Stories

Benjamin is aging out of the foster care system, with no family and no home he strikes to move out on his own. he strikes an unlikely friendship with Josh. Can Benjamin learn to trust, learn to love, and can Josh break through the trauma and distrust and work together towards salvaging their road to redemption

Prompt #385 –

Brendan Nelson had a tough week at work. He is a Project Manager at a small software company. Nothing went well on his current project. The last delivery to QA (Quality Assurance) was a total failure, the techs couldn't even install it. Add to that, a serious problem in the development of a new feature arose. Finally, on top of that, the customer was screaming about a bug that hadn't been fixed for months, and now it apparently crashed the system. As if things weren't bad at work, he had to come home to a surprise.

Someone buys a house and receives a belated letter from the son of the previous owner. He is a Navy Seal, wounded and recuperating, unaware as he sent it that his parent has passed away. An unexpected friendship forms..

Mike finds himself in an unexpected and uncomfortable situation. New school, new town, new family, and most notably, new roommate. And life seems to only get crazier every day.

14-year-old Bryan Padilla is caught between worlds he doesn't feel connected to. Having been abandoned by their birth parents at a young age, Bryan and his younger brother, Caleb, were adopted by a family friend, Diego Padilla, and raised in a culture not of their own. Though it is the only life Caleb has ever known, Bryan inwardly struggles with his feelings about life, death, race and sexuality. Things escalate shortly after the death of his birth mother. Can Bryan come to terms with his situation as a figure from his past tries to upend his entire life?

Being the oldest and growing up in a large family can be hard, especially when you are gay and the family is extremely homophobic. You are constantly being compared to your deceased father. A man whose stature and deeds are always increasing, as time goes by, and are held up as your goals. Anytime you reach those goals, your mother moves the goalpost further away.

You never seem to measure up. You are always being told that you are worthless and will never amount to anything since you cannot measure up to your father. It never mattered that you were a straight "A" student and that you were an athlete.

Once upon a time, in a little town called Dog's Creek, there was a boy named Adam...

Owain returns to live in his home town, 20 years after leaving when he was disowned his parents for being gay. He needs to rebuild his life following illness and come to terms with his messy family history. There is much to learn and discover, along the way he meets Colin, a builder who has his own family issues. The two explore how to make a life the way that they want, irrespective of the weight of their family experiences.

The story takes place in Cheshire, UK. The main setting, Netherwich, is my invention based on elements of Crewe and Nantwich. The language uses some regional idiom.

Many men enjoyed the life and freedom of being a cowboy, but it wasn't an easy one in The Old West. The aches were many, but it was the loneliness that could wear a man down. Jubal was one of those who dreamed as he moved and protected cattle, and the day finally came he had enough money to buy his own piece of land. Fate, though, dealt him a terrible hand once again, taking everything from him and leaving him lost and alone. Was Lucas his savior, or just more trouble for a man who'd learned to trust no one?

Roy Patterson just moved into town. About to be a high-school junior, he was not really happy with the move. But his dad got a promotion, he got a bedroom of his own. Leaving a few good friends didn't make up for all that. Two weeks in and he hasn't found anyone who could be a friend.

That all changes one Sunday. The circumstances around that change are, to say the least, a bit odd.