Stories

1845. In the spring Redburn leaves Peru for New York on a warship. He has nothing, and feels like a failure. Worst of all is the loss he leaves behind him in the Pacific – his husband is dead, and Toby is lost and presumably long buried. What awaits him in the fall when he arrives back 'home,' to a place he has not been for four years? There he must consider what his brother wants for him, against how Redburn might honor the noblest sacrifices of the men who love him have made.

1843. In a Polynesian paradise, something haunts Redburn. His dreams blend with the waking world, and he is driven to find himself while he seeks the lost love of his life.

1843. No lost soul is born into the world, but the world makes it so. Redburn must find Toby, nothing else matters, and on three ships of contrasts - well-governed, and hopeless - he thinks of only getting to land and looking for the man he loves.

The South Pacific, 1842. These are powder-keg times, and in the midst of French Imperial gun boat diplomacy, Redburn has had enough of the sea. He draws a reluctant Toby into an adventure, and in the process loses something more valuable to him than his own life.

It is the summer of 1839. A 19-year-old boy sets out to be a man. He chooses the sea, or it chooses him, because it is a place where men who love as he does can escape society's pronouncements upon them. The boy unknowingly begins a classic hero's journey of self-discovery – travels 'there,' discovers his task is a deeply personal one, then returns 'home' to find home is not where he wants to be anymore.

I'll try to turn off the comments section for this...but if you see any errors in the text, please send me a private message here on GA.

**Warning: Anger ahead**

Danny and Brandon are running the 'Hotel', with Josh's help. Dion and Trey also have their own family, and with the members of their extended family they collectively experience many moments of joy, along with a few tribulations.

This story starts in June of 2003. The invasion of Iraq is over, George Bush has landed on the aircraft carrier and proclaimed "Mission Accomplished", and the insurgency has yet to begin. Some may think America is at the height of its power.

Meanwhile, in the CAP world:

JJ and Will, both in doomed relationships that seem to be working. Will they unravel, and if they do, who is behind it?

We all like to know the back story to characters, you know their story before they appeared in a main story. Confused? You won't be when you read on, then it will make sense.

The Major features in The Boot and The Boot - Three Years On. Here he features in his own story, before The Boot.

There is a tissue needed warning!

This story has been revised and edited to improve the reader experience, it has not been altered in any other way.

Poems of suffering and peace from a nearly forgotten master. Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele was killed in action in July, 1915, 26 years of age. His partner and friends brought out his Das tausendste Regiment ("The Thousandth Regiment") posthumously in 1917. Whether or not his work has been ignored because he was Gay, it's time to bring his name forward and place it with the other great WW1 poets, where he has always belonged.