror-movie like vibe. He slid out of bed, locked the window shut, and waddled over to the kitchen to get a glass of water. It was still the early days of autumn, so little remnants of the summer still showed up here and there and were sometimes accompanied by a peculiar rise in temperature.

Joseph stood in the kitchen, glass in hand, sinking into a trance of thought before snapping out of it and returning back to his bed. He cranked up the AC and pulled the covers over his head. Underneath the sheets, he wept as he began to miss his mother, as she had passed away three years before, after struggling with diabetes for much of her adult life. The condition had riddled her with pain, and doctors' visits started to become more frequent as her end drew near. Joseph always stood by his mother's side to make sure she was as comfortable as possible. He did everything that he thought and believed would be enough to support her, but in his head, he always wondered if he had done enough. Did she get what she was entitled to; did she leave anything out when caring for her? These questions were always swarming around his head, and he wondered if they were true. A direct result of this wondering was that she now always lived in his head, not like some sort of disease, but as a part of who he was. It is for this reason that he always felt as if she was right there with him, even if it was just in spirit.

The next day, Joseph decided to dress better than usual for work. He pulled out a powder blue shirt, dark blue dress pants, and a dark blue blazer. He added to this a red tie and silver cufflinks, he felt he looked like a man ready to make a difference. He did not always dress this way and would often barely dress appropriately for the occasion. However, the nature of his work forced him to dress in a way that he wasn't comfortable with, but because his job brought in the money, he had no choice. He walked out of the door, locking it behind him. He walked to the bus stop and waited for his daily commute. Standing next to him was a mother and her baby in his cart. While Joseph was scrolling through his emails, he felt as if someone was looking at him, he looked around, and everyone seemed to be minding their own business. When he looked down, the little baby was staring at him with his eyes and mouth wide open. Glistening against the morning sun, the baby's eyes stared at him lovingly, which made Joseph smile from ear to ear.

Reckoning

Ear-splitting noise and the terrifying sensation of being thrown out of bed woke Camelia to a world in flames. Her first thought was that it must be an earthquake, but as her eyes flew open and she looked around, she knew something else must have happened. The shaking walls and thick smoke flooding the room through her open door told her there was a fire nearby. She saw the flickering hues of red and orange that danced upon the door and froze in fear.

A ragged breath introduced thick smoke into her lungs, and she began to cough. The cough felt as if it nearly tore her lungs apart and finally motivated her to get on her feet. Her mind screamed at her to find an escape route out of the burning home. She looked towards the door, but even from a few feet away, she could feel the heat of the inferno. As she looked out into the rest of her home, she saw nothing but flickering orange and red mixed with rolling waves of black and gray. The wood from the house was being consumed by the flames, and she didn’t have long left to escape.

The sound of something crashing outside of her bedroom echoed throughout the house, distracting her for a second and enhancing her fear. It sounded like the world was coming down around her.

She remained stunned, frozen with disbelief, when flames rolled rapidly into her room through the open door, engulfing the walls with blazing scarlet. Again, her brain reminded her that she was running out of time. The house was built on wooden pillars, and if the fire weakened them enough, the house would collapse and bring the whole roof down on her.

Glancing behind her, she realized that the window was the only escape she had. The previous occupant of the house had painted the bedroom, including the window, and had managed to seal it shut. She’d meant to fix that problem since she’d moved in but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. She’d have to break the glass to get through. It would be simple enough to break the glass, but she had another problem to deal with. The window was almost seven feet off the ground. It wasn’t the biggest drop, but right below the window was a small border of stones that ran along the house’s outer boundary. If she didn’t jump far enough, she would end up landing on them, and that could mean broken bones.

The idea of HIM

I'm awaken by my phone ringing. It’s an unknown number that flashes across my screen. I hit the silent button, laying my head back on my pillow, and fall asleep.

I am sitting on the couch watching tv, while my dad is in the kitchen frying fish from a great weekend at the cabin. He comes into view as the sun is shining through the dining room window before it's time for supper.

"Dad, do you need any help with dinner?" I call out to him. He doesn't reply to me. I call out to him once again, and there is no response from him. He doesn't even turn to look at me. He's just standing there staring out from the window. Beams of light shine on him as the sun is setting. I leave the couch and walk towards him.

As I approach him and place my hand on his shoulder, I softly say, "Dad?" He vanishes, and there are dust particles where he was standing. They are floating around through the air in the beam of sunlight.

I spring awake in a panic. I’m dripping with sweat and start to cry. It is the first time I have dreamt about my dad since he passed away. I am confused as to why he will not look at me in my dream nor answer me. I swear the dream felt so real. It was like he was there staring out of the window.

I walk to the bathroom while collecting myself from that bizarre dream. The light at the top of my phone is blinking. I swipe the screen to unlock it. I see that I have a missed call from Jason and an unknown number. There are three text messages from Jason, as well as a few messages from coworkers, and Troy.

Communication - A Phenomenon

In the previous chapter, we spoke about effective communication. In this chapter, we will go into detail about what that actually entails. Whenever you communicate with anyone, you will realize the other person is continuously missing your point for one reason alone. That reason is unclear communication. This is a phenomenon that’s very prevalent in parent and child communication, especially grown-up children. Effective communication requires clarity. You need to make sure your child completely understands and doesn’t get the wrong meaning. Grown-up children are quite sensitive and can easily be influenced by others. Teenagers are more vulnerable in the category of grown-up children. It’s kind of a time of self-discovery for especially teenagers.

Let’s talk about teenagers here first. When they enter middle and high school, later on, they start seeing themselves going through a lot of changes. Their hormones are active, resulting in physical and even emotional changes within them. They’ll face a whole myriad of issues that would include relationships with the opposite sex, crushes, confidence issues, and peer pressure, and other such issues. At these times, teenagers are also quite impressionable. They will face their first romances, heartbreaks, and breakups, and that could lead to a lot of negative behavior and depression. These are times when your teenager will want to look up to you. You should be his first point of contact when it comes to any of these issues instead of getting advice from others. Any such negative experiences can push them towards drugs and other substance abuse. You need to guide them effectively, which means clear communication. When there is clear communication, then the teenager will understand you much better and apply your suggestions and recommendations better. This also goes back to what we discussed in the first chapter. This is the time you can talk about your own days as a teenager and relate to their issues that way. You can adapt the strategies of your time to today if need be, but it needs to be explained properly.

When it comes to clear communication, it needs to be done both ways. Clear communication would require you, as a parent, to listen to your child properly. You can perhaps, as a therapist, take notes when your child is speaking to you about his or her issues at school. Let’s say your teenager comes to you and is discussing a recent breakup with you. He or she is extremely heartbroken and upset. He or she feels rejected and depressed. He or she even feels that the world is caving in on them, or it’s the end of the world. You need to let them vent to you completely.

Once they have done venting, you should respond to them with the utmost clarity. Be their support and lend them an ear. Embrace them if need be so they know you are there for them and feel their pain. If you have to cry with them, then do that too, so they know you both are on the same page. You need to remind them gently throughout the conversation that it’s not the end of the world, and things will get better. You can help them in two ways. You can try to explain to them clearly if there is a way to mend fences with their former significant other. Or, you can help them provide closure so they can focus on their future relationships properly with a fresh start. Empathy here is very important because you need to be the first person they come to when they have a breakup. You should guide them properly through the healing period. You should be very sensitive as they will have mood swings. This is also a time where you should be giving a lot more of your free time to your teenager. You need to make sure that if there is anything she or he is concerned about, he or she could just turn to you. What I mean to say here is that you need to put yourself in their shoes so that effective and clear communication could take place between you and them.

