Johnson County Library is pleased to announce that Diana Richards has won our short story writing contest on the theme of The fools Journey with her piece "Cactus."
I can't add to the millions of statements from would-be writers as to why I write, and my biography isn't all that unique either: retired, like to write, writing is hard, love the library.
We have plenty of patrons here at the Johnson County Library who love a good thriller. Sure, domestic and psychological thrillers still dominate the bestseller lists, but patrons are not always looking for secrets and lies set amongst deteriorating marriages and otherwise-idyllic suburban settings. We're talking old-school thrillers, where one person - or several people - are on the run from bad people with even worse intentions.
“Ava, wake up! It’s Halloween, remember?” Henry announced. Not announced, more like shrieked into her ear. Ava rubbed her eyes and sat up as her eight year old brother bounced on to her bed.
Halloween. Of course it was Halloween. How could she have forgotten? Henry didn’t understand how horrible Halloween was, how just the word made Ava’s insides squirm and shiver. Halloween.
Around them the mist continued to drift, seeping into their veins, sapping their spirits. The younger of the two brothers poked his head from out of his sleeping bag which lay on the cold, merciless dirt in the clearing of the cold, merciless forest which was infused with the cold, merciless mist that had awoken his body with chills throughout.
One day, three girls, Beth, Sky, and Vanessa, were taking a walk. Then they saw the woods. Everybody that went in, never came out. Beth, Sky, and Vanessa were not scared. They wanted to explore every corner of the woods, so they went in. A few minutes later, it began to get dark, so they decided to go back, but they were lost! They didn’t have a map, so it seemed like they were stuck in the woods. Suddenly, they heard a rustling sound. They looked in a bush and saw a dark, shadowy figure with glowing, red eyes.
I stared at the forest of dark pine trees looming over me, laughing at me, each becoming a vision of the one I used to welcome into my house, my arms, my heart, until he stood over my parents with a bloody knife in his hand and the look of a crazed, cornered, monstrous animal in his eye, his beautiful kaleidoscopic eye, the eye I could sink into and be lost inside. Those pools of colors and sadness and intelligence and sometimes tinges of humor, but now, only hate and pleading for help.
The girl loves stories, gobbles them down like sugar. The words fill her up, twisty and sharp and smooth, and come to life behind her eyes.
She requests a story most every night, as the waves rock her to sleep. Mama lights a candle and sits by her bed in the hard wooden chair and tells her a story, finishing right when the candle winks out with a wisp of smoke. By that time the girl will be nearly asleep, so Mama will kiss her brow and softly pad back to the crew’s quarters.
Oliver’s antique shop was not exceptional in any way. It did not have much inventory, what it sold did not hold much significance, it was not even the most popular antique shop on the street. This meant nothing to Oliver. When he opened the front door to the shop in the morning, he was at the crossroads to a thousand worlds.
