Thanks to my readers, here's my new blog!

And here's a story excerpt--just a flash--to baptize it.


Sand Crabs Like Dark Places


Jack’s town was a weepy place. The firs were always dripping with rain, and the sunflower garden his wife had planted when they’d moved in at the beginning of summer was just black stalks now. The rainbow they’d seen in late spring while they were house hunting had not been a good omen after all.
His wife and sons were weepy too. When they greeted him at the airport on Friday nights, their tears wet his jacket as they hugged him. They cried again as they left him at the airport when the weekend was over. His commute took him an hour by jet from his wet state to the sunny state where his office was.
Then the home office told him he was going to Kuwait. Again. Told him he’d be leaving in a week.
The pay had been excellent the first time he’d gone, a year ago. His wife had been tearful, but proud.
Not this time.
“Why you?” she asked. And later, “Who do they think they are?” And after that, “Who do YOU think YOU are?”
A week later, Halloween came, and the kids dressed up for their class parties that afternoon. His wife had let them come along to see Jack off at the airport. The oldest was dressed as a Rastafarian, complete with a dreadlocks wig he’d enhanced with the family Shih-Tzu’s long grey hair. The middle son was a robot, and though his silver cardboard costume was in the car, he still walked to the ticket counter with a jerky movement, his hands tucked into silver oven mitts. The thing was, he always wore silver oven mitts. Jack and his wife had created the costume around them. The youngest, aged eight, was dressed like a Ninja—a store-bought costume, no adjustments necessary.
Jack noticed the security guards eyeing his sons as the family stopped at the security checkpoint.
The youngest pulled his Ninja headband low over his eyes and muttered,“You’re just going so you can get away from us.”