Assortment 8

This is the eigth collection of short stories. As with the other seven, there is no theme, no shared genre, no fixed format. Most come from contest submittals. The nice thing about these contests is it gives the writer a chance to venture out of his/her comfort zone. Sometimes, you'll be asked to write all dialogue with no descriptions. Other times, it will be only dialogue without tag lines or beats (who said what, and what were they doing when they said it).
The stories can be short (less than 300 words) or long (up to 5000 words). They can have any theme or prompt - a poem, song lyric, a picture, a comic book cover, anything. The goal is to develop as many writing skills as possible. You never know when you'll need a new approach.
I hope you like these.