Third ornithology congress, Dunkerque

Twenty-five stars were neatly placed on the piece of paper. There was room for five more stars but
they would be difficult ones to earn. It had taken years to earn the first twenty-five, and they were
considered the "easy" ones.
Her hand was balled into a fist with her keys protruding out from between her fingers. This was the
weapon her father had shown her how to make when she walked alone to her car after work. She
wished that she had something a little more potent than keys between her fingers. It would have
been nice to have some mace or pepper spray. He had been meaning to buy some but had never
gotten around to it. As the mother bear took another step forward with her cubs in tow, she knew her
fist with keys wasn't going to be an adequate defense for this situation.
He ordered his regular breakfast. Two eggs sunnyside up, hash browns, and two strips of bacon. He
continued to look at the menu wondering if this would be the day he added something new. This
was also part of the routine. A few seconds of hesitation to see if something else would be added to
the order before demuring and saying that would be all. It was the same exact meal that he had
ordered every day for the past two years.
They had always called it the green river. It made sense. The river was green. The river likely had a
different official name, but to everyone in town, it was and had always been the green river. So it
was with great surprise that on this day the green river was a fluorescent pink.
The box sat on the desk next to the computer. It had arrived earlier in the day and business had
interrupted her opening it earlier. She didn't who had sent it and briefly wondered who it might have
been. As she began to unwrap it, she had no idea that opening it would completely change her life.
I haven't bailed on writing. Look, I'm generating a random paragraph at this very moment in an
attempt to get my writing back on track. I am making an effort. I will start writing consistently
again!

He heard the crack echo in the late afternoon about a mile away. His heart started racing and he
bolted into a full sprint. "It wasn't a gunshot, it wasn't a gunshot," he repeated under his
breathlessness as he continued to sprint.
The computer wouldn't start. She banged on the side and tried again. Nothing. She lifted it up and
dropped it to the table. Still nothing. She banged her closed fist against the top. It was at this
moment she saw the irony of trying to fix the machine with violence.
My pincher collar is snapped on. Then comes the electric zapper collar. Finally, my purple at-home
collar is taken off and I know I’m going for a walk to the dog park. I’m so excited to see my friends.
I hope Spike or Thunder are there already. They're the most fun to chase and tumble with. My
human is pretty strict with me. I’m only allowed on the grass and not on the sidewalks. I think she’s
afraid I’m going to jump on the other humans. I don’t understand why everyone else gets to jump
on the benches and run wild on the sidewalks. They don’t listen to their humans. I know I could
ignore mine but if I do she may zap me and it’s just not worth it. She probably wouldn’t let me back
at the dog park if I didn’t listen to her. I just love the dog park.
She didn't like the food. She never did. She made the usual complaints and started the tantrum he
knew was coming. But this time was different. Instead of trying to placate her and her unreasonable
demands, he just stared at her and watched her meltdown without saying a word.
The trees, therefore, must be such old and primitive techniques that they thought nothing of them,
deeming them so inconsequential that even savages like us would know of them and not be
suspicious. At that, they probably didn't have too much time after they detected us orbiting and
intending to land. And if that were true, there could be only one place where their civilization was
hidden.
They rushed out the door, grabbing anything and everything they could think of they might need.
There was no time to double-check to make sure they weren't leaving something important behind.
Everything was thrown into the car and they sped off. Thirty minutes later they were safe and that
was when it dawned on them that they had forgotten the most important thing of all.
Dragons don't exist they said. They are the stuff of legend and people's imagination. Greg would
have agreed with this assessment without a second thought 24 hours ago. But now that there was a
dragon staring directly into his eyes, he questioned everything that he had been told.
The fog was as thick as pea soup. This was a problem. Gary was driving but couldn't see a thing in
front of him. He knew he should stop, but the road was narrow so if he did, it would be right in the
center of the road. He was sure that another car would end up rear-ending him, so he continued
forward despite the lack of visibility. This was an unwise move.
Rhonda prided herself on always taking the path less traveled. She'd decided to do this at an early
age and had continued to do so throughout her entire life. It was a point of pride and she would
explain to anyone who would listen that doing so was something that she'd made great efforts to
always do. She'd never questioned this decision until her five-year-old niece asked her, "So, is this
why your life has been so difficult?" and Rhonda didn't have an answer for her.