In Search of the Absolute Truth

Do your best shoes have an FBI file?

Y’all ever heard of the time some wacko put a bomb in his shoes and tried to blow up a plane? Pretty famous news story, I tell you. Ever since then, the TSA’s turned into one of those creepy guys in your social media DMs asking for feet pics. Now, if you ask me, the TSA’s always been kinda scummy; all those body scanners and body checks; can’t a woman get some privacy in this world? But this? This was preposterous, asking us to strip off our shoes and reveal our bare feet? OUR NAKED BARE FEET? I could not believe the world would ever be okay with that, but here we are now, slaves to our shoe-stripping overlords.

Now, being the chatterbox that I am, I had a good job in sales. Funny how just a little convincing and some sweet talk has dollars raining down on you. I was so good at ripping people off of their money that they even gave me an award. Outside of the office, they’d probably put you in jail for that, but it’s not even close to the weirdest thing you can go to jail for, as you’ll find out soon enough. So, I’m traveling to Saint Thomas with my co-workers for the award trip and bless the airport security’s souls for making the process smooth. On the other hand, damn the airline, the pilot strolled off to get a donut, and we landed too late to catch the connecting flight. To top it off, I had to throw down money on a hotel room and wait for the next flight. The room smelled of death and cigarettes like a zombie coming out of the grave to hit that one last puff.

Now I’ll tell you; when you’ve had to spend money on a trip that was supposed to be free, broke up with your boyfriend who’s now a million miles away on some god-forsaken planet called Australia, and woken up smelling like you’ve engaged in adultery with a druggie zombie, you won’t be in the best of moods. The worst part was that I cried all night thinking about my now ex-man, closed my eyes for barely a minute, and then it was 5 in the morning. To other people, that might not matter, but I really am not a 5 a.m. person.

I strutted down to check-in wearing jeans and my pride and joy; red patent leather silver studded Stuart Weitzman sandals. These babies had the chunkiest heel you’d ever see in a sandal. I stepped up to the counter as a buff check-in agent scanned me from top to bottom. Damn, I thought; this girl was towering over me like The Hulk; I wouldn’t want those hands anywhere near me. Now She-Hulk here eyed my Weitzman sandals with what I could only describe as immense lust. I met her eyes with a stare that clearly said, “No bitch, mine!” As if she had read my mind, she ordered me to take them off. No uh. Nope. No way was she ever put her filthy hands on these babies. But I looked back up at her, towering above me, a poster child for some steroid company, and decided against taking my chances.

The Coffin World of My Closet

“Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

The evening news was wall-to-wall war and conflict. It was 1968, and the Vietnam War Tet Offensive was in full view to American families at dinner as every frame after bloody TV frame of the carnage for history passed with each second. America was on fire with students protesting the war and race riots in every major city. For me, a highly sensitive 12-year-old boy, it was virtually impossible to escape the horrors on and off the screen. It was self-evident, I suppose that no one escaped the horrors happening across America. My mom and dad were concerned that I was “too sensitive” and were always imploring me to stop being so touchy-feely. If it wasn’t my laugh that threw my dad into a tailspin, it was being too perceptive and reactive, which made the tailspin whirl faster. In the coming years, they would try everything to break me of this unmanly, overly perceptive behavior as well.

During the chaos, I attended Middle School at Newark Academy, one of the oldest prep schools in America. It was also recognized as one of the best preparatory schools in the country. The school’s Mascot, the “Minute Man,” was adopted during its founding, as many of the boys and teachers were enlisted as “minute men” in Washington’s Revolutionary Army. I was the second person in my family to attend NA, as my father also attended the Academy when he was my age. Now, what are the chances that a father and son would have the same 8th grade, math teacher? A zillion to one? Whatever the odds, Mrs. Catherin Lynham taught us both, and she and my dad were good old friends. To add some sparkle to the friendship, my father was a member of the Schools Board of Trustees. I imagined that that had to be the reason I was ‘elected’ as the 8th Grade class president, despite not running for class president. What a weird surprise, I thought. Oddly, no one in the class was upset at the outcome. I supposed Mrs. Lynham’s friendship with my dad was so strong that she must have added several of her own votes to ensure my election and thereby make one happy friend and father. While that was suspicious enough, even more weird was I never passed one of Mrs. Lynham’s math tests. After geometry, when I hit Algebra, I hit the wall. Not to worry, Walter, your class president.

I liked being president as I liked all my classmates, and they liked me too. I was a popular kid and, while not a math student, smart in every other respect. My “sensitivity” underscored my ability to perceive finer points in my studies. It also gave me a strong ability to understand others and to empathize with my classmates. I credit my sensitivity to my popularity, and as time would tell, I went on to successfully run and win in two legitimate elections for class president of my freshman and sophomore year.

I advanced in school and developed a love of the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts, and participated in school plays and sang in the school glee club. I also participated in sports and was part of the Cross-Country, Fencing, and Tennis teams. I was a good runner and an exceptionally good tennis player, but my dad was disappointed that I didn’t play football or basketball, you know, more manly sports. That may be the reason he never attended any of my sporting events. Fencing was for sissy’s, I suppose. But above all of my extracurricular activities, there was one thing I loved doing more than anything: playing the piano.

The Eleventh Hour: Fight against America

As the world can see, America is being stripped of the power she once possessed and is blinded by multiple tactics of the following: The removal of the World Health Organization, the Iranian Arms policies, Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), and a suffering economy. The American dictator, Donald J. Trump, has contributed to these injustices the most. He lacks leadership attributes, acts recklessly, and controls America like a Mob boss instead of leading it like a President. Trump has deprived American citizens of their basic rights and has used code words to incite, activate and cause divisiveness among his followers and citizens who are not a part of his ideology of Make America Great Again (MAGA). Other racist antics, remarks, code words, and phrases of incitement used by Trump include “vicious thugs,” and “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” (what do you have to lose? Referring to black people). Trump has divided this country and shows no empathy for Blacks. He plans to implement the Anti-fascist (ANTIFA) Bill (categorizing the far-left peaceful protesters as terrorists), an excuse against those who would exercise their freedom to protest for their rights, which differs from his support for the Boogaloo boys and their extremist ideologies[A1] . Every time Trump publicly mentions or Tweets MAGA, he is sending a subtle message to his followers. America is on the brink of a civil war between Trump supporters, white supremacists, and ANTIFA’s political movement. A war that is on the people of color. His tweets subtly indicate violence, and they indirectly cause damage and hostility amongst Americans. He then justifies these uprisings against the marginalized community by putting the onus on the governors for not doing their jobs efficiently and failing to restore order. It is about time to keep your eyes and ears open and understand Trump’s message loud and clear. Trump is seizing America’s civil liberties, one policy at a time, both nationally and internationally. For example, international trade and security, relations with foreign nations, interactions for organizations and corporations, and system citizens of the United States. Trump has disrupted foreign policies, to name a few – Nuclear Arms Treaty, International Arms Treaty, and the Open Skies Treaty Withdrawal. This disruption has affected the stability, transparency, and has adversely affected the security of allies and of the United States. Trump did all he could to win a second term Presidency, and even though he didn’t win, he still managed to gain a lot of votes.

