Alex Carrick’s Blog

“Dinosaur Spots Comet in Sky.” “That’s the headline I’m going with,” said Dilly the crocodile to Tony the T-Rex, as they faced each other across the entranceway to the latter’s luxurious cave. It was the most modern of eras in an alternative universe containing the 88th iteration of “standard” earth where the animals had evolved […]

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Washington has a huge debt problem and the Democrats, Republicans and Tea Party can’t agree on which comes first, increase taxes or lower spending. Here are some innovative answers I’ve come up with, combining both approaches and some “outside the box” ideas, to break the impasse. (1) Privatize the issuing of birth certificates to Donald […]

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Milton Spofford III’s colleagues in the press were bitterly jealous. Fresh out of journalism school, “Spiffy” was as nervous as he could ever imagine being. He’d won the lottery to conduct an exclusive interview with the Queen at a time when Her Highness and family were experiencing a resurgence of interest in Great Britain and […]

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Please note: The following story was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2011 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. He’d gotten himself into this mess by volunteering. That’s what happens when you’re an eager beaver. He’d never been one before and he wouldn’t be one next time. What had he been thinking? Surely he knew better […]

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Time: the present. Location: the upstairs master bedroom of a fabulous mansion on Long Island’s Gold Coast. Greta, the maid, knocked on the open door to give advance warning and walked thirty feet to the nightstand. She deposited the breakfast tray and acknowledged with a slight bow the thank you from the Mrs. on the […]

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The following is essentially a monologue as two men face each other, standing on the sidewalk of a small town’s Main Street in Midwest America. The date is the present, on a beautiful spring morning, a time of year when some things need nipping in the bud. The burly one, dressed in a dun-colored uniform […]

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The lives of two not-so-different men lay in ruins a week after the affair headlined in the media as either the Peoples’ Rally in the Clouds or Civil Unrest in Make-believe Square. Of course that wasn’t the official name. The event was first advertised under the title, World-wide Freedom Day. Preston Fleshman and Stephan Bossberg […]

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“Keep your voice down. I don’t want either of us to get into trouble. There are some things that aren’t talked about up here.” Jebediah Senior and Jebediah Junior were meeting in heaven for the first time since the former’s death thirty-five years earlier in a car crash and the latter’s recent shackles-shedding on account […]

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A father drove his two children, 12-year-old Bud and eight-year-old Betty-Lou, to school every morning. In good weather and bad, mostly in heavy traffic, they motored slowly along the well-established route and talked through many of the major issues of life. “What’s that guy doing, Dad?” asked Bud, sitting in the front seat with his […]

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“Start with a ‘hook’. It can be an exceptional title. Or a nifty idea. Even a joke, as long as it’s original. That’s where I begin. Then embellish it. Work backwards if you have to. And always, always, keep in mind the primary question – will this keep a reader interested?” That was the gist […]

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