They had no proof. He knew that they knew he had done it but they didn't have any proof. It was a
huge distinction and it was the difference between him keeping his freedom or being locked away
for decades. They continued to question him, probing him for information that they could use
against him or find the proof they needed to put him away. He smiled and continued to block their
every inquiry by feigning his innocence for a crime they all knew he committed.
It was always the Monday mornings. It never seemed to happen on Tuesday morning, Wednesday
morning, or any other morning during the week. But it happened every Monday morning like
clockwork. He mentally prepared himself to once again deal with what was about to happen, but
this time he also placed a knife in his pocket just in case.
Was it enough? That was the question he kept asking himself. Was being satisfied enough? He
looked around him at everyone yearning to just be satisfied in their daily life and he had reached
that goal. He knew that he was satisfied and he also knew it wasn't going to be enough.
Since they are still preserved in the rocks for us to see, they must have been formed quite recently,
that is, geologically speaking. What can explain these striations and their common orientation? Did
you ever hear about the Great Ice Age or the Pleistocene Epoch? Less than one million years ago, in
fact, some 12,000 years ago, an ice sheet many thousands of feet thick rode over Burke Mountain in
a southeastward direction. The many boulders frozen to the underside of the ice sheet tended to
scratch the rocks over which they rode. The scratches or striations seen in the park rocks were
caused by these attached boulders. The ice sheet also plucked and rounded Burke Mountain into the
shape it possesses today.
She tried not to judge him. His ratty clothes and unkempt hair made him look homeless. Was he
really the next Einstein as she had been told? On the off chance it was true, she continued to try not
to judge him.
She wanted rainbow hair. That's what she told the hairdresser. It should be deep rainbow colors, too.
She wasn't interested in pastel rainbow hair. She wanted it deep and vibrant so there was no doubt
that she had done this on purpose.
They had made it to Las Vegas, wide-eyed and with so much hope and energy. They had planned
the trip for more than a year and both were so excited they could barely control themselves. They
still hadn't realized that Las Vegas promised a place where dreams come true, it was actually the
place where dreams came to die.
Cake or pie? I can tell a lot about you by which one you pick. It may seem silly, but cake people and
pie people are really different. I know which one I hope you are, but that's not for me to decide. So,
what is it? Cake or pie?
He swung back the fishing pole and cast the line which ell 25 feet away into the river. The lure
landed in the perfect spot and he was sure he would soon get a bite. He never expected that the bite
would come from behind in the form of a bear.
He collected the plastic trash on a daily basis. It never seemed to end. Even if he cleaned the entire
beach, more plastic would cover it the next day after the tide had come in. Although it was a futile
effort that would never be done, he continued to pick up the trash each day.
How had she been so wrong? All her instincts and intuition completely failed her for the first time
in her life. She had so heavily relied on both when making decisions up until this moment and she
felt a seismic shift take place in her self-confidence. If she could be so completely wrong about
something so simple as this, how could she make decisions about really important things taking
place in her life? She wasn't sure what she should do next.
“Ingredients for life,” said the backside of the truck. They mean food, but really food is only 1
ingredient of life. Life has so many more ingredients such as pain, happiness, laughter, joy, tears,
and smiles. Life also has hard work, easy play, sleepless nights, and sunbathing by the ocean. Love,
hatred, envy, self-assurance, and fear could be just down aisle 3 ready to be bought when needed.
How I wish I could pull ingredients like these off shelves in a store.
The robot clicked disapprovingly, gurgled briefly inside its cubical interior and extruded a pony
glass of brownish liquid. "Sir, you will undoubtedly end up in a drunkard's grave, dead of hepatic
cirrhosis," it informed me virtuously as it returned my ID card. I glared as I pushed the glass across
the table.
Betty decided to write a short story and she was sure it was going to be amazing. She had already
written it in her head and each time she thought about it she grinned from ear to ear knowing how
wonderful it would be. She could imagine the accolades coming in and the praise she would receive
for creating such a wonderful piece. She was therefore extremely frustrated when she actually sat
down to write the short story and the story that was so beautiful inside her head refused to come out
that way on paper.
It wasn't quite yet time to panic. There was still time to salvage the situation. At least that is what
she was telling himself. The reality was that it was time to panic and there wasn't time to salvage the
situation, but he continued to delude himself into believing there was.
It was difficult to explain to them how the diagnosis of certain death had actually given him life.