His most recent disruptions were to dismantle the postal system. This would affect the mail-in of absentee voting ballots and reject further funding to the postal system. If the post office is not funded, the absentee ballots cannot be mailed out to their full potential. He stated that he would not lose the 2020 presidential elections to Joe Biden (former Vice President of former President Barack H. Obama). Apparently, Trump did all he could to interfere with a fair election, like a partisan. His fear of losing the second term presidency was obvious.

During the 2016 election, rumor has it that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President meddled with the U.S. votes. That’s how Trump was able to win the rigged 2016 elections, and he is labeled as an illegitimate President of the United States of America. Our foreign allies and the world looks at America with sorrow and disbelief. Our Nation is strong and does not have a place for a dictator like Trump.

The Coffin World of My Closet

“Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

The evening news was wall-to-wall war and conflict. It was 1968, and the Vietnam War Tet Offensive was in full view to American families at dinner as every frame after bloody TV frame of the carnage for history passed with each second. America was on fire with students protesting the war and race riots in every major city. For me, a highly sensitive 12-year-old boy, it was virtually impossible to escape the horrors on and off the screen. It was self-evident, I suppose that no one escaped the horrors happening across America. My mom and dad were concerned that I was “too sensitive” and were always imploring me to stop being so touchy-feely. If it wasn’t my laugh that threw my dad into a tailspin, it was being too perceptive and reactive, which made the tailspin whirl faster. In the coming years, they would try everything to break me of this unmanly, overly perceptive behavior as well.

During the chaos, I attended Middle School at Newark Academy, one of the oldest prep schools in America. It was also recognized as one of the best preparatory schools in the country. The school’s Mascot, the “Minute Man,” was adopted during its founding, as many of the boys and teachers were enlisted as “minute men” in Washington’s Revolutionary Army. I was the second person in my family to attend NA, as my father also attended the Academy when he was my age. Now, what are the chances that a father and son would have the same 8th grade, math teacher? A zillion to one? Whatever the odds, Mrs. Catherin Lynham taught us both, and she and my dad were good old friends. To add some sparkle to the friendship, my father was a member of the Schools Board of Trustees. I imagined that that had to be the reason I was ‘elected’ as the 8th Grade class president, despite not running for class president. What a weird surprise, I thought. Oddly, no one in the class was upset at the outcome. I supposed Mrs. Lynham’s friendship with my dad was so strong that she must have added several of her own votes to ensure my election and thereby make one happy friend and father. While that was suspicious enough, even more weird was I never passed one of Mrs. Lynham’s math tests. After geometry, when I hit Algebra, I hit the wall. Not to worry, Walter, your class president.

I liked being president as I liked all my classmates, and they liked me too. I was a popular kid and, while not a math student, smart in every other respect. My “sensitivity” underscored my ability to perceive finer points in my studies. It also gave me a strong ability to understand others and to empathize with my classmates. I credit my sensitivity to my popularity, and as time would tell, I went on to successfully run and win in two legitimate elections for class president of my freshman and sophomore year.

I advanced in school and developed a love of the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts, and participated in school plays and sang in the school glee club. I also participated in sports and was part of the Cross-Country, Fencing, and Tennis teams. I was a good runner and an exceptionally good tennis player, but my dad was disappointed that I didn’t play football or basketball, you know, more manly sports. That may be the reason he never attended any of my sporting events. Fencing was for sissy’s, I suppose. But above all of my extracurricular activities, there was one thing I loved doing more than anything: playing the piano.

Captive

I finally arrived at Miami Airport, and it was just how I had imagined. Feeling a combination of joy and excitement, I was ready to take my initial steps towards a brighter future. Whether did I know that a storm had nearly just begun?

Life had started out quite good for me. I remember being a good student, with a good family of my mother, my father, and two brothers. Up until I was sixteen, life was good and mundane. I was athletic and took part in sports activities in high school. It's strange how once an incident can flip everything around in just a matter of time. Life can be good at one moment and not so much at the next. To my disappointment, I experienced this at quite a young age.

One day "we need to add where you and your friend were standing, like did you just get done with something or were you waiting for someone? Basically, how should we start the story? The story continues from the information we have available.

The guys promised my girlfriend and me to take us home. It was a gloomy winter night. We had no such thoughts of suspicion at the time, mostly because there was no evidence to the contrary. These guys were part of the crowd who we used to hang out with at the time at the local coffee shop after school. That is why there was never any suspicion that the situation could go wrong; my girlfriend and I had seen them around often. After a while, the driver pulled over at a forest in the city. His friend told my girlfriend that he would like to talk to her, and they got out of the car. The driver got out and sat next to me in the car. (He was very friendly, and he was not a bad-looking guy either but definitely had some brain damage. He spoke a little weird, I thought, and I think the other guy was the one in control, and the whole thing was his idea. He was fat and looked genuinely evil. When I saw that they were not going in the direction of our home, I was just hoping that we would survive to get out of the situation with little to no damage. But I started to get scared when the only thing I saw was the forest and fog surrounding us. I had the feeling that this wasn't good at all. When he locked the door, I was scared and just wanted to get it over with. They opened the glovebox on the way and had a gun on them; these guys were both very big. So, I thought that the best way to ensure the least possible damage was to say nothing. I noticed that he locked the doors and started to pull his pants down. He pushed my head on himself and forced me until he had an orgasm. He opened the locks after, while I was in a complete and utter shock. I got out of the car and told my friend that we needed to leave.

Mirage

I still remember it as clearly, as if it were yesterday. Maybe because of the scar it left behind. Back when my mother was washing clothes under the pomegranate tree, I was playing alone nearby my mother as usual. I had just taken a bath and wore a soft, off-white dress with a square embroidered collar. I felt so pretty. However, I was hungry, and the avocado trees in the backyard had only green avocados. I kept looking at the fruit trees to see if something was ripe to eat. The fruit was rare in the house and luxury to eat because grandma Elsa sold the fruit as soon as it ripened. However, it seemed to be my lucky day, as I discovered a pomegranate hiding at the top of the tree, up high. Excited, I told my mother to cut it for me. She refused, saying, “The other children will see you and will want some too.” I added, “But if you cut it for me, I will not let anybody see it. I will go to the end of the yard and hide until I finish it. Besides, there are no children around.” I convinced her. She brought a tall stick to pick the pomegranate. As she tapped on it, it fell down.

At that very moment, all the cousins were coming in, running, from the street. They had been playing, and they saw the fruit falling down. My mother picked the fruit and began to open it. She then gave everyone a piece and gave me a little “leftover” piece. My blood boiled as she gave away the pieces to the other kids, and by the time she gave me the last bit, I had thrown it down on the ground and said firmly, “I don’t want it. I wanted it all. I saw it first! It was mine!”

During the chaos, I attended Middle School at Newark Academy, one of the oldest prep schools in America. It was also recognized as one of the best preparatory schools in the country. The school’s Mascot, the “Minute Man,” was adopted during its founding, as many of the boys and teachers were enlisted as “minute men” in Washington’s Revolutionary Army. I was the second person in my family to attend NA, as my father also attended the Academy when he was my age. Now, what are the chances that a father and son would have the same 8th grade, math teacher? A zillion to one? Whatever the odds, Mrs. Catherin Lynham taught us both, and she and my dad were good old friends. To add some sparkle to the friendship, my father was a member of the Schools Board of Trustees. I imagined that that had to be the reason I was ‘elected’ as the 8th Grade class president, despite not running for class president. What a weird surprise, I thought. Oddly, no one in the class was upset at the outcome. I supposed Mrs. Lynham’s friendship with my dad was so strong that she must have added several of her own votes to ensure my election and thereby make one happy friend and father. While that was suspicious enough, even more weird was I never passed one of Mrs. Lynham’s math tests. After geometry, when I hit Algebra, I hit the wall. Not to worry, Walter, your class president.

