Jim Stitzel
Jack-of-All-Trades, Master of WordsExcerpts from Life
Mental Wellness: It’s an Ongoing Process
The last four days have been some of the hardest I've experienced in quite some time. I've been mired in a state of depression that probably hasn't been this severe since the early part of my recovery last summer. I've fought and struggled and despaired and clung onto...
Small Blessings
It's Saturday morning, and my children are taking advantage of the cooler morning air to be outside, playing in the yard, blowing bubbles, creating chalk creations on the sidewalk. I was able to get a full night's sleep last night, the first all week. My mood today is...
Caught Between a Lull and Quiet Place
I'm sitting here right now, trying to decide what to do with myself. And I don't mean just on an immediate, here-and-now, should I pick up a controller and play a game or write a story sort of way, though that's certainly a part of it. I mostly mean it in the sense of...
Fiction
The Statue
They entered the basement of the old theatre. It was dark, damp, and musty. The place had been abandoned for years and so was in a profound state of disrepair. They flicked on their flashlights, beaming them across the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Water puddled in...
The Dead Horse
It's 8am, and there is a dead saddled horse in my bed. Mind you, it's a very small horse, a miniature pony, if you will. But it is fully saddled, complete with bit and bridle, and it is most definitely dead. Two questions immediately arise: 1) just how in the hell did...
A Meeting
An infant, if you can call it that, toddles into the ground floor of a broken skyscraper. The child is naked, but it carries in its hands a white tennis shoe. The infant-creature is warped, misshapen, its skull distended and bulging. It walks on tiptoes as if to be...