“Paper or plastic?” The question barely registers. I look down at my nuts in a vice grip, and then back up at the pimply teen. “Plastic.” I pay and wait for the last few bags to be loaded into the cart. My balls are killing me. “Would you like help with that sir?” God...

Life was not fair. Period. She knew it. She accepted it. Nevertheless, what was happening in her life was something she did not plan for. She was stressed out. Her life had turned into a circus. Juggling between work and household chores, she felt herself being reduced to smithereens. The cleaning, dusting,...

“Welcome to our mid-week service,” the tiny old man in front of the pulpit spoke. The handful of people in the pews smiled back their greetings. Even Regina lifted her head, panted, then settled back down on the floor next to the old woman, Annie Williams, known to most of the congregation as Aunt...

[Editor's Note: This week, we are going to be running excerpts from David Zimmerman's new work, The Parable of the Unexpected Guest. You can read Part One here. David is an editor at IVP Books and a columnist here at the Writers Collective. Follow ongoing adventures with the unexpected guest on Twitter...

[Editor's Note: Over the next three days, we are going to be running excerpts from David Zimmerman's new work, The Parable of the Unexpected Guest. David is an editor at IVP Books and a columnist here at the Writers Collective. Follow ongoing adventures with the unexpected guest on Twitter at @unexpguest.] Part...

Frances peered skeptically over the ledge. “Are you sure the instructions Lennart gave us were right?” she asked her brother, Emil.  “Why would we need to do something so risky?  Why would he ask us to do that?” “You know exactly what the compass said,” Emil replied.  “It said that we...

None of us knew what had caused the war–the explosions, the devastation, all of it. It happened too fast, and for whatever reason all of us who survived had been too busy to stay informed enough to venture a guess, educated or not, as to the cause. We knew it was over and besides our group there...

Ruess, Lange said he wrote to you.  Go easy on him.  He can wax downright eloquent about the recent past but between the lines is a lot of hurt.  Quite a few family and friends blackballed them when little Karen got pregnant.  His wife, Rebecca, went completely zombie on him, useless as jello. ...

First the man drinks the drink, then the drink drinks the drink, then the drink drinks the man. – Japanese proverb Love for my baby girl sent me into the woods. Soul searching. It had been almost a year since I stood in a hospital room and cradled pure beauty wrapped in soft blankets. I’d never...

“I just don’t believe in the same things I used to,” Cliff admitted. “Maybe God exists, but I have no reason to really think so anymore.” Sitting in the dark corner booth with Eric, his longtime friend and confidant, Cliff was admitting things he could never tell anyone...