I liked being president as I liked all my classmates, and they liked me too. I was a popular kid and, while not a math student, smart in every other respect. My “sensitivity” underscored my ability to perceive finer points in my studies. It also gave me a strong ability to understand others and to empathize with my classmates. I credit my sensitivity to my popularity, and as time would tell, I went on to successfully run and win in two legitimate elections for class president of my freshman and sophomore year.

I advanced in school and developed a love of the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts, and participated in school plays and sang in the school glee club. I also participated in sports and was part of the Cross-Country, Fencing, and Tennis teams. I was a good runner and an exceptionally good tennis player, but my dad was disappointed that I didn’t play football or basketball, you know, more manly sports. That may be the reason he never attended any of my sporting events. Fencing was for sissy’s, I suppose. But above all of my extracurricular activities, there was one thing I loved doing more than anything: playing the piano.

Numbness and Tingling

Getting too old to stand on one's own two feet

Today starts like every other Monday morning. At 6:25 AM, Dr. Naomi Leostein grabs her lunch bag from the fridge and then places it next to the laptop in her handbag. She then blindly reaches for her plaid winter coat before rushing out of the front door. However, this morning provided a little surprise. Four-year-old Nate jumps out from behind the coat rack and shouts, "You found me, Safta." Safta is the Hebrew name for grandma. She was not expecting him to be there at all. She thought that he was still sleeping. Naomi likes it when Nate and his two-year-old sister, Leah, call her Safta. The name "Safta" paints a picture of a youthful grandmother who is loaded with enough energy to keep up with the pace of active grandkids. She is young at heart, mind, body, and soul.

"You scared me. I didn't know that you were hiding there!" Naomi says to her grandson. Little Nate then shrieks with glee. Dr. Naomi says to him, "I will play with you and your sister Leah later. I need to leave for work right now." Naomi asks him, "Do you know if Saba left for work yet?" Saba is the Hebrew name for grandpa. When Naomi asks him about Saba, she is referring to her husband, Ethan. Ethan and Naomi have been married for over 30 years. Little Nate and Leah are the children of their eldest child Shayna. Shayna has been married to a young man named Michael for almost six years now, and they have been living in apartments for most of that time. However, Shayna and Michael have recently purchased their first house. It is located in Fresh Meadows, New York, and this is quite exciting for Naomi and Ethan. Fresh Meadows is located near to them. The name "Fresh Meadows" is a bit deceiving. At the time the colonists settled in Fresh Meadows centuries earlier, it was suffused with meadows fed by freshwater springs. However, by the 1960s, apartment complexes and post-war tract housing would eventually dominate the landscape. The physical presence of fresh meadows is a bit of a rarity now. Shayna and Michael have just bought a cozy, 1200 square foot, three-bedroom house in the Fresh Meadows neighborhood. Despite its small size, it is certainly spacious enough for Shayna, Michael, and their two kids. It has the added advantage of being less than 1.5 miles from Naomi and Ethan's home, which is located in Jamaica Estates, Queens.

In addition to their daughter Shayna, Dr. Naomi and Dr. Ethan have two other children who are also now grown adults: Rachel and Adam. Their second daughter, Rachel, is currently engaged to a young man named Dov Heisner. They are planning to get married in the spring at the Crest Hollow Country Club located in Woodbury, New York. This is also where Naomi and Ethan's wedding took place, thirty-plus years earlier. Their son Adam currently lives in Washington, DC. He has a steady girlfriend named Laurie Spreck. Naomi and Ethan greatly miss the everyday hustle and bustle of having their children around them. However, they are happy that Shayna, Michael, and their grandkids are temporarily staying with them while renovations are being completed on Shayna and Michael's new home. After several weeks of construction, the workmen are almost done with the renovation. As soon as the asbestos dust, caused by the removal of the old kitchen floor, is cleared away, they will be ready to move into the new house. Naomi is not eager to see her grandkids, little Nate and Sarah, leave her home. She so much enjoys having them around.

Understanding Mental Toughness

“The strength of your mind determines the quality of your life.”

To talk about mental toughness, we need to understand what that means. In the book “Developing Mental Toughness” by Peter Clough and Doug Strycharczyk, it is defined as “the personality trait which determines in large part how people deal effectively with the challenges, stressors, and pressures… irrespective of circumstances.” A lot of times, how effective we are at tackling life’s problems is determined by our mental toughness, or in other words, the strength of mind.

The same book states that “according to the 4 Cs model, the overall mental toughness is a product of four pillars:

1. Challenge: seeing the challenge as an opportunity.
2. Confidence: having high levels of self-belief.
3. Commitment: being able to stick to tasks.
4. Control: believing that you control your destiny.”

If you’re mentally strong, then you can take on any problem that comes your way or deal with tragedies that would happen to you or your loved ones. When you look at a challenge, you turn those moments into opportunities. When it comes to confidence, you need to know that in your heart and mind, you can take on whatever comes your way. You are very sure of yourself. Commitment means you don’t back down from what you set to do, you stick to your guns, and you will complete the tasks you set out to do. Control means that your destiny is in your hand. You are in charge of your life, and you are secure of yourself. These four traits are very important to have. You need to have these four traits inside you to be mentally tough. It’s extremely important to understand the opening quote of this chapter. The strength of the mind does determine the quality of life. If you’re not mentally strong, you can’t make decisions period. It’s not about making just 31decisions; it’s about making the strong and right decisions.

Your quality of life does get affected as you can slowly slip into depression and self-destruction. You are easily overcome by peer pressure, drugs, alcohol, and substance abuse. If you don’t want to go down that path, you need to develop mental toughness.

Self-awareness

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” – Ralph Ellison

I finally arrived at Miami Airport, and it was just how I had imagined. Feeling a combination of joy and excitement, I was ready to take my initial steps towards a brighter future. Whether did I know that a storm had nearly just begun?

We all want to have confidence and surety with the things that we do in our day-to-day lives. When one talks about being self-aware, what does it mean? To be self-aware or to strive to attain self-awareness is to be able to understand and acknowledge the different things that go on in our heads.

Self-awareness can be as simple as seeing how you feel when you are around friends. While you are supposedly there to unwind and relax, there can be a million things on your mind that have you both consciously and subconsciously troubled. The setting is that of a BBQ with your closest buddies, and you huddled around the grill. The smell of beef cooking and the sound of a beer bottle opening can be everywhere. There is a wholesome and positive vibe going around. While you are laughing and evidently having a good time inside your head, it is a completely different story. There are insecurities that you are battling, worries that are wearing you down, problems that seemingly have no solution in sight. These things take a toll on you inside. Knowing that, acknowledging that, and understanding that is self-awareness.

