The smell of cigarette smoke fills the air, hanging in thick white clouds, reflecting the bright moon above. The smoke curls and swirls in the air, rising and falling like the mist above a lake. The eerie smoke isn’t the only thing that fills the streets, and hangs in the air; the sound of music echoes around the empty alleyway, and occupies every crevice of every crooked, abandoned building.

Chapter Three: The First Term

The beginning began on a morning new
And sang the songs of faeries and dew
A lovely dream of watches too
And empty was the milieu

So does abruptly start the tale
Of how the madman drove the gale
Like travelling down an abandoned rail
Or a secret told to no avail

A dream to live, a dream to have
A font for which the soul to bathe
Walk along the winding path
And suffer through the aftermath

I've written on apricotpie for five and a half years, and never once have I gone a month without posting. In fact, I don't recall ever cutting it this close. There are six hours left in the last day of the month and the only thing I have to show you is an essay about how I don't have anything to show you.
Sometimes I worry about my future as a writer.

It has often been observed that animals care for each other. Members of dolphin pods have been known to care for their sick, even pushing them to the surface to breathe periodically when a wound prevents them from doing it on their own. Elephants mourn their dead, murmuring softly amongst themselves when they encounter elephant bones or a place where a friend was once killed. A recent experiment was done on mice showing that they will learn to unlock a cage that has trapped a fellow mouse.

Frederick glanced once more over the last letter from his mysterious friend. A smile crept slowly over his lips. Had quaint old Mr. Dogood been a Christian all this time?

The even queerer style of his penmanship made the words seem to hover of the page. The classroom was empty now. Even the Professor had had to leave soon after class. Folding the letter back into his backpack, he walked to the teacher’s desk. It didn’t take many opening and closing of drawers to find an old-fashioned ink-well with a calligraphy pen.

Dear Frederick,

I cannot express how truly sorry I am for you and your family. Such an experience is so terrible, and yet, so frighteningly common. Pain and death are natural but ghastly aspects of our world. A great many previously religious people have turned to atheism for the same reason you have. It is simply too difficult for them to believe in a loving God who permits death and suffering.

Now Frederick, I know this is difficult, and that these wounds still pierce you afresh, but you must try to understand me. As atheists, we know:

1. There is no God.

When asked why he was a Christian, apologist Josh McDowell responded, "For a very simple reason: I am not able to explain away an event in history--the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

The first thing I loved about him was that he was beautiful.

Not handsome, as girls so often referred to him as. Or hot: a general consensus among most everybody under the age of twenty who had the pleasure of running into him. The occasional mom was even known to follow with her eyes as he walked down the hall, hands crossed over her chest, foot tapping the linoleum floor.