While everyone around him was in tears and upset, he actually felt more at ease. The doctor said it
would be less than a year. That gave him a year to live, something he'd failed to do with his daily
drudgery of a routine that had passed as life until then.
It's always good to bring a slower friend with you on a hike. If you happen to come across bears, the
whole group doesn't have to worry. Only the slowest in the group do. That was the lesson they were
about to learn that day.
The choice was red, green, or blue. It didn't seem like an important choice when he was making it,
but it was a choice nonetheless. Had he known the consequences at that time, he would likely have
considered the choice a bit longer. In the end, he didn't and ended up choosing blue.
The time had come for Nancy to say goodbye. She had been dreading this moment for a good six
months, and it had finally arrived despite her best efforts to forestall it. No matter how hard she
tried, she couldn't keep the inevitable from happening. So the time had come for a normal person to
say goodbye and move on. It was at this moment that Nancy decided not to be a normal person.
After all the time and effort she had expended, she couldn't bring herself to do it.
Why do Americans have so many different types of towels? We have beach towels, hand towels,
bath towels, dish towels, camping towels, quick-dry towels, and let’s not forget paper towels. Would
1 type of towel work for each of these things? Let’s take a beach towel. It can be used to dry your
hands and body with no difficulty. A beach towel could be used to dry dishes. Just think how many
dishes you could dry with one beach towel. I’ve used a beach towel with no adverse effects while
camping. If you buy a thin beach towel it can dry quickly too. I’d probably cut up a beach towel to
wipe down counters or for cleaning other items, but a full beach towel could be used too. Is having
so many types of towels an extravagant luxury that Americans enjoy or is it necessary? I’d say it's
overkill and we could cut down on the many types of towels that manufacturers deem necessary.
"So, what do you think?" he asked nervously. He wanted to know the answer, but at the same time,
he didn't. He'd put his heart and soul into the project and he wasn't sure he'd be able to recover if
they didn't like what he produced. The silence from the others in the room seemed to last a lifetime
even though it had only been a moment since he asked the question. "So, what do you think?" he
asked again.
There was something in the tree. It was difficult to tell from the ground, but Rachael could see
movement. She squinted her eyes and peered in the direction of the movement, trying to decipher
exactly what she had spied. The more she peered, however, the more she thought it might be a
figment of her imagination. Nothing seemed to move until the moment she began to take her eyes
off the tree. Then in the corner of her eye, she would see the movement again and begin the process
of staring again.
Patricia's friend who was here hardly had any issues at all, but she wasn't telling the truth.
Yesterday, before she left to go home, she heard that her husband is in the hospital and pretended to
be surprised. It later came out that she was the person who had put him there.
It was a scrape that he hardly noticed. Sure, there was a bit of blood but it was minor compared to
most of the other cuts and bruises he acquired on his adventures. There was no way he could know
that the rock that produced the cut had alien genetic material on it that was now racing through his
bloodstream. He felt perfectly normal and continued his adventure with no knowledge of what was
about to happen to him.
Here's the thing. She doesn't have anything to prove, but she is going to anyway. That's just her
character. She knows she doesn't have to, but she still will just to show you that she can. Doubt her
more and she'll prove she can again. We all already know this and you will too.
The tree missed the days the kids used to come by and play. It still wore the tire swing the kids had
put up in its branches years ago although both the tire and the rope had seen better days. The tree
had watched all the kids in the neighborhood grow up and leave, and it wondered if there would
ever be a time when another child played and laughed again under its branches. That was the hope
that the tree wished every day as the swing gently swung empty in the wind.
Balloons are pretty and come in different colors, different shapes, different sizes, and they can even
adjust sizes as needed. But don't make them too big or they might just pop, and then bye-bye
balloon. It'll be gone and lost for the rest of mankind. They can serve a variety of purposes, from
decorating to water balloon wars. You just have to use your head to think a little bit about what to
do with them.
Trees. It was something about the trees. The way they swayed with the wind in unison. The way
they shaded the area around them. The sounds of their leaves in the wind and the creaks from the
branches as they sway, The trees were making a statement that I just couldn't understand.
Welcome to my world. You will be greeted by the unexpected here and your mind will be
challenged and expanded in ways that you never thought possible. That is if you are able to
survive...
The alarm went off and Jake rose awake. Rising early had become a daily ritual, one that he could
not fully explain. From the outside, it was a wonder that he was able to get up so early each
morning for someone who had absolutely no plans to be productive during the entire day.