Join us for Volume 1 of Pillbug. In this book Warren R. Smith trundles down the path of flash fiction and short stories. Among other anecdotal excursions, you’ll find within; the story of a Taxi driver who must come to terms with the truth depth of his daughter’s independence. Read the Speckled Egg, magic realism wherein two children, in saving their lives, must change shape. In Jack-O’-Lantern and old woman invites herself to be haunted. In Pillbug, the story is about the risks of day labor. In Purple Hippo, a Hippo decides it's time to shake the world up. Jack and the Magpies is written in defense of a worthy appetite. Contemporary mainstream and humorously literary, you’ll find this collection chock-full of five-minute wisdoms and imagination....

Yes, it was a crazy season for rabbits. Everywhere they hopped and nibbled — even in the office. Daily I had to sweep them off the desk before I could get a thing done — and I leaned into the task with the whole of my arm and an imprecating grunt because sometimes that’s all there was....

Introduction The Red Paint Flaking English As A 2nd Language Like Caffeine Sweet Nothings Individually Wrapped The Speckled Egg Troder of the Mish'dee Orb Dotting Tigers Jack-O'-Lantern Candy-Corn Angel On Religion Pillbug A Walking Tour Paused Purple Hippo No Man Left Behind Laundromat The Last Thing A Memory Without Name The Girl With the Sheep Animal Magic Jack and the Magpies About The Author...

The book keeper of the hospital of a small provincial town came one day home very tired. He had not the least desire to have dinner and so he decided to lay down at once and to sleep. In recent years it often happened, that he, after coming home in the evening, had dinner and immediately went to bed without a word to his already grown up children or his wife. She became more and more grumpy in view of his seclusion. He only wanted to sleep, to sleep soundly till daybreak of the next and probably again undesirably day which he always impatiently anticipated, only to immerse again in his coma. For any reason he remembered this evening his childhood in a state between vigil and slumber....

This series is arranged in levels of reading difficulty ranging from 1 to 5. The easiest is level 1, the hardest level 5. All these books are royalty free and can be copied used printed and distributed, scrawled on walls, acted out in plays and told (very slowly) to your pet dog, if you don’t have a dog a cat will do, but hamsters do not listen as they only speak Spanish. They are designed to be easily read on a computer and can be printed on standard A4 size paper (landscape format) There is no bad language or offensive words anywhere in these books....

The issue of the book is the connection between the energy policies of various countries, their foreign policies, and the wars that break out at various parts of the globe, since all three are closely related....

Sayyid Ahmad was among the foremost visionaries who realized the scale of British conspiracies and diplomacies, and launched a systemic struggle to counter the effects. He communicated with political figureheads of that time to make them realize of British intrusion. He also worked for social reformation of Muslim communities in far-off places in subcontinent. Sayyid Ahmad traveled throughout the Subcontinent, into Afghanistan and North West region of Subcontinent to create awareness for the cause. He eventually lost his life in a battle against Sikh army at Balakot in May 1831. This in-depth inquiry provides insights on Sikh & British alliance established at that time and how British pursued their colonial agenda in India....

We see from the life of Sayyid Ahmed that he disrupted the status quo of society at various levels. He was not a passive preacher or a Sufi living in isolation. He not only challenged the oppressors but also the oppressed. For this he faced opposition from both. When Sayyid Ahmed stepped out to reform socio-religious thought in India, that included matters related to general ignorance of basic tenets of Islam, sufi ideologies and pilgrimage; he met with resistance from those “internal” agents whose interest relied on the then state of affairs. Similarly, when he refused to compromise with the political hostility of colonizers and their allies, he faced challenges. This makes the study of his movement a very special case in history of South Asia. A keen researcher thus needs to understand the context of every comment that is placed in favor or opposition of Sayyid Ahmed. In this study, I have kept focus on the macro aspects of the life of Sayyid Ahmed and his movement and its historical context....

