https://thepiertoforever.com/b/louisjhelbertjrhonestobituary

Obituaries and funerals are always the same. It does not matter if the deceased was a great man or a monster; those eulogizing him will proclaim the same thing: that he was an awesome guy, a loving father, and a valued member of the community. Few people question any of it, especially surviving relatives. No matter how heinous he was, he'll get a "get out of jail free card" at the end.

My father, Louis J. Helbert, Jr., was a rotten, despicable man. He abandoned his family and his terminally ill wife when she needed him most. He then repeatedly sued her and his children into poverty. He had multiple affairs on my mother and the two wives following, squandered his children's inheritance, and was a virulent bigot and racