The Writing Inertia

I’ve been married to my husband Bruce for four years and we are Best friends, we have always gotten along with each other and rarely ever fought. We have two kids, one girl named Lauren who is 14 and another girl named Valerie who is 10 years old. We’ve been in the same house for 3 1/2 years and never thought about moving. I got home one day with great news, I’ve had the same job for 10 years and just got a promotion. My husband was still at work so I waited for Lauren and Valerie to come home since school just ended. I told Lauren first because it would be easier for her to understand than Valerie. “That’s great news mom!” Lauren cheered. “I know, took them long enough to see my full potential.” I laughed and walked into the kitchen until my last step almost went through the door. “What the?” The floorboard was breaking. “Lauren, can you please come over here?” “Yeah what’s up?” “Can you get the hammer please?” “Sure.” Lauren handed the hammer to me and watched me...

  After twenty years of marriage, we walked out of the bush and on to a rough dirt road we followed till we saw a pond we might be able to get to. The ground was boggy and buzzing. The pond was thick with weed and slime. It was not the sort of pond anyone would swim in, but we did — picking and sliding into the water over the bog and bees, bees we suddenly noticed were everywhere, were settling on our hair as we swam, ducks turning surprised eyes our way. After twenty years of marriage what is surprising isn’t really so much the person you are with but to find yourselves so out of place in this scene, cold but not able to get out without stepping over bees, so many bees.

  Two feet of snow at my parents’ place, in another season. Here, the cicadas sing like Christian women’s choirs in a disused cotton mill. Belief is a kind of weather. I haven’t seen proper snow for three years. The new urban forest for native plants and birds will be splendid if the local cats don’t kill the birds. The problem is, all my sympathies are with the cats. The friendly disturbers are more endearing than what they disturb. A trimaran called 3rd Degree spinning around its cable in the channel: that’s how love is here and should be everywhere. It seems so unserious or contentedly ironic; it’s the kind of thing you either look through or ignore. But you’d be wrong. The question isn’t: Why is love so strange here? It’s: Why did it feel normal somewhere else? In quiet places, the present is just gossip about the past. The future is a critique of that. All my best. - Erik Kennedy

It was the hunter's first time outside Montana. He woke, stricken still with the hours-old vision of ascending through rose-lit cumulus, of houses and barns like specks deep in the snowed-in valleys, all the scrolling country below looking December—brown and black hills streaked with snow, flashes of iced-over lakes, the long braids of a river gleaming at the bottom of a canyon. Above the wing the sky had deepened to a blue so pure he knew it would bring tears to his eyes if he looked long enough. Now it was dark. The airplane descended over Chicago, its galaxy of electric lights, the vast neighborhoods coming clearer as the plane glided toward the airport—streetlights, headlights, stacks of buildings, ice rinks, a truck turning at a stoplight, scraps of snow atop a warehouse and winking antennae on faraway hills, finally the long converging parallels of blue runway lights, and they were down. He walked into the airport, past the banks of monitors. Already he fe...

Reddit user stone_huntsman works as a cave guide, leading tours for spelunking (or caving). After taking a group down one day, everyone stopped to take a break near a section where you can hear the underground streams flowing through the cave system. While there, they had everyone turn off their headlight, so that they could experience the total darkness.

A friend of mine and her mother had recently moved into a new home when the pair had a ghostly encounter. Since they’d just moved, the mother and writer slept in the same room on the floor. In the middle of the night, they woke up to see the door opening and an old woman creeping by. They hid under the covers and turned away, thinking it was a nightmare.

While serving as a caretaker of a small uninhabited island off the Maine coast, Robert and his girlfriend began having what he describes as “synchronized nightmares.” While they had never previously discussed the things they were dreaming before dreaming them, they discovered they were sharing these rather involved, highly specific dreams for a month.

While serving as a nanny for a wealthy family, Mary had an intense experience with spirits. Around the time the young woman started working for the family, the matriarch had several close relatives die in close succession. Understandably, she began counseling sessions to help her deal with her emotions and grief.

In a story told by Redditor EpicTacoTruck’s uncle, one fight between a police officer and his wife led to a terrifying demon-dog encounter. One evening after a K-9 unit officer took home his dog, the couple began to argue.

A year and a half after ChristineNoelle’s father passed away, her family decided to go on a trip to Maui. Not only was her father someone who loved to travel (despite the family not getting to do it much when the father was alive), but this specific Hawaiian island was a favorite of her father.