When I was a child our family lived along a different stretch of muddy shore. At that shore’s edge a bright, golden temple stood in the water.
Leaving Behind the Golden Temple [Fiction]

When I was a child our family lived along a different stretch of muddy shore. At that shore’s edge a bright, golden temple stood in the water.
The last time I saw Monsieur Renoir, he was sitting beneath an umbrella at a sidewalk cafe in Paris, leisurely drinking coffee and glancing through a newspaper.
The reverend glanced at the Alabama River. The spectacular Montgomery skyline like a masterpiece God painted. Then he looked below.
"how come their barking is so hoarse?" “I lasered their vocal chords. Too many complaints from last neighbors.”
She felt a migraine at the base of her neck. Muscles tensed around the nerves until a painful pressure crept over her skull and pulsed behind her left eye. Sometimes it would go away if she had a Screwdriver and a bag of potato chips. Sometimes things just went dark, and she couldn’t remember who she’d swung at.
The luminosity that came through the window, barely touched few objects, it almost produced no shadows. I knew well the pitfalls of that rebellious house that revenged the years of misuse by clicking worn floor planks, echoing secrets by thin partitions newly installed, watering rain by the holes of the chandeliers, for long opaque of dust and loneliness.
She looked nice on the dating site. A little bit mousy, but nice. She had a shy smile. But her lips were closed. I wonder if I should wear the brown jacket or the blue. Mother says the blue looks more professional. Mother! My god. What will Penelope think when she finds out I live with my mother? I'm thirty-eight freaking years old ferchrissake! Maybe I could say my mother lives with me. Yeah. That sounds a little better. Okay, it's the old family house. But still.
Miles never would’ve imagined that tonight his life would be on the line. He was ordinary. Grab the box. Pack products. Repeat. Get paid. Sleep. Get a day off in between. Life was cut and dry. “Work until you die,” he’d say.
But it’s not that simple.
No, it never is.
Charlie didn’t have the guts to rob the drugstore in Visalia. The woman behind the counter reminded him of his mother—what a chump. His truck needed gas, oil, a new carburetor. No sweat. Now he could buy a brand-new Cadillac.
Charlie nodded at the man in the Air Force uniform. The goon thought himself important in his creased pants, pressed shirt and two rows of medals on his chest. Charlie believed Roswell was a hoax, until now. Sure, he agreed. What crashed must have been a weather balloon.