Front Porch Rambles

With a focused mind and a healthy heart I can do good work; Complete what I start.

Muk fiddled with the lockpicks tucked in the secret pocket of his shirtsleeve. To the finely dressed men and women strolling down high street he must have appeared another louse-ridden street urchin scratching at his infestation. He was seventeen, but he was small for his age as a result of poor nutrition throughout his childhood. His black hair was sleek with sweat under the ragged hood, he was nervous. He sat huddled on the dirty cobblestone at the edge of a long alleyway that he knew to have many exits and stared out at nothing. His dark eyes were cold and emotionless, like those of a veteran of a war campaign who has seen far more trauma than they’ll ever say. Muk could summon up a glare that would freeze wine, and invariably made people look away, as it was intended to. He didn’t want to get close to anyone, he didn’t want to make any friends. Never again. Elora. Without warning, he was twelve again, and with her. Muk could clearly see her smile lit by the breaking dawn...

The Australian Shepherd Dog sniffed at the object. It was a small metal cylinder, no larger than a can of spray paint. There were bright green and black bars painted across the middle. It was humming ever so slightly. "I don't like it." Rufus was a plain statement of truth kind of guy. "The Duke thinks it's interesting." "Duke thinks sniffing his own turds is interesting." We sat in silence for a moment, facing each other. There was silence. Then it hit him. He pulled his t shirt up over his nose and clutched it tight, cursing. "Now, ain't that interesting?" It's the silent ones that's the deadliest. "

There was no silence after the battle. The storm of blood was over, but the distant boom of shells still rolled like distant thunder over the trampled field. Rifle shots from the receding conflict popped like twigs in a hungry fire, but here there were only dying embers.  Christina coughed as she passed through a drifting cloud of sulfurous smoke.  Her knee-high boots were covered with the slick red mud she had been trudging through for the last hour or so. The beautiful blue coat commissioned for her by Lawrence in Vienna was speckled and torn, one sleeve nearly in half from when she had fought her way through the barbed tangles at the front line. What was left of the front line. She was beginning to grow desperate, the bitter lump of fear trying to lurch up into her throat was becoming harder to force back down. The murmuring groans of the injured and dying weren't helping, and the occasional wail of some unseen soldier threatened to make her lose her poise. She screamed sud...

I wanted to doodle in my universe, so here I am. I just checked out the notes I posted last, and realized I needed to do a little work on the setting. Here we go... ...in the beginning, there was a cluster of inhabited stars so close to one another that when they called out to the stars in search of life, someone answered. From there, the worlds worked together and eventually developed the technology to travel between star systems in a series of jumps involving technology on both ends of the connection. A long time later... interstellar civilization thrived, as the Council of Planets reached further into the cluster and discovered more alien life. The connections were constructed, the alliance welcomed new planets, and grew. There were those who sought unprecedented power and were thrown down, but cracks formed in the pillars of society. The Council became corrupt, and clandestine dealings became power grabs, and teetered on the verge of a massive, interplanetary war. Gene...

One minute. I had to adjust the settings on my phone so I could type manually. The iPhone 8GT had legendary talk to text. Perhaps it was the pulsing radiation from the anomaly he had discovered.

Happy birthday is sung, mom sings may the dear lord bless you verse by herself. Newly 33 year old Jeremy blows out the candles, maybe there are 33 of them, a tame dad and brother prank. There are kids. Young kids and Jeremy is Daddy. Kelly as Mommy tries to run herd on them, but ultimately the boys do what they want. Meanwhile, someone has asked Jeremy what he wished for. He thinks 'I  wish I knew.' Title card Music trumpets heralding and mocking Narration I've never really fit in. Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of friends in my life, and no trouble making them, but I do tend to like them weird, just like I like my coffee. I've fit in lots of places, but rarely stuck with any one thing for too long.  I'm what you might call a free spirit. I know what you're thinking, the mental image that's forming here... (visuals of Jeremy beginning his day, wife leaving for work before the sun is up, she kisses him, but he's really still asleep, toddler b...