In my dream that night, I found my game and entered it, finding myself in a weird, featureless body which was waiting for me to define it. I was a vaguely woman-shaped cloud. I wasn’t able to move the body, but I could basically see it from any angle. On the computer I would have been choosing colors and sizes for aspects of my body, but here, after a little experimentation, I just forced my own body image onto the character, and she became a virtual clone of me.

3

The next morning, Tommy woke up feeling the warmth of his wet diaper and of the sun streaming through his window. His mother greeted him with a smile and a loving hug. "Good morning, sweetie! Let's get you changed and ready for the day," she said. Once she had finished, his mother lifted him into her arms and held him close. "There we go, all fresh and clean," she said, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. "Now, let's go have some yummy breakfast, and we can talk about what fun things we can do today."

“Well?” said Sally when I arrived home from a meeting with my lawyer and the board of directors of my former company.
“How did it go?”

Jekyllase is in the news again as several states are considering decriminalizing its possession; some referenda, such as Proposition 118 here in Oregon, would go farther, making it effectively an over-the-counter drug. It occurred to me that I could dust off a memoir I started writing some time ago, edit it to focus more closely on my experiences with jekyllase, and offer it to the public (anonymously, by necessity, as these propositions are not law yet) as a contribution to the debate.

The only plane I had ever been on was a Tiger Moth, on a twenty- minute joyride out of Shoreham, which was only an airfield, not a proper airport.

It didn’t make me feel like Phineas Fogg, more like a descendant of Biggles or the Red Baron. Besides, I was just a kid when I had that first flight.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 53 Deep Secrets

Continued on from GOM 52 on a Saturday evening in the Green Dragon Inn taproom

“Hang on a moment before you do, Pete. Jeremy, whilst we’re on about food, or at any rate stuff that sometimes passes for food, answer a question for me if you would. Why the hell would anybody want to eat pizza instead of food? I know millions of poor brainwashed bastards all over the planet do, and some of them go out to eat the stuff calling it a meal, dinner even, but to me it seems a not unnatural question because I’ll lay odds there’s not a Bearthwaite man who’s ever been offered it by his missus as food here is there? I’d far rather have a sandwich made with decent bread as is baked down at the mill, and our kids wouldn’t thank you for the stuff, for they’d all rather have a bag of chips [US fries] from Ellerys’ chippy.A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 53 Deep Secrets

From the Top
by Bryony Marsh

“James, what are you doing here?”

The boy gave a guilty start that spoke volumes: he was caught and there was no point in lying.

“I’m doing my Physics homework, Sir,” he said.

Simon Owens sighed. “What I mean is, why are you lurking in the library when you’re supposed to be in class?”

A Successful Family

The possession of a small number of cows, pigs, sheep and goats in addition to ducks, hens and geese was to the older family members the currency by which they measured true wealth. That the hundreds of doves that lived in the centuries old dovecote and the fish in the lake were a readily available food source was a wonder to them. When they added a couple of hives of bees and a dozen rabbits to keep in a barn they couldn’t imagine a better life.