What follows in this article is a new installment from Chris aka Formerly Fun.  In her own words, it's "a bit pulpy, a bit romantic" and I will add ... "a bit entertaining."

It's something I think Scrivel readers will thoroughly enjoy and find themselves coming back for more.

So get comfortable, sit back, sip your coffee ... enjoy the BlogOpera ...

- F. Lawrence Caslin

This is a piece I wrote about the "24" phenomenon.  It really doesn't fit in as a Short Story or a Flash Fiction or even an essay. 

It's just a short little anecdote that I hope you'll find worth a chuckle or two.  And I hope that on a larger scale, it will force you to think about our society because underneath the story lies a subtext that strikes a cord with me.

I NEVER WATCHED the show 24.  I didn't want to get caught up in a TV show I had to watch from week to week.  That was too much commitment.  If I missed an episode, I'd be lost when I tried to watch the next one.  So I deprived myself altogether of the 24 phenomenon.

I’d like to say I was helping out a friend, doing it for charity, or it just looked like fun. But I can’t lie. During a spell ‘in-between’ careers, I worked as a temporary receptionist. It was a crap job but I needed the crap money that went with it.

Being a temp, I was given all the necessary training and attention required. “Desk’s over there, manual’s in the drawer,” rasped the burly office manager as she brushed me aside and slammed her office door. Great. Obviously I was going to be a valuable addition to the team.

This is an excerpt from Suzy Soro's as-yet-to-be-released book, "All the Bad Sex I’ve Had, a very, very, very long book."  For the next four Fridays, we will post portions of Chapter One.

Chapter One
DORÉ and GEORGE

"I killed my cat, Z."
 
Oh God this was going to be a boring conversation.
 
"I'm making out my will because I obviously can't live knowing I killed my own fucking cat," Doré sobbed. Her real name was Goldie but she changed it to Doré, French for 'golden', because she said that Goldie made her sound Jewish. Meanwhile, she was Jewish. I checked my dashboard clock and made a mental note to get a pretend call in 2.5 minutes.
 

If there's one thing I know, its heartbreak. I've been dumped by the best of them and the worst of them. Mostly the worst of them.

After a lot of soul-searching and hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapy, I've decided to pass my infinite knowledge of all things love-related onto you.

You're welcome.

Enjoy and write to me with your questions and comments using the email above!

Todos is a short story excerpt from Karen Condon's upcoming novel, Are You A Survivor? due out in December 2008.  Enjoy this first piece from Karen and come back for more of her wonderful writing ...

- F. Lawrence Caslin

Two rows of mouthless creatures standing in two lines on either side of the operating table, their eyes fixed on me, unmoving.  They were waiting for the anesthesia to take effect before they pounced.

We had had two hours to kill before my surgery was scheduled.  In the waiting room, my husband and sister sat to my left, and to my right was a woman flipping through an old copy of People magazine, front to back, back to front, front to back, back to front, without reading or stopping to look at pictures.  I glanced at her to find her glancing at me.