List of illustrations Introduction Chapter 1 Early Life of Sayyid Ahmed and Political Chapter 2 Colonization of India during life of Sayyid Ahmed Chapter 3 Anti-Colonial Struggle of Sayyid Ahmed and Reformation Efforts Conclusion Bibliography ...

One would expect a young man whose single mother skipped town a couple of hours after his birth, to have a few problems, but Mortaumal [Mort] doesn’t seem to, thanks to his grandfather. However, when that support is gone and foster parents fail, and there are nasty people demanding he do evil deeds...things begin to look pretty desperate. From the age of ten to eighteen Mort lives with and meets an extraordinary variety of people, gets himself into and out of very hot water, sees rather too many people die, learns to defend himself both physically and mentally, and ends up unimpressed with humanity in general, while loving the few who come up to scratch. This is a light-hearted, not too serious tale about death and dying, affection and callous indifference, independence and love somewhere in tropical Queensland. There’s sentiment but not sentimentality, social criticism, excitement, fun and a bit of everything else in a fast paced yarn that suggests ways to live that are more interesting and natural than those we see on our screens. ...

1 Mortaumal According to his grandfather, Mortaumal was a smart kid. According to Mortaumal, Simon was a brainless bully. So why wasn’t it Simon lying on his belly, face pressed into the dust, scarcely able to breathe? Surely twice as big should be beaten by twice as clever? Obviously not, or Mortaumal wouldn’t have had his head flushed in a toilet bowl yesterday, and he wouldn’t have had to endure six months of increasingly unpleasant torment. On this relentlessly sunny afternoon, Simon had ambushed Mortaumal from behind a billboard advertising the benefits of ‘Jezebel’s Gymnasium for Fabulous Fitness’, dragged the object of his unwanted attention behind it, thrown him on his face in the dust and sat on his legs. When fruitless flailing of arms failed to free him, Mortaumal had just decided to humiliate himself by screaming for help when Simon dragged his shorts down. Shocked, or perhaps excited at the absence of underpants, the bully allowed his grip to slacken enough for his victim to slither away and tear down the street, school bag flying, shorts barely back in their usual place when he was stopped by a busy road. A q...

Table of Contents 1 Mortaumal 2 Leon 3 Shrude Aywun 4 Confidences 5 Death 6 Mrs. Pettie 7 Dying 8 The lawyer. 9 Self Defence. 10 Pissed Off 11 Leon and Hugh 12 Family life 13 Fystie 14 A day at the river 15 School 16 School work 17 Mr. Brawn on Women 18 A visit 19 Beach Bully 20 Debriefing 21 Abuse 22 Rescue 23 Marshall on Childhood 24 Paying for It 25 Fystie Returns 26 Life with a lawyer 27 Further Education 28 Sergei 29 Zoltan’s Mother 30 The God Question 31 On Top of the Mountain 32 Marshall meets Angelo 33 Perdita 34 The Beach 35 Bullies 36 Ultimatum 37 Farewells 38 A Change of plans 39 Impersonation 40 Julian 41 The Truth 42 Elbert 43 A Social Occasion 44 A Room With a View 45 School 46 Mr. Preggy 47 The Basement Flat 48 The cop 49 Miss Bussty 50 Brawl 51 Perdita’s present 52 Stefan 53 Perdita Perdue...

A revolution replaces the Queensland government with a coalition of religious fundamentalists who have strong ideas on how their subjects ought to live, and how to enforce compliance with their draconian laws. Readers have asked what happened to Robert and Bart, the heroes of Rough Justice. They thought I had left them in a bad place…and so I had. Others wanted to know what happened to Sebastian and Jarek between the end of Jarek and the beginning of NumbaCruncha. A good question that requires an answer because what happened could all too easily be the political future for us. So, Fidel is a prequel to NumbaCruncha, and a sequel to my other five novels—Rough Justice, Dome of Death, Sebastian, Jarek and Mortaumal. Fidel is fifteen when the story begins sometime in the near future. He’s running away from home to the big city where he falls into trouble, then miraculously falls out again, and grows into a sturdy, well-liked young man. Like most people he is too busy living to notice that a relatively quiet revolution is taking place, replacing the government with a coalition of religious fundamentalists who have strong id...

1 Fidel Fidel was scared. Shit scared. He felt like throwing up and probably would have if he'd had any breakfast. He had to stop thinking about it or he’d chicken out. His whole life had been one long worry that he’d done something wrong and would be punished…but this was sharper, more urgent, more exciting too if he could only stop thinking about all the possible consequences. Taking a deep breath he shouldered the backpack that had been hidden in a corner for weeks, let himself out of the shed, crossed the back lawn and tapped on his brother’s open window. Hylas appeared, rubbing at sleepy eyes. ‘Fidel! What’s the matter?’ ‘I’m off.’ ‘Now? But you…’ ‘Shhh! You'll wake Mum. I just wanted to say goodbye and tell you I love you.’ ‘Where are you going? I love you too! Will you write?’ ‘Brisbane. Of course I’ll write. Don’t tell Mum anything. Pretend to be surprised I've gone.’ With a cheery wave that even Hylas knew was fake, Fidel adjusted his pack and ran off before his courage ran out. Twenty minutes later he was sticking out his thumb on the David Low Way. Almost immediately an elderly couple in a battered T...

Contents 1 Fidel 2 City Centre 3 The Karims 4 What to do? 5 Bart’s enterprise 6 Arnold Jurgenz 7 Bart and Robert 8 Lance 9 Luck 10 Arnold’s Gym 11 Natural Fitness 12 Hylas 13 Brothers in Brisbane 14 Hylas Meets Natural Fitness 15 And Hylas Makes Five 16 JECHIS 17 Lance Returns 18 Disintegration 19 Inspection 20 Plans 21 The Administrator 22 Ciao Natural Fitness 23 Peter and Jon 24 A Forest Retreat 25 On The Run 26 Unpleasantness 27 Travelling On 28 A Meeting 29 Justice 30 F.N.Q. 31 Protectors 32 A Blast From The Past 33 Oasis 34 Tests 35 Developments 36 Job Interview 37 The Vote and After 38 Sanity – Insanity 39 Nothing Lasts Forever 40 Decisions 41 Ciao Oasis 42 Research 43 Solutions 44 The Institute 45 Settling In 46 Endgame ...

Coloring pages for kids as an educational tool is an excellent method to improve motor skills, fine motor movement, hand to eye coordination, handwriting and color perception and recognition. Psychologists suggest that coloring pages for kids have a great effect as coloring is a centering activity that can train focusing and calm the mind. Even though coloring pages can contain simple pictures, it can be a challenging task for kids. The ability to complete a picture successfully builds a better self - esteem and confidence among children. Many kids like to color and coloring pages seem to be more than just a fun free time activity. Coloring books should be used every day as a part of educational material in every school as it is proven to be influential to personality development starting from early childhood....

A savage race whose main source of food is humans are fast running out of supplies and so must attack their rival race, who they believe are the cause of their growing food shortages....

It was late at night, I held firm with such tight grip the weapon I carried then I heard screams and as I looked around, all I could see was a burning bush; the entire place licked up by flames, the moon light blocked by a thick smoke that mantled the surroundings. All of a sudden, about three of them ran out of the bush with their body enshrouded with fire, something burst in the flames like big drums accompanied by a hissing sound which irrupted. The smell of sulphur and burning flesh took my nose hostage but for some reason, I stood and watched the horror with my feet grounded defensively. The invaders took siege of the bush holding their torches as they continued to set it ablaze. I went round and saw people being butchered by the invaders, anyone that jumped out of the burning bush was instantly killed. The sight was awful and it seemed there was nothing I could do. I also noticed the invaders were bigger in size compared to the ones that were being hunted, burnt and killed. The sound of their voices and cries in the fire weakened my heart. I could not fathom why I was there or why I could not do anything. The attack was...

Acknowledgments Dedication I am Buga The dead Purican prince The brides Head on a platter The sun sets on the Redicans Tempest The guardian Friends and foes ...

Michael, a humble, devoted, kind husband and a caring father was struck by a tragedy that weakens his faith in good. He abandons everything to seek and to serve cold justice to those behind it. As he joins forces with a powerful and mysterious deity on the condition that he has to save mankind and most importantly, track down his real enemies. The battle he faces makes him embrace his sole purpose in life, but what he later discovers will either make or break him....

As the elevator doors slowly slid open, Michael stepped out with a rush, navigating through cubicles with no time to answer the greetings from his office colleagues and as the secretary spotted him smiling with a concerned look she said, ‘Hey Michael, the senior has been buzzing for the past thirty minutes and everybody is worried! Is everything . . .’ ‘Yes, Clara, everything’s fine! Thanks for asking. Traffic was hell!’ He interrupted as he panted; Michael hurriedly picked a piece of candy from a bowl on her desk and threw it into his mouth. ‘Bad boy!’ Clara said, smiling as he made his way into the conference room. ‘Well, don’t give Junior an edge to uproot one of your plants, darling!’ she added, then they both giggled. A text came into his cell phone, he checked it and sender ID read ‘P. James’ he ignored it, putting the cell phone back into his pocket as he opened the door and shut it behind him. Clara bit her lower lip suggestively, staring at his bum but he didn’t notice. Michael bent his head and quietly manoeuvred to locate his seat in the boardroom, the board stopped chatting, setting all their eyes on him until he...

Dedication Michael The awakening Shelter The headrest Error in terror The guardian The dimming eye of sunset The journey of journeys The camp The day of days ...

For the first time all the original sources for early British History have been collected together in one document. King Arthur, Julius Caesar, Saint Patrick, Battles, Invasions, Romance and magic. For the first time the original words of Welsh Bards and Roman Soldiers are combined to give one story. Irish myths, Greek histories, Saxon Chronicles. Read the original stories behind Tristram and Isolda, Maximus, Constantine. The first Christians, the last pagans. It's all here in one book....

Introduction. Bibliography and Links. The First Age, From Adam to The Flood. The Second Age, After The Flood. 2664 BCE. The Thrird Age. The Battle of Moytura. The Wooing of Etain. The Battle of Cnucha. Fin mac Cumhail.l The Ynglinga Saga. Vikings? On the Volga. The Destruction of Dind Rig. 594 BCE. The Fifth Age. Herodutus. Celts Invade Italy. 106 – 43 BCE. Cicero. The Era of Caesar. The Writings of Julius Caesar. 55 BCE – 40 AD. Tacitus. Romans in Germany. Christians in Britain. Strabo. 41 – 99 Rome invades Britain. Caractacus. Boedicea. The Battle of Airtach. Tain Bo Cuailnge. Tain from The Book of Leinster. Pliny on Britain. Pliny on Mining, Metals and Magnets. Pliny on Pottery, Buildings and Amber. Tacitus, Agricola. Tacitus, Britain. Tacitus, Germany. 101 – 199 Hadrian, Lucius, Severus, Ptolomy Geography. 200 – 299 Severus. Saint Alban. 300 – 349 Constantine. 350 – 399 St Patrick. Nial. Maximus. Macsen Wledig. Saint Declan. Notitia Dignitatum. 400 – 410 Stilich., Germanus. Niall. Honorius. Pelagius. Letter to Demetrias. 411 – 429 Vortigern. Saint Patrick. 430 – 450 Hengist, ...

NumbaCruncha begins with a chilling peek into the near future, when Sebastian and Jarek, now in their eighties, confront a particularly vile religious autocrat, whose reign of terror has led to the destruction of their laboratories, but not their secret weapon. We then take a thousand year leap to a future city state in which the human aptitude for duplicitous and unjust social schemes has reached its logical culmination in Oasis, a flesh-crawlingly evil dystopia ruled by the most unpleasant gang of conmen and women you're ever likely to encounter. A couple of young scientists who have recently invented a new means of transport, begin to question the morality of the Oasis social order, and decide to do something about it. Meanwhile, back in the forest, Sebastian and Jarek’s secret weapon is waiting. NumbaCruncha is a thoughtful, perhaps shocking, certainly controversial, at times amusing, and always cheeky assessment of the apparently intractable problems facing humanity. Although the future for life on planet Earth seems hopelessly bleak to people who care about the destruction of the natural world in which Homo sapiens ...

