Gordon Seckenheim dedicated his post-doctoral research to insect behavior. Specifically, he wanted to learn why moths are attracted to a flame.

Or it may have been that his emotional state somehow clouded his analysis.

Simon skipped home with a proud smile. He’d traded his family’s last gold piece for three magic beans. He was so looking forward to seeing his mother’s face.

The ruin extended beyond just the family. After the first heavy rain, the beans came alive and began eating all the villagers. Simon insisted the old witch had promised they were vegan beans, but no one had time to listen.

“The Boss Man is coming!”

In this economy, no one dared to quit. Everyone acknowledged it was better to get executed than to risk unemployment.

Moore’s law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware: the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.

The law really should be called Carver’s law, because George Washington Carver first hypothesized the same for peanuts. I remember my grandfather telling me that when he was a boy, peanuts were as large as a cantaloupe. These days you can fit about ten peanuts on a ritz cracker, and I can envision a future where we’ll all be talking about nanopeanuts. I pray I live to see that day.

Percival’s search for the Grail is the embodiment of commitment and perseverance. His quest has endured for centuries, taking him to all corners of the globe and even off planet. His heroic deeds, though not well known, will forever be equated with righteousness and purity of motive.

When God told him the truth, Percival decried him as an idolater.

The Cadillac hurtled through traffic like the driver was at the controls of a video game. He sideswiped several sedans and ran one SUV off the road entirely as he jumped the median and exited the highway from the on-ramp. When he crashed into the guard rail, he brandished a semi-automatic weapon, shot several innocent bystanders, and carjacked a new vehicle. The carnage continued for several hours.

News blogs later reported that seventeen motorists died, including four prostitutes. Journalists speculated on the driver’s motive. No one guessed that he was actually a video game developer who had forgotten his medication.

Brian wasn’t sure how it happened, whether it was the Christmas wish just before his father’s death, or the aftereffects of some magical spell uttered generations before in his attic, but every night, when his mother wasn’t around, his toys came alive.

His life was now a living hell. He didn’t mind the work itself, but the beatings and tongue-lashings were, to his mind, excessive. If only the toys would tell him what they wanted in a calm manner, he’d finish everything without complaint.

Billy was consumed by fear. Somewhere on the other side of the closet door was the man come to kill him.

It was not long after the incident that Billy checked himself back into rehab. Three days spent in the closet, hiding from the mailman, finally drove home the point that his marijuana addiction was out of control.

Every desert harbors an oasis at its heart. The more consuming the landscape, the more bountiful its sanctuary. The soil squeezes every spare drop into hidden, long forgotten recesses, where it will be conducted to safety.

They’ve promised me a taste of a single drop of water, a generation in the making, on the day of my death.