I muttered a quick prayer for my soul’s renewal, hoping the words would catch on the hawk’s wings and be taken to wherever such prayers should go.

Doctor Hendall sat down at his mahogany desk and drummed his fingers on the finish. On the back wall, he had a silver plaque that said, “Semper Fidelis.” His three piece-suit made me feel like I was going to be prosecuted by an attorney.

Private Alexander Huxley sat in the hull of the C-47, jaw clenched and lips twisted into a savage grimace. The weight of his parachute kept him hunched in his seat, and the straps of his harness and weapon case chafed raw swathes into his skin.

“I do hope he likes them,” Doris thought to herself over and over again. They were, after all, very special cookies for a very special person.

Sally first met Roger Wilde in February 1968, a few weeks after she and her husband, Dr. Edmund Pereira, had arrived in Borneo to begin their life as a married couple.

Emerging as an adult dragonfly was more painful than Ollo had anticipated. His new tail whipped out like a bamboo shoot, its nerve endings raw and overstimulated.

With its now-familiar rattles and wheezes - some belonging to the van, some to the myriad of potions, weapons, and equipment in the back of it - Iggy got his trusty van to Kysham village.

A sudden bright orange-red light illuminated the sea, and there, amongst the inky black sloshing waves, a small island became visible. Smoke filled the tiny land, and a circular beast of a machine rose to the sky.

Cruise ship crooner Danny DiMarzio causes big headaches for an orchestra when he arrives, but comes to the rescue when the mask of hospitality slips to reveal a dangerous and unhinged villain lurking amongst the crew.

Red’s Place was the starting point for what would arguably become the most (in)famous story in the history of Semmes County.

Shoes on Main was a small store nestled between Sally’s Coffee Roost and a space that had more businesses over time than he could keep track of. Some spaces are like that; cursed or haunted, whatever the explanation, nothing stuck.

The helicopter would be coming in the morning to take him home. Not home forever. Just two weeks of R&R.

When I run, I leave the skin of my shyness behind, and I feel like a horseman on the Mongolian steppe, free, without boundaries.

It wasn’t fury that vitalised Hannah, it was loss, grief even – though heaven knows she shouldn’t be the one grieving. But she couldn’t bear him just carrying on without her.

“Very well,” I say. “I will prove to you that every person on this planet has a calling. Would you like to hear a story?”