History Isn’t Carved In Stone (Even When It Is) Drop a rock in water and ripples will emanate outward from the point of entry. Skip a rock across the water and ripples will appear at each point of impact. Time is an ever-flowing river, winding its way from the beginning of time until time is no more. Once a moment passes, it becomes a part of history—eternal, unchangeable, history. Because of this, “what if” becomes one of the most magical…
Quality Of Inadequate Sentences “And so too, in later years, when I began to write a book of my own, and the quality of some sentences seemed so inadequate that I could not make up my mind to go on with the undertaking. I would find the equivalent in Bergotte. But it was only then, when I read them in his pages, that I could enjoy them; when it was I myself who composed them, in my anxiety that they…
Rigor Mortis Has Set In “I am beginning to be sorry that I ever undertook to write this book. Not that it bores me; I have nothing else to do; indeed, it is a welcome distraction from eternity. But the book is tedious, it smells of the tomb, it has a rigor mortis about it; a serious fault, and yet a relatively small one, for the great defect of this book is you, reader. You want to live fast, to…
Monster Needs A Face Shadows dance on the ancient stone walls of the castle with each flash of lightning. Torrents of rain soak the scientist’s ancestral home, seeking to wash it away before the evil within its womb tastes life. Struggling against the storm, yet drawing upon its power, equipment created from the mind of a madman hums. Blue electricity climbs and descends Jacob’s Ladder, building power then regulating its release into insulated copper wire. Charged chemicals flow hesitantly into…
Professional Vacationist If I could choose my dream job, I would choose to be a professional vacationist. I thoroughly enjoy traveling—going new places, experiencing new things, and meeting new people. While I don’t mind flying, driving from point A to point B offers a greater chance of discovery. In fact, several of the more interesting sights I have seen were due to wrong turns. One of the things I enjoy about reading is the numerous places books can take me. I…
When In The Course Of Human Events “When in the Course of human events…” These seven words are the beginning of one of the greatest American documents ever written, The Declaration of Independence. In and of themselves, they hold an eloquence and a power that changed the world. They helped start a war and birth a nation. But not everything in life (or writing) needs to be an event. If our lives were filled with one event after another, exhaustion…