A Romance Reader: Short Stories From New Voices

Speculative Fiction Parable Anthology

Being able to escape into the wonderful world of romance is always a pleasure.

This set of short stories are an amusing way to find yourself into new worlds, with new lovers working out their difficulties and eventually end up with their happily-ever-after result.

Some are ghosts, some introspective writers, some CIA-government types, a couple of futurists, some socially disadvantaged, and a young couple with hidden abilities.

All in contemporary settings (for the most part) and perhaps something you can relate to (well, we can always want the superpowers, anyway.)

Lose yourself in these worlds and become young at heart again with these short reads to fit into any schedule...

Short Story Anthology Containing:

- The Ghost Who Loved by S. H. Marpel
- Ham & Chaz by C. C. Brower & J. R. Kruse
- The Caretaker by C. C. Brower
- Mind Timing by R. L. Saunders & C. C. Brower
- The Autists by J. R. Kruze
- Her Eyes by J. R. Kruze

Excerpt:

IT WAS FATHER'S DAY. They were all still dead, and I was again dry-eyed over their grave.

I came this way every year, for the past few, as it was also my birthday. Such as it was.

Growing older just meant more sadness for me.

Father, Mother, and younger sister all passed that night. Horrific car accident. All decapitated or crushed instantly, head-on collision with another car, that seemed to come out of nowhere.

I was the only one remaining.

And I couldn't even cry anymore.

Of course my heart ached. But it was almost the dull, screeching creak of some massive pump whose bearings were failing and overheated from lack of grease. The grease of kindness, of human love.

Why was I still here? What reason did I have for existing? I didn't know. All I knew was that I kept going from day to day, month in, month out, and then showed up back here again - once a year.

Graveyards are funny things. Why they exist is such a morbid concept. Small and huge monuments erected to incite the memory of the fallen. Like it was the old Japanese ancestor worship. But just because they weren't remembered after a few centuries, didn't mean the ache went away. Only the persons who had the ache. To their own plot of earth and monument - or not.

People visited. And opened up that ache fresh to the sting of memory once again, like a wound opened to the air. Painful, abrupt. The ache continuing long after the bandage was re-applied.

Like that guy over there, a few rows over. Downcast young face. Blue jeans, black sweater jacket, high-top basketball sneakers. And that cute brown hair, those nice cheekbones. Why did he come here? Did it ever help him move on - or was he like me, a magnet for more punishment?

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