1: Somewhere in Far North Queensland Towards the End of the Twenty-first Century. ‘Make sure there’s nothing left to salvage, or tomorrow there’ll be nothing left of you.’ The priest’s twisted smile, more venomous than his customary frown, underlined the threat. Ignoring the nervous nods of his sweating acolytes, he turned, raised an imperial finger in warning and waddled back to his limousine, slashing the air with his stick to ward off mute offers of assistance from heavily armed bodyguards. After passing silently through the gates the black car stopped to allow the priest to gaze back through tinted windows. Impassive, he watched as the splendid old buildings exploded in a gigantic fireball that briefly rivalled the sun. This wasn’t the first such establishment he’d had the pleasure of demolishing, and wouldn’t be the last. Releasing a wheezy sigh of satisfaction he nodded slightly and chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip. There were few pleasures to match erasing the stench of Roman Catholic blasphemy, nonconformist freethinking tolerance, and secretive research by ungodly intellectuals bent on disrupting God’s plans. He t...

Table of Contents 1: Somewhere in Far North Queensland Towards the End of the Twenty-First Century 2: About a Thousand Years Later 3: A Demonstration 4: Peteru & Uretep Show How It’s Done 5: The Mages Do It 6: Breakfast with the Mages 7: Peteru and Uretep Learn About Oasis 8: Problems 9: Production Gets Underway 10: How the Other Half Live 11: Plans Progress Apace 12: New Oasis 13: The Forest 14: Where the Men Live 15: The Mages Remain True to Type 16: The Royal Couple 17: The Men Tell All 18: More Information 19: NumbaCruncha is Unveiled 20: The Trap is Set 21: Dinner with the Mages 22: The Best Laid Plans ...

Hahn reflects on the world as it existed in 2076, before the war, and how the devastation unleashed by the war shaped the lives of the survivors. Hahn is keen that the school boy, Eugene, grasps that, while there were huge changes in technology before and after the war, the most important change was in people, and their attitude towards each other and the planet on which they lived....

Eugene’s brow furrowed. ‘You mean you could choose who died?’ ‘Oh yes.’ Hahn’s tone was matter of fact. ‘But now I venture onto the territory of state secrets! Not only were we implanted with health chips, those of us who thought we were important were implanted with tags that identified our status. This was updated in real time. So if my car was in an accident with another, and there was a possibility that one car would be so badly damaged its passengers would die, one of the decisions taken by the cars’ on-board computers would be which passenger was higher status and should have the higher chance of survival.’ Eugene looked astonished, ‘But how could that happen?’ ‘You have to remember that our computers worked at a phenomenal speed and there was plenty of time for them to check which car carried the higher status individual and redirect that car to minimize impact on them. That might involve a far worse collision for the other car and its passengers.’ Eugene shook his head. ‘Weren’t people outraged at this?’ ‘That’s where the state secret came in. No one knew this happened, apart from the agency that monitored status, and t...

A pamphlet of 20 pages of poetry.

Iridescent blues flash in fiery sunset: swallows flying like crossbows.

can mention something from my own experiences. I started by schooling in a Cambridge-University certification school (I think), wherein initially the teachers and priests were more or less Anglo-Indians of the English variety. (There is the Indian variety of Anglo-Indians also. The first version has vanished from India now). However, after around after around one and half years of such schooling, the Anglo-Indian group vanished and a native converted-to-Christian priests took over the management....

