All in the Family
He hoped the tape recorder would still work. It was one of those small portable ones often used in schools or libraries. Teddy didn’t even realize the irony of his action. Angie was, in fact, the one who had bought it for him.
kids
Never Stop At Roadside Memorials
You know those people who you tell the time of events to 15 minutes early because you know they would be late? The ones who would be late to their own funerals, as the saying goes? Well, that’s me. Prepare as I might. I can never seem to get anywhere
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The Basement
Here is the journal I kept during my time at The Ash House. At times I was unable to write, so some entries are recorded by memory. At the time of this journal, I had just been dropped off to the Ash House by my old parents. This journal spans
The Stars of Bigface Marsh
It was cold. Cold and dark. That’s all I could feel when I stared into the black abyss, that made up its eyes. There was a tingling sensation in my feet, that slowly rose up in my body like panic trapped inside of me. I felt changed. I don’t know
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Spring Flu
The spring flu had been going around the school like usual, but some people were sicker than normal. They didn’t just have fever and headache – their faces were blotchy, their eyes bulged, and they all wheezed like they’d just run up ten flights of stairs without stopping. Cara McCormack
Santa’s Magic
The night of Christmas Eve 2008 is a blur, depending on how much medication I am given that day. I can avoid the nurses for a couple of hours, but not too long. I suppose you’ve heard about me in the papers or on your favorite serial killer show. No,
Snow Day
Jake Thomasson pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt down, covering his hand, and wiped away the condensation from the window. It was the third time he had done this in the past ten minutes, but he didn’t want to miss seeing if any cars drove by outside. He was sitting
The Elf on the Shelf
Growing up, or at least since the mid-two thousands, my house always had an Elf on the Shelf during the Christmas season. If you don’t know, Elves on the Shelf are these little elf dolls that are supposed to be scouts for Santa Claus. I named mine Humble. I think
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Pretty Paper
One contrary wheel wobbled erratically as Thomas Moon pushed against the weighted shopping cart. He looked down at the mountain of Christmas presents and imagined his poor wallet gasping for air and fainting in a huff. He smiled as his wife, Christine, waddled up to the cart carrying what seemed
The First Day of School
My father is a construction manager and because of his career, we have to move around the country every few years. In my 15 years, I have lived in six different states: New Mexico, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Louisiana, and now Kansas. This past summer, my father was hired to work
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Tantrum
Let me just make something clear: I never get to go out somewhere nice. Like ever. My best friend and I struggle just to pay our bills every month, so anything fancier than McDonald’s is usually out of the question. We’ll save up for months to go on one of our “roommate
Toys in the Attic
Christmas has always been a hard time for me. Childhood memories of bickering relatives, drunken tirades, and hostile dinner conversations made me wince at the mere mention of the holiday. In the Christmas of 1989, I broke my collarbone on my new toboggan. In the Christmas of 1997, my brother
My Father Punished Me When I Talked to Ghosts
I’ve been blind since birth. As I grew up, everything was described to me in such vivid detail that I didn’t even realize why it was that important to see, especially having no reference point to compare it. We lived in a single-floor ranch house, that’s what Father told me.
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A Big Responsibility
The little girl stood outside the door. She stared at it, fidgeting with the frills of her dress. She could always wait until tomorrow… No. She had to ask now. She wanted it and she knew she wasn’t going to change her mind anytime soon. Stepping forward, she knocked on
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Daughter’s Drawings
Part 1: A Diner Called Daisy’s This whole thing started on a road trip around four years ago. We left to go from Northern California to the East Coast, traveling through the Midwest. It was me, my wife Kimmy, our 7-year-old daughter Katie, and 5-year-old son Alex. Everything went fine
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My Sister Loves Minions
My sister loves minions. The yellow, banana-eating, overall-wearing, big-eyed things from a family movie called Despicable Me? Yep… that’s the kind. The things you see middle-aged women post memes on Facebook. My sister is obsessed. She eats bananas daily, watches the movies, probably has every plush minion made. I never
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I’m a Vigilante Online Predator Hunter
I’m a vigilante online predator hunter, and I can’t explain the bizarre things that happened last night. I jolted awake in bed as my phone blared with a message. hey baby. we’ve been talking long enough. i want to meet you now. My blood turned to ice as I read
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I Was Born on a Child Farm
“There is no free will.” Those are the first words I ever read. I woke to them every day for many years. They were written on a sign. The sign was hung above the opposite row of bunks in the Sleeping Barn. I have no memories from before the farm; I assumed I was born there.
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I Was Born on a Child Farm – Part Zero
I was lucky enough to know my 93-year-old grandmother when I was a child. She was a window into another era. A harder time. “Most people weren’t but much more than farmers back then,” she recalled to me one morning. “If you didn’t have friends to help your family out
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Autopilot
Have you ever forgotten your phone? When did you realize you’d forgotten it? I’m guessing you didn’t just smack your forehead and exclaim ‘damn’ apropos of nothing. The realization probably didn’t dawn on you spontaneously. More likely, you reached for your phone, pawing open your pocket or handbag, and were
The Statues
I never liked going to my aunt Paola’s house. Honestly, I never liked her either. She’s a creepy bible-thumping Jesus fanatic and she’d always circle over me like a vulture. But none of that creeped me out like her house did. It was old, run-down and filled with weird religious
Alone
Part 1: Good Will Hunting I’m a producer for Alone, the TV show on History. This story is about a participant we had in season 2, whose footage we had to cut. I’ve never felt comfortable talking about this before, especially because it opens me up for liability. After all,
The Witch of Arlena Falls
5:58 AM “There is an unexpected turn in the weather this morning, say our local meteorologists. Instead of seeing a warm day, we are getting a snowstorm that sources are saying could turn into the storm of the century.” Dad turned off the radio, grumpy as hell this early in
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Stories For My Daughter
I know they say Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, but for me it’s Halloween. I deck the hall with cobwebs and fake spiders. It’s just such a special time. Autumn is here and the leaves are beginning to fall. It’s a time for dressing up and
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