However, it is sometimes more complex than this as well. There are times when self-awareness is far more complex than all of this. Have you ever had a lot to do, i.e., work, school, assignments, obligations, which you know are important, but for some reason, you just cannot gather the energy to get up and get the work done? You lay in bed, staring into the abyss with the burden of your thoughts weighing down on you. It could be finals week in college with all of these deadlines coming at you, yet nothing is seemingly affecting you, or it is affecting you so much that you've raised a white flag and admitted defeat. This leads you to feel as if you are stuck and have nowhere to go. The impending thoughts of having to get all of this stuff done make you feel even worse than you already do. Realizing and knowing that this is something that is affecting you is self-awareness.

Thinking Beyond

When I turned 22 years old, I felt like my life needed a restart. We live in an era where movie franchises are constantly rebooted, so why can't we restart our lives. Movie studios look at those franchises and see where they went wrong, and by starting fresh, they can make a good movie that can spin off into sequels and beyond. Why can't we do the same with our own lives? We can also do a self-analysis and see what is wrong or right in our life and then see how we can improve things. Sometimes, we all even require a fresh start. We can take the good and improve on it while starting out fresh. So, on my 22nd birthday, I made a clear and concise decision to restart my life. What was important for me to analyze was the negativity in my life that was bringing me down. The negativity consisted of my ego, materialism (greed), jealousy, fear, worry, care, insecurity, and all other negative emotions that I had been feeling. Once I removed all these emotions from my life and personality, I felt like a rebooted movie franchise too. I felt like a new man. It felt like I was born again. Most people use the "born again" phrase for a religious reawakening or a spiritual reawakening, but I am using this phrase for a more personal reawakening that perhaps encompasses all that and more. These things are important because what we realize is that we are the ones who bring ourselves down. Having a fresh start in life is great, but we need to analyze what is not needed in this fresh start. You have to feel like a baby. You have to learn to discover new things as you've never done them before. You look at similar experiences in a new way. Your mindset and outlook in life have to be different and a whole lot more positive. It is important to think positively. It is important to know that now you will make a difference in your life and, in turn, others around you. To be honest, our insecurities are our greatest enemy, and almost all times, they create differences between ourselves and our loved ones, or rather those that matter to us. Once we get rid of those and other negative emotions, we feel renewed and refreshed. Our insecurities and fears will get us down and block us from moving ahead, and it's important we realize that we are bigger and better than that. We can't let them slow us down in the pursuit of our own immaterial happiness.

At that very moment, all the cousins were coming in, running, from the street. They had been playing, and they saw the fruit falling down. My mother picked the fruit and began to open it. She then gave everyone a piece and gave me a little “leftover” piece. My blood boiled as she gave away the pieces to the other kids, and by the time she gave me the last bit, I had thrown it down on the ground and said firmly, “I don’t want it. I wanted it all. I saw it first! It was mine!”

I wanted to think beyond my ego, insecurities, and other negative emotions. I felt it was important to rise above all this negativity to become a newer person. I also realized a few things. Most importantly, I was able to see the world and my own self a lot more closely than ever before and perform a much better self-analysis. I was able to humble myself and break free of all the mental and emotional shackles that had chained me forever. These negative emotions I speak of are like colored lenses. When we have, for example, ego, we look at everything in life through those colored lenses. We look at the world and form opinions and interpretations of everything inside it through those lenses. It forms our worldview, and that can, unfortunately, be an unclear worldview. The worst thing we do is that every action and interaction we do in the world is derived from that worldview. We impact not just us but those around us with our actions and interactions. Even worse is the life decisions we make based on this worldview we have developed for ourselves. Those decisions become disasters and have long-standing consequences that impact us all our lives. We have to live with the choices we make, and a bad decision can't be reversed in the same way a good decision can't be. A few long-term consequences are bad relationships and life failures. You feel uneasy, and not at peace at all with yourselves. You feel unhappy, and you increase and attract more negativity. Once it goes downhill, it keeps going downhill, leading to depression. That's not the state anyone of us wants to be in at all. Being in a state of depression is one of the lowest lows we can put ourselves in. We become super negative, and those negative emotions I have mentioned above increase ten-fold. When we reach this state where we've simply almost given up on life, we can do two things.

We can lift ourselves up by shedding the emotions and going through a restart, or we can choose to end things, and no one wants to go there. Suicidal tendencies are common in people suffering from such massive depression, which is why a restart is essential before reaching that state of mind. What I am explaining to you is a chain of events that negative emotions can create for us. In summary, these simply shape our worldview as they are akin to colored lenses, and we see our life through those lenses. Our decisions shape up our lives, and these decisions are derived from that worldview. The results can be disastrous for us, our loved ones, and everyone around us. We tend to ignore and overlook the impact of our decisions on our loved ones. To be honest, these are the ones that matter more than anyone else in the world. Having said that, every human being matters, but our loved ones feel more impacted by our negative and positive decisions than others.

Most importantly, we can totally lose ourselves in the process. That's when we find ourselves in this never-ending bottomless pit of negativity. It's a vicious cycle that we find ourselves in, and it's not great at all. The worst part is that we can't climb back up, and even when we can, it takes a lot out of us. Clearly, none of us want to be in that position at all. It's the worst of the worst, and to reach that point is only going to lead to self-destruction.

So, for example, when we do find ourselves sinking in the bottomless pit I mentioned above, we would tend to ask ourselves what's going wrong in our lives and what bad decisions I have made. Then we also try to find solutions to the problems posed by the impact of the decisions. There's one extremely fatal error we're making, and that is what we need to figure out. The answer is right in front of us, and it's very simple. We still have our colored lenses on! Even while we're doing our self-analysis, we are still doing it based on the worldview that we have acquired from the colored lenses. That's a huge hindrance for us because we keep looking for the answers inside of us. How could we look for those answers with the ego-tinted lenses that have formed our worldview? It's not fair to us either because we will not be able to judge ourselves accurately with those lenses. It's sad but true, but these are like shackles that have bound us, and we need to break free from them, which leads me to my first step.

Look for explanations, not excuses

"The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it." ― Jordan Belfort

Life has a way of going in one direction at one time and flipping on its head at another time. Our lives can change in the blink of an eye, and there is often not much we can do to avoid it. There are instances when things are going as smoothly as one can dream of, but then without a moment's notice, the tide comes in and washes everything away. Right in front of our eyes, everything that we worked hard for or waited to get was taken, and we are left wondering how it went so wrong. There are always reasons for this happening, whether it is your own fault or the deviousness of someone else. In both cases, you are the one who has to pick the pieces that are left behind. You are the person who has to make a choice where you can either pick up the pieces and start again or sit there in a mess, crying.

Now, I understand that it is never easy to be in a situation like this. You have just lost something that you hold dear to you and must now cope with the loss. Some people tend to succumb to this and begin plunging in a downward spiral. They begin to lash out at the people who might not even be involved in the incident and choose to blame others for their own shortcomings or loss. This is wrong. Laying the blame on others does not do much; it only pollutes a relationship because of unnecessary finger-pointing when the right way to move ahead would be to take a step back. Doing this gives you the ability to assess what has happened, see how far and wide the damage is, and formulate what your next step is. You will be able to get an explanation as to what went wrong and where. This way, you will learn how to do and also how not to do the same thing, which will allow you to build on your past mistakes and failures.

On the other hand, throwing a tantrum about it all will not get you too far. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, it is unfair. But it is also a reality, and we must accept it. The sooner we are able to look past this, the sooner we will be able to climb out of these tough times. In order to change the way that you think, according to my research, I have come up with a few tips and tricks to help with this.