This series is arranged in levels of reading difficulty ranging from 1 to 5. The easiest is level 1, the hardest level 5. All these books are royalty free and can be copied used printed and distributed, scrawled on walls, acted out in plays and told (very slowly) to your pet dog, if you don’t have a dog a cat will do, but hamsters do not listen as they only speak Spanish. They are designed to be easily read on a computer and can be printed on standard A4 size paper (landscape format) There is no bad language or offensive words anywhere in these books....

Alfi was at the seaside on holiday with his parents and had got up especially early to go down to the beach to see the sea. Podd his dog was also down on the beach with him but was now only a small blob in the distance....

Two bank employees, one married male and the other unmarried female happened to mark affinity for self in the other. This unmarried person was the boss of the other one. In view of the mutual affinity, this boss visited the other’s residence for delivering in person the `invite` on the occasion of her marriage with an NRI doctor. In a couple of years, the marriage of both these persons reached the stage of irretrievable breakdown, as both were feeling suffocated with the behaviour and attitude of their spouses. By the by, they happen to divulge to each other the emotional injuries suffered at the hands of their respective callous spouses. However, they happen to be neighbours by virtue of the flat allotted to them by their bank under the self-financing scheme for its employees envisaged to reach them a surprise bonanza in a unique `no profit, no loss` basis. The events at the inlaws family in the case of both of them brought them physically closer, with the blessings of their parents. Thus, they happen to be `a circumstantially evolved couple`. ...

“It appears to me that almost every religion tends to circumscribe the reasoning potentials of its followers. The self-styled custodian of the religious beliefs would not take it upon himself as a duty to seek the explanations of the `deviating folk`, unless an explosive situation emerges,” Nidhi expresses her opinion in the presence of the lone listener … She says, “Even at this moment, some kuchcha structure is visible. A notice board is also clearly visible from here. I think, let’s move towards that hut, to check, if that hermit is still using that hutment even after a period of fifty five years has gone by.” He looks undecided, but his wife almost drags him towards that sign-board. It reads the same contents. The door seems to have been bolted from inside. They move away awfully, lest they disturb the hermit’s peace. …. Nidhi often happens to recall her days when she had once heard from Anirudh that Smriti’s father is a doctor in a government dispensary and has been living an ostentatious type of life. It had resulted in his daughter always complaining of the total absence of modern amenities for leading `a moderately c...

The Bible verses I was taught at church and the testimony of my parents and others introduced me to Jesus. Several times during my youth I prayed to be saved from hell, but remained unsure if I was truly saved. Later as I prepared to enter college I concluded that my sin during high school surely would result in my damnation. I lost all hope before remembering the good news that Christ died for sinners. Happily I planned to start a new relationship with Christ based on his promise of forgiveness to me, rather than my efforts to be good enough. The Lord then immediately directed me into grace centered discipleship at college and afterward. As I dug deeper into the Word of God, with the help of godly men, I learned that my sin problem is much greater than I imagined. My continuing sin, even as a Christian, has shown me what sin really is, hatred of God. What began as a prayer to be saved from Hell has grown to a prayer to be saved from sin. Thankfully God has also shown me that he has oceans and oceans of grace and mercy toward sinners. Jesus is a super savior who has saved me from condemnation, and who I know has paid for a...

This Christian teaching is validated by my confession that Christ's death applied to us while we were still his enemies, and thus I have become his friend. "For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life," (Romans 5:10, WEB). No permission is needed to reprint this content for free distribution. Scripture quotes are primarily from the copyright free World English Bible at http://ebible.org/web and http://ebible.org/study....

Optimism Out of Control book DGJC articles Zinger 1 pagers WiseCrack cartoons Top Ten lists Musings Wallpaper Media.

An intriguing short story about solving the mystery of the cosmos and the metaphorical identity of Kafka's and Shakespeare's mistress.

Join the adventures of Mark Prior, a twenty two year old Brit, in an incredible journey across Europe as he uncovers, alongside his friends, a hidden and primeval power. Follow the story of the four friends as they release the blue lightning, trapped inside a forgotten relic from a time long lost, and witness their change from young university graduates to beings of extraordinary power....

Chapters 1-15