I hope your father didn't have arthrosis... I like the way you wove this is little bit of prose .

"What we don’t understand somehow calluses our memories."

I'm saving that in my Monsieur Booth quotes file.

Yet violence is rarely an answer to violence. Our desire for revenge will engender yet more suffering, yet more death that we must honor and respect.

Yes, I think it was Gandhi who said, 'An eye for an eye will leave the world blind.'

Wow, powerful stuff, alfred. I think you did a great job of showing the action of the man travelling through the forest, mirrored with the action of his mind as he settled his thoughts in a logical order. Loved this line: ' He watched the last corner of his will catch on a sudden breeze and float away. '

mea culpa: I bet it is still what you want. disregarding gender .

Smashing re-listing, Alfred. A term should make us react to it, and that's the effect that tired, old cliches lack. Your new cliches took me from humour to a sad stomach flip. Here are the two examples that made me snort, and then deflate (in a good way!)

Great job with this exercise! My favorite was pure as genetically modified milk (I love a sarcastic cliche!) Nicki

The mood set for the "secret" was so dark, I admit I was little scared to read on. I'm glad I did the ending was an original. At least I hope you don't know someone like this. Great to see you other side too!

Nathan Bridgemont was certainly a complex character! We all have our secrets, don't we? You did a wonderful job with the tone of this piece; it was as stolic and refined on the outside as Nathan, yet its air of dark mystery lay just under the surface. You captured a mood that mirrored Nathan's character -- bravo!

You did a great job of incorporating a tremor of darkness underlying this piece. Your foreshadowing technique is good, and my desire as a reader to discover the secret was tantalising, encouraging me to read on. I also got a clear image of the characters--your descriptions were open enough for me to see snapshots of them through my own imagination; other readers are sure to imagine quite different people, but with just as much clarity