• ● Consider the importance of adopting the change: The toughest pill to swallow is that of change. Abandoning a habit or way of life that holds you back is never an easy task, but it is the first step in changing your fate. One way of convincing yourself is by explaining the importance of it by personally doing a cost-benefit analysis. You will see how much your bad habits are holding you down from being somewhere that is a lot better than you are right now.
• ● Embrace the idea of experimentation: They say that when there is a risk, there is either loss or reward. Therefore, higher risk = higher reward/loss. You will never find out what way the seesaw might tilt, but until and unless you don't try, there will never be an answer.

Seductive love: Infidels and love birds

laire Winger was a beautiful woman, or so Ian thought. He was smitten by her eyes. They were a deep shade of green and shone like emeralds in the darkness around them. While she was beautiful, Ian wasn’t one to let the wrong idea in his head. The obvious baby bump hinted to him that she was or had been married but decided not to ask any personal questions in her present state of shock. He decided to wait for her to regain her composure before pressing for more information.

Ian felt sorry for her. The sudden loss of her house and nobody to go to for support would leave anyone distraught, he thought to himself. But he was there, and he knew that he could help her. His mind wandered to the Mansion; a shelter run by his good friend Paul. It would be the perfect refuge for Claire. Although it was quite a long way upstate, things would work out if he could manage to get Claire all the way there. Paul and Catarina always had a room empty no matter what, so a place to stay was guaranteed.

As he considered the prospect, he looked at the watch on his wrist. His shift was almost up, which meant that he could help her out almost immediately. He looked up at Claire and met her green eyes with his.

The idea of HIM

I'm awaken by my phone ringing. It’s an unknown number that flashes across my screen. I hit the silent button, laying my head back on my pillow, and fall asleep.

I am sitting on the couch watching tv, while my dad is in the kitchen frying fish from a great weekend at the cabin. He comes into view as the sun is shining through the dining room window before it's time for supper.

"Dad, do you need any help with dinner?" I call out to him. He doesn't reply to me. I call out to him once again, and there is no response from him. He doesn't even turn to look at me. He's just standing there staring out from the window. Beams of light shine on him as the sun is setting. I leave the couch and walk towards him.

As I approach him and place my hand on his shoulder, I softly say, "Dad?" He vanishes, and there are dust particles where he was standing. They are floating around through the air in the beam of sunlight.

I spring awake in a panic. I’m dripping with sweat and start to cry. It is the first time I have dreamt about my dad since he passed away. I am confused as to why he will not look at me in my dream nor answer me. I swear the dream felt so real. It was like he was there staring out of the window.

The Religion of Lust

An ecstatic tale of pursuing sexual realms with a nanny

How many times did they end up in the lounge like this??? Aidan thought to himself. It wasn’t the fact that people having sex was unearthly to him. He just didn’t expect to see that.

*Knock knock*

Aidan just came back to reality. Someone was knocking on his bedroom door. “Come in.” He replied. It was his father, Nicholas.

“Can we talk?” Said, Nicholas. “Should we?” Replied Aidan.

Nicholas sat by Aidan’s side. “Look, I know you didn’t want to see what you saw, but let’s be real, there wasn’t anything bad in that. Was there? I enjoyed it, and Julia enjoyed it. You just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time!”

“Dad…” Mr. Parker interrupted him. “Look! I was never happy with your mom and neither with all those one-night stands! But Julia… she has been a pleasure to be with!”

“And why is that so? If I am may ask!” said Aidan.

“She is… she is sexy, she is best in bed, she….” “Dad!” Aidan cut him. “Is that it to woe away all our worries? Good sex?” Aidan became defensive.

“Well… you’d know when you experience; if you have anything else to say, I’m just a call away.” With this, Mr. Parker left the room.

Aidan had his answers, at least to some extent. One that his father wasn’t going to give a shit about him even at this point in time; second, he had to find someone or something else to let out his anger and his frustration.

Unfathomable Love

I was dancing for money and was also affecting people with my touch. I had not forgotten what the psychic had told me and how my ability to heal people through touch and connection worked. I tried my best to heal and console as many people as I could during that time. I felt a sense of purpose when I did that, and it helped me a lot. I felt happy that I had helped them, and it gave me a good feeling. I was good at what I did and was making good bucks, but the healing aspect was also a significant part of it.

It is imperative to mention here that the Wall Street guy from New York reached out to me once again. I had forgotten him and all about that encounter with him, but as soon as he reached me, all the floodgates of memories started overflowing, and every second of the past encounter was playing in front of my eyes. My previous experience with him had been quite incomplete, to say the least, and had left me guilt-ridden. I had no contact with him, but he managed to reach out to me somehow. I was astonished initially, but he was a resourceful person and found me out easily. He offered me a very lucrative deal, ludicrous at the same time too! He offered me a huge amount of money and wanted me to be his travel companion on his trip to Las Vegas. It was a very substantial amount and could have potentially solved a lot of my financial issues. I informed my mentor about the whole offer and this sudden development. I told her that his interest was not only the tantric session; he wanted more than that. He wanted to be physical with me, and his motives were something that would have wronged my profession had I agreed! My mentor’s reply confused me and also shook me. She told me to act like I was romantically interested in him and should coax money out of him. He was filthy rich, and he had the money. I took the advice, but I questioned her morals after this conversation. I doubted her integrity and the face she had been wearing in front of us. Tantra is about honesty, healing, and love. This was quite the opposite of what she had always been preaching. I was baffled by this, and this confusion is what spurred me on, and I took his offer.

He flew me to Las Vegas in first class, and I had never stepped foot in first class before. The hotels we stayed at were of the highest quality and provided the best services. I was pretending to like him, but I had to admit that I was physically attracted to him. His power and his wealth attracted me, and the whole BDSM factor attracted me a lot as well. He was 50 years old, and he had a son from some other woman. I was momentarily attracted, but I could never see myself settling down with someone like him. I was perhaps still hung up on Conrad, the vision board guy! I went with him to hotel rooms and explored BDSM to such heights that I understood every aspect of it. He even took me on a helicopter ride to see the Grand Canyon, and he was being very generous. To return his generosity, I fucked him, oh I fucked his brains out. It was a steamy session of hardcore sex with bondage and kinky play. He taught me a lot about BDSM, and I learned it quickly. Before long, I was like an expert, and the pleasure was something I had never experienced before. He was a skilled love maker, and he satisfied me every time!

