Parker Owens

I feel awful that I somehow missed responding to your lovely and very kind comment on this story. I’m very glad that Robert and Ed’s tale resonated in some way with your own experience. I hope your new year brings you greater joy and peace. Thanks again.

I thank you for your kindness in reading this story, and for your responses to it. So much regret enveloped each character, yet I hope that some ray of light - perhaps through Ed’s invitation - can seep through to each of them. May your new year be happy!

This has been a delightful and absorbing story. I very much liked Connor’s evolution through skepticism to supportive boyfriend. Nico is a great character through which to tell this tale. I’m looking forward to what comes next.

This has been a highly engaging and engrossing story. There are many different issues, story lines and plot developments to follow, not least of which are the fates of great grandsons of Dom DeLuca. That they might learn with and from Oli and his rescued brothers will be unquestionably life changing. Wherever the story-light shines next will be fascinating.

I distantly remember air-raid and fallout drills in grade 1; even then, nobody seriously believed the worst would happen. In this particular instance, a second grader dialed for emergency response. All too frequently, 200 times a year, the worst happens. So many feel powerless to change any of this, and too many of us feel like potential targets. More firearms will not make us less so, in my opinion. Thanks for reading and hearing my voice.

Your responses from your legislators are akin to mine. Gun violence and gun death is so commonplace, that it seems to defy discussion. All I can hope is that if enough of us say aloud how it makes us feel, how it will move us to vote, then perhaps it’s worth all of us writing prose or poetry about it. Thanks for your comments.

How is it that murder presented itself as a viable course of action in this case? What convinces a person of that? Thanks very much for reading and for your comments.

Thanks for reading this. Your comments echo my cry of frustration. We cannot seem to agree on solutions, yet shouting and hand-wringing don’t seem to help, either.

An Old Story Another school shooting, and again the screams and fear echo down the tiled hallways, rattling the lockers of the collective mind as little children learn what murder means firsthand; And then the media tumult thunders, their lights blind us; the noise of them with stories about this story makes us deaf to the cries of the children who cower under desks or in their homes, when all they really wanted

I enjoyed reading this modern take on what became of Hell. I can’t help but think about Infernal Industries’ loss of customer interest occurring in parallel with a discernible loss of interest and belief in both Hell and Heaven. Does Infernal Industries rely on belief in order to attract customers? And I couldn’t help wondering what a modern day Dante would have noted as torture for modern sinners. It was most entertaining to read.

Thank you for taking time to read this. I appreciate your encouragement.

It still stirs the heart and makes me smile. Thanks a million, Gary.

I’m glad you liked the use of subjunctive here; in searching for a title, it seemed most apt. Indeed, too many plans like this have come to nought, or appear distinctly unlikely. Thanks very much for reading, and for your response.

I’m glad you could relate to this poem. It was written for a special friend I’ve not seen in a long time. Thanks again!

Subjunctive Perhaps if I’d been born a different man I’d make a proposition rude and hope that you might fall in with my plan, suggestions hardly misconstrued, but ending on the sofa or divan with each of us embraced, all barriers effaced. Would that the peaceful, late day sun had traced across our resting frames to span the arms I want to hold us waist to waist in light appealing to Gauguin, while we exquisite, haunting k