He was a haggard old man who always appeared to be malnourished and disoriented. His was a familiar face around the area near the pantry. No one knew his real name, so everyone sort of agreed to call him Bob. It was a one syllable deal and easy to remember. Bob didn’t seem to mind. He just showed up one day and everyone assumed he had lived on the streets for a while. No one knew where he came from, if he had kin in the area, or much of anything else about him.

Sargis Petrosyan had worked at CyTek Systems for nearly a decade. A loyal, hardworking employee, he was to receive a ten-year anniversary citation and gift in the coming days. Sargis was a financial analyst, and a darn good one too. The company was in the competitive position it was today because of policies he helped author and implement. His knowledge of the inner-workings of the company was vast. So much so that an increasing number of the executives quietly pondered if he was susceptible to exploitation. In three days’ time, they’d get their answer.

Lucky 7evon, a thirty-four-year-old happy-go-lucky blonde haired blue-eyed non-hunk. He had been head over heels in love with Winter Bobb for as long as he could remember. Two years younger than he, her dark skin, afro-style hair and funky attitude called to him, made him yearn for her more each day, and times be darned, he’d make her his wife and anyone who didn’t approve could kiss something stinky. Nothing else mattered. Well, almost nothing else.

Authorities arrested twenty-four-year-old Phuong Soun for stealing. Like so many women before her, they placed her into pre-trial detention and sent her to the women’s prison, dubbed CC2, to await trial. She didn’t know how long she’d be there, nor how she’d take care of her one month old child, Charissa. In Cambodia, children less than three years old could stay with their mothers in confinement while they were in detention. It was not an ideal situation. 

Who threw the first punch was anyone’s guess, and at that point, it didn’t really matter. Embroiled in battle, it looked as though it’d be to the death. Jae Barlow and his business partner, Matt Brolin, had been at each other’s throats for weeks and it all came to a head that evening. Jae threw a gut punch that caused Matt to double over as he gasped for air. He followed up with a knee, catching Matt on the chin, forcing him to fall backwards.

In the year of our lord 2022, Thirty-two-year-old Boone Perry began his incarceration at the Bibb Correctional Facility in Brent, Alabama, AIS# xxxxxx. He was not a very smart man. On a scale of one to ten, one being the least intelligent, old Boone would come in at number two. As unfortunate as that sounds, he simply did not get his full ration of smarts at birth. And he did absolutely nothing to correct that as he grew older.

In the year of our lord 2022, Thirty-two-year-old Boone Perry began his incarceration at the Bibb Correctional Facility in Brent, Alabama, AIS# xxxxxx. He was not a very smart man. On a scale of one to ten, one being the least intelligent, old Boone would come in at number two. As unfortunate as that sounds, he simply did not get his full ration of smarts at birth. And he did absolutely nothing to correct that as he grew older.

Dr. Micah Crewe was a cardiologist. Brilliant in his own right. His friends and colleagues, however, accused him of suffering from emotional invalidation. As such, people often misunderstood him and accused him of overactive feelings of worthlessness. Those feelings affected his day-to-day life in that people often came away from encounters with him with the feeling that he was simply a butthead.

In a dark, dusty old warehouse, they strapped him to a chair in a room that looked as though its purpose was for dismembering cadavers. A man stood in front of him wearing bloodied leather gloves. He had just landed one more powerful blow to the man’s face, a face that looked more like ground beef than an actual face.

In a case of the pursuer becoming the pursuee, he foolishly walked right into a trap even a rookie could have avoided. They had him cornered, and he was sure they had already trained their scopes on him. He cursed himself, closed his eyes, and awaited the bullet he was sure was already in flight towards him. Just then, his partner burst in and made him the happiest and the luckiest man on the planet.

On that dark rainy night, he ran as fast as he could to keep them from catching up with him. He knew what they wanted, and there was no way he could voluntarily give it to them. The cost of such betrayal would be far worse than what the people chasing him would do.

1979, on no particular day. Duncan Monday was smitten with her the first time he saw her. She was the most beautiful girl his eyes had ever seen. Her father, his best friend, invited him to a cookout, saw the look in his eyes and thought, “Great, what have I done?”

It was perfect, a shingle-style home with a Dutch Colonial build. It sat atop a hill at the intersection of Bradduck Avenue and Alter Street. When looking at the front of the house, the room, an attic of sort, was the focal feature. It had a swing out double framed window that was large enough to climb in or out of in an emergency. There were nine rooms total in the house, as well as a raised basement.

The waiting room, a place where people sit around anxiously waiting to be called to the next waiting area. While hoping not to make inadvertent eye contact, they scan the room to get a sense that everyone is as miserable as they are. Some skim magazines, some read books, some just twiddle their thumbs. No one wants to be there.

In 1863, a baby girl was born to Sean and Gabbie Nkiru. They were a young couple who married out of necessity to keep their owners from selling their baby to the Wheatley Institute in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. They named their baby Kelechi Nkiru after Sean’s mother. But it didn’t matter because she would never be called by that name. As rumors spread of the war ending, possibly badly for the south, the confederate commanders were getting desperate to dispel such rumors, as they adversely affected morale

In 1897, Rokuro Nobutoshi of the Hakone region of Japan built a cute little box. It looked like any other multi-tiled wooden box of the time. But Rokuro’s box was special. It was a puzzle box, himitsu-bako. It had sliding panels and a 35 move combination required to open the box. Whoever figured out the combination could claim the secret to great riches locked within.

They were five years married. Desperately wanting to escape the ritual of the daily commute, they purchased a secluded property outside the city. Both self-employed, they had struck the perfect life/work balance. They allowed just enough seclusion that they could briefly hop back to the hustle and bustle of the city whenever they desired.

New York has some of the best dining in the country, and Staten Island is home to some of the best Italian cuisine. Jack Sitler traveled often for business but was finally going to be in town long enough to take his wife to Brioso Ristorante and he made reservations for a Wednesday night. He’d be leaving the following morning for another week’s long overseas trip.

So James found himself involved in a “thing” a few years back that got him arrested and almost convicted of a heinous crime, a crime that could have landed him in prison for a good number of years. But that didn’t happen. Something else did. This is his story.

The attack was brutal. People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) launched an attack on the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) base at Gio Linh. Dozens of people were killed, including some American trainers. Morale was at a low point as issues ranging from corrupt leadership to outright desertion plagued the American unit. Lieutenant Desmond Smilowicz was hiding in a bunker, scared out of his mind but determined to live through the attack.