It was around that time when I noticed that I started to develop some feelings for him. This man had treated me like a queen, and I was starting to feel indebted, or perhaps those were genuine feelings of affection; I was a bit confused. I was enchanted by him and could almost picture myself living with him and marrying him. There was surely a connection that was building between us. I was still thinking about Conrad at times and Kundalini yoga at times in a small corner of my mind! I shook my head and decided to live in the moment; I wasn’t with Conrad, I was with him, and I decided to focus my attention and energy on him. Conrad was something from the past, and he was my present. I enjoyed a lot with him, but the trip had to end one day. I went back to LA, but soon after that, he contacted me again and asked me if I was willing to visit Mexico with him! I said yes even before his sentence had finished. He flew me in first-class again and gave me the most lavish lifestyle I had ever imagined. He fixed up bubble baths for me every night and treated me so well. He indulged me in BDSM again, and by this time around, I was trained and raring to go. I enjoyed the days traveling and the nights fucking! It was during these days that he started talking to me about his life and his childhood. He had led a very sad early life, and his childhood was a nightmare. He had been through a lot of traumas, and as he was narrating this to me, he broke down in tears. I had never seen a grown man cry before. I did not know what to do, and I tried to console him. I was flabbergasted when it struck me. It was time for me to excel as a healer and cure him. Destiny had brought him to me, and it was my utmost duty to cure him and heal him. He had told me initially that he had always faced difficulty while expressing himself, but when he was with me, he was expressing himself, and he was letting his emotions show. It was a huge improvement! This was divine intervention. I had a chance to heal him, and I was not going to let this chance go. The more he talked to me and told me about his life, the more compassion I felt for him and more and more affection for him. This was when the confusion ended; Conrad faded in the background and was now murky. As he talked to me, I felt love for him, I felt genuine love for him in my heart, and it warmed me to my core. I wanted to nurture him, I wanted to love him, and I wanted to shower him with my love to make up for the traumas he had faced in his childhood. He had been treating me like a goddess, and I was now ready to return him the blessings!

Cooker’s War on Boogers

It’s holiday time, and oh what fun. Fall leaves have fallen, Spring has sprung, and Summer was full of hot beachy sun. But now it’s time for Winter fun.

Winter was Timmy’s favorite time of year. Sledding, snowing, hot cocoa-ing, children’s Christmas lists were growing! Timmy simply could not wait; it was almost time for Winter break.

Timmy loved coming to school. His teacher Mr. Bookman was the coolest of the cool. And Timmy also had many friends, named Sara, Peter, Clark and Fin! His class was great, and they were extra jolly, it was only seven more days until their holiday party.

Though the classroom was decked oh so grand, there were a group of germs who had other plans. While Timmy and his classmates were being smarties, The Booger Gang was ready to ruin the party.

“I’ll make them sneeze!” said Snosie Spittersplat. “It’ll help the Germy Wormys spread this way and that.”

Mr. Coughinhog said “That will be grand! You know that kids hate to wash their hands! A little cough here and a big cough there, the Germy Wormys will be everywhere!”

Mucusmaximus boasted, “They’ll high-five their friends and give big hugs, they’ll share their food, and maybe the juice from their mugs. They’ll wipe their noses with their hands or their sleeves, pick their boogers and leave them places you wouldn’t believe!”

The Booger Gang put their plan into action, and upon their satisfaction, before poor Timmy and his friends could blink their eyes, the kiddos began to drop like flies!

Amanda and Alena go on an Adventure

Amanda and Alena are the best of friends. They do everything together: eat, sleep, run, and play in the field.

When Alena can’t see Amanda, she calls out to her friend, and Amanda calls back. The two friends are inseparable.

One day Amanda noticed that the barn door was left open just wide enough for both her and Alena to sneak through. They had to be very quiet because the farmer was fast asleep on a bale of hay.

Amanda being the curious, young, naive horse that she was, slipped past the farmer and out the barn door, down the windy path to explore the rest of the farm.

A wide farm stretched before her eyes; there was so much to see, so much to hear, so much to listen to, and so much to eat.

Alena being like a mother to Amanda, could not let her go out into the world by herself, so she decided to go after her but not before stealing a bite of hay from where the farmer was sleeping. “A little snack for the road,” exclaimed Alena.

Amanda was already halfway down the path when she heard the sound of hooves coming up behind her. Alena finally caught up to Amanda and said, “We shouldn’t be out here. If we get caught, there will be trouble.” Amanda said they wouldn’t be gone long and that it was going to be fun. And it was fun.

Tony, the donkey, ran along the fence line, “Hey girls, where are you going? Shouldn’t you be in the field?”

“We’re going on an adventure,” Amanda and Alena both let out a playful neigh.

Alena and Amanda saw all kinds of different things, from butterflies landing on their noses to bumbling bees landing on all the colorful flowers. It was a picture-perfect summer day.

They even made some new friends along the way. They met Nellie, the Border Collie, who stopped to say a quick hello before going back to herding the sheep into their pen in a perfect line.

Further down the farm, Penny, the barn cat, came running down the grass, “Have you seen Jerry, the house mouse? We are playing hide and seek, and I can’t find him anywhere.” Amanda looked around briefly but saw no sign of Jerry, “I can’t see him anywhere.”

It was then Alena’s turn to look for Jerry. Alena being the older, wiser mare, started to look and sniff around when she spotted the leaf pile the farmer had just collected. She nodded her head towards the pile where Jerry’s tail stuck out of the break in the leaves.

A bit too sweet

However, one fine day Angelo ends up going to the mall with his mommy and daddy for a quick shopping trip.

That day, surprisingly, the mall had a "sweet day." The mall was full of sweet-themed characters like people in Kit-Kat, Snickers, Mars, and other sweet-based costumes. Suddenly, Angelo got so excited after seeing the entire mall dressed up in his favorite sweet treats. It had been over a month since he had not had a single bar of chocolate. He got so excited and told his mommy and daddy, "Mommy, Daddy, look! There are sweet treats everywhere!" Mommy and Daddy got very stunned. They weren't happy at all. They wanted to leave the mall that very instant. Daddy told Angelo, "Son, you know what the doctor told you. These are bad for you. Let's go to GameStop nearby. I heard there are some new games out for the PlayStation." Angelo was ignoring his mommy and daddy all this time, but he only heard GameStop from his daddy. He then said, "Sure. Let's go to GameStop." Just as they were about to leave the mall, he saw a big and colorful sign that said, "Sweet Mart. This way, please!" Angelo started begging and pleading with his parents to go to the Sweet Mart. He shouted, "Mommy, Daddy, please let me go to the Sweet Mart!" His daddy and mommy said no, but he insisted. He dragged them there. All this time, daddy was saying that GameStop would close, so they should leave now. Angelo didn't care. He wanted to go to the Sweet Mart. Once he got to the Sweet Mart, it was like a dream house for sweet lovers. His mommy and daddy stopped him, but he started screaming. He ran away from them inside the Sweet Mart. It was a huge supermarket size store; all dressed up in chocolate and candies. There were tons of children there with their own mommies and daddies. Angelo had run inside, and his mommy and daddy went after him. They tried looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found. The Sweet Mart was a maze. There were so many kids, and they all looked like Angelo, so his mommy and daddy were very confused. They started shouting his name, but Angelo didn't hear them. They decided to talk to mall security.

When Angelo was inside, he couldn't stop himself from enjoying all the sweet treats on the walls and shelves. It was like a sweet, funhouse. There were chocolate shakes, malt drinks, and hot cocoa. Angelo forgot what the doctor told him and started having a lot of Candy. He forgot that he had a very bad stomach ache the last time in school. All this while, mommy and daddy were speaking with security officers to locate their son.

While Angelo was busy enjoying all his sweet treats, He started feeling a little dizzy. It was the same feeling he had before. Angelo was feeling a little sick. Suddenly, he passed out and was in dreamland. In his dreams, he could see himself enjoying all the sweet treats and snacks. He was loving all of it, and he could hear the doctor and his mommy and daddy, but he still enjoyed them. While he was enjoying himself, he heard a voice from afar!

Manners

John had to spend the weekend over his grandparent’s house. He went directly from his school to his grandparent’s place.

After getting back home from school, John entered into his aunt Petunia’s room and took her mobile phone without her permission.

He used his aunt’s phone for about one hour before he went to sleep on her bed

When John woke up in the evening He decided to finish his homework, but couldn’t find his pencil box anywhere He tried to find his box for as long as he could And found out that it was being used by his younger sister Alexis

This made John very upset and he felt uncomfortable He told Alexis that he was worried he had forgotten the box at school because he couldn’t find it And that she should have informed or taken permission from him before taking his pencil box Aunt Petunia was listening to all this from a distance (Illustration: boy explaining to the little girl, while a woman in the 30’s, a redhead, listening to their conversation from the room) When she saw John getting upset at this, she went to him and said, “I gave the box to Alexis so she could finish her work”

At this, John replied that she should have asked before taking his box Aunt Petunia sat down with John and explained to him that he is rightfully upset, and that no one should take his belongings without asking for his permission. She reminded John that neither can he use anyone’s personal belongings without asking for their permission.

A Serial Killer Explanation

“I kill her, and I will be fulfilled…But it never happens…So next woman, I will be fulfilled. But it never happens…So, kill again, I will be fulfilled…But, it never happens…Another girl…Another girl…Another girl…It will go on until I am stopped simply because…I will never be fulfilled! Before the kill, I will be fulfilled, I think I will but by history, I won't…”

- Ted Bundy (Florida State Penitentiary, couple weeks before execution)

A serial killer is typically, by law, a person who kills three or more people. Much of the psychological profile was made from conversations with Ted Bundy. Mental gratification is the usual motive for multiple killings. It does not matter what the FBI's psychological motive is. What does matter is it will never stop. The serial profile varies for different killers, but the real point is that, no matter what reason, the killings will never stop until he is arrested or killed.

Mick finally got a date with Melissa. He had been in contact with her for years. They knew each other for a long time through different friends, although they went to different high schools. It was the summer before they both went to college. They were going to different associations, but both academic societies were in the same city, so they were excited. Mick knew to keep the date hush-hush; fewer people knew of any relationship, the better. He told her he would make supper for her and they would watch some cd movies afterward, told her over the phone to tell her parents that she was going out with friends, be back whenever she did just that.

Mick looked out of the front window and saw Melissa’s car pull up, he thought. "Her car…have to take care of that later." He watched her walk up to the front door. He looked around as best he could to see anyone watching; he saw no one. His mom went to see her sister this weekend, so she would be gone the whole week. He quickly remembered when his mom and dad got divorced when he was a kid, the loud arguments, dad slapping mom several times. He felt useless for not helping mom, but at the time, he somehow felt it was not his problem. Melissa looked very good as she walked up to the front door, with long blond hair, a white t-shirt, and blue jeans with legs torn off. Awesome.

"Hi Missy," he opened the door for her without her knocking, got her into the house quickly.

"Hey Mick," she came in and put her purse on the coat hangers, and took her shoes off. "Oh, smells good."

Capsule Reality

“Yeah, I dug the buffet, just had me a French omelet and a strawberry shake, and I still feel hungry…” David responds.

“Your stomach’s full, you idiot, your hunger ain’t,” Ray says; oh well, you got that right, said Ray in a seductive tone, and winked at David.

David laughs and says, “not like that, you ass!” “So, what's the schedule look like?” he asked ray.

His answer was, “well, we have the presentation at two, so we go on as usual. There's a quality analysis case study scheduled, which we will be over with by the time the presentation starts. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, the CEO of Barbs corp. Mr. Mark Doherty!” The crowd applauded. Why wouldn’t they? This was their boss, who they needed to suck up to or else face the repercussions. Anyone who has worked in an office knows how it is and just how important it is for an employee to fake it in front of their boss.

The crowd was a mix of employees. Businessmen, media, government officials, and lawmen all made up the crowd that was in the office. No one was unnecessary, and each person was a cog that worked the machinery of the company so that it could achieve its goal. A crowd had come together to see what the CEO had to say to his employees. People's faces were painted with both curiosities surrounding the future as well as dismay at being made to listen to someone speaking so early in the morning. Most people are ok with it, but for the ones who aren’t, this can be nothing short of torturous.

David and Ray come quickly in between the crowd and manage to get a seat further away from the stage. Ray wasn’t the biggest fan of listening to his CEO ramble on about different things, so he decided to sit at the farthest possible seat in the crowd.

“Ah, I can barely see the man from here,” said David, to which Ray responded: “Who cares? All that food makes me sleepy anyway.” Said Ray as he hunched down the seat.

Mark is seen coming to the stage with a big smile and his hand high above, greeting the crowd and stepping towards the mic. He is in his late 30’s to early ’40s, white, tall, blonde slick black hair, and wore a navy blue three-piece with a white shirt and brown shoes.

Extra-terrestrial

It was a cold winter night. The wind was howling. I, Sally Cooper, was lying in my bed. “What is life?” I thought to myself. I was rather sad. For reasons beyond my control, my heart ached.

I had a difficult childhood. Among other things, I was a sensitive child. I couldn’t share my mother with anyone... by anyone, I mean, not even my siblings. She was on a mission to destroy my father since their breakup, and still to this day, don’t have kind words to say, and because she blames me for everything or says I'm not doing right leaves darkness in my heart. I love my mother, but I think she was abused as a child since all of her children were.

I like my stepdad, but there is a lot he doesn't know. He loves my mother a lot, and I respect him for this. However, I still didn’t like sharing mom with anyone. This isn't because of jealousy; this is because she hates the fact that I'm smart and pretty. And tries to control me. She is the most two-faced woman I have ever met and has dark secrets that ever surfaced would shame her. Even this doesn’t bother me anymore.

After all, she was my mother. A part of yearning lingered in my heart. Undiscovered territories of love were yet to be conquered.

Not that, something which gave me enough yearning and affection helped me in sharing my mom with other people around me, but it gave me satisfaction, and it gave me a sense of belonging.

For a moment, that happened too abruptly... I didn’t expect the best thing in my life to come like this. It was dark. I turned off my reading lamp and was about to delve into the world of dreams, where everything was perfectly fine.

Kill with a Shot

Abraham Beaumont was tired of the war in front of him, "Damn Germans," he whispered. He felt as though WW1 would be coming to an end soon. He viewed the bunkers, barbed wire, wounded soldiers, trenches for communication, and food for starving men. The front he perceived, he judged, had enemies 50 yards away, ingested their trenches. He was a French Captain, been in the Ypres Salient for over a year, and it was towards the end of October 1918.

Edgar, a mere private but Captain Beaumont's favorite inferior, crawled up slowly near the captain and gave him a monocular, whispered, "What do you see, Abee?”

He used his aunt’s phone for about one hour before he went to sleep on her bed

"Not much," he whispered back, put the monocular up to his left eye, "I have seen the tops of men's heads moving south in their bunkers. I think they are trying to move heavy stuff, a new canon or chemicals to throw in our face."

"Those fucking bastards," replied Ed, "I would rather be shot than breathe that crap they throw like grenades."

"They are desperate; they are losing this war and this battle. Desperate men would do anything to turn the tide in their favor."

Ed looked at his captain, he knew he was sharp-witted and intelligent when it came to analyzing and scanning the enemy, but his entire time, Ed never saw Abee kill anything. He gave orders; that was pretty much it.

"Abee," said Ed. "We have some more soldiers coming in to end this war, the general and all the upper management think these are the final days for our enemy, we must know to ourselves and them the end will be soon, more backup will let the Germans know that too."