The Impossible Task

Yeah, that seems to be my tag in writing. My poor characters are leading the impossible life AND I'm having such fun torturing them to boot. haha

I've started going through some of my shorter stories. I'm thinking of getting them into eBooks one of these days - maybe not this summer - I go back to work Sunday and my days are fairly full until September. Maybe I'll get one or two out there - we'll see. Here's a sample. Tell me what you think. Would you buy them? What would you like to read?

THE FORCES OF DARKNESS

This is a tale about a young man doomed to feed on the sin and sadness in the people around him, but to survive the darkness, he needs purity and innocence too. And to complicate things, he can only go out at night. Any light, even the light of a candle, is painful. How can he lead this kind of life? Where does he find the innocence so vital to his survival - the sadness is certainly easy enough to find? What happens when he runs out of darkness and sadness? He must move on. But love isn't going to be left behind so easily, after all he's going to be a father.

ARTHUR

What would life be like if the customs and traditions of Camelot and King Arthur stayed the same into the twentieth century? King Uther sends a patrol of mec-knights out to test the strength of the barbarians outside the wall. His son, Jake and his unit happen to be the next patrol on the roster, but things go badly and the king denies reinforcements. Jake doesn't want to be the last survivor, but he is forced to heal, and the magic takes a terrible toll. When awakened, he makes it out of the hospital, out of the high city, and nearly to the wall before he runs out of energy, little that he had. His subconscious wants to live, but the only way that can happen is if he forgets all the sorrow and disappointment. Jake becomes Arthur, oblivious to his past, he starts his life as a peasant and house champion. He buys a building, and with his winnings he fixes it up and begins to carve a name for himself as an owner of a building and a businessman. His life is very different, very happy, until he runs into his past.

SECRETS OF THE MIND

Agent Todd Dunn is captured, and with drugs, the enemy tries to learn his secrets. But he has been trained for this. No secrets, not to anyone, not until he can be sure the person he's talking to is the right person to talk to. But how do you tell if the world you see and the people you talk to is the real thing or a drug-induced figment of your imagination? Follow Todd as he desperately tries to hack his own brain and escape from the nightmare.

SYSTEM NAUTILUS

(Just in case you want to take a trip into outer space) Ride along on the Nautilus. As space travel became more common-place the systems for running the ships became more complex and complex systems took up massive amounts of space. There was one system capable of the task that took up very little space - the brain. Cat brains made an excellent system for a fighter. Dog brains were good for larger ships like freighters. But more complex brains were needed for the larger luxury liners and the massive warships. Chimp brains simply weren't complex enough, and using two or more created problems. The next logical step was, of course, the human brain, but there were volunteers aplenty. Paraplegics and war veterans, the old and the very poor would volunteer in return for wages being sent to family members or at the very least, their own preservation. Systems were rumored to live many times longer than normal. Eventually, volunteers weren't enough so systems were grown. Knowing nothing but the ship they were grown into, they grew and learned as their ship was built. System Nautilus was one such system, and he was happy with his existence, but then one day he met a girl. And then his ship was struck by an asteroid. The girl saved his life, but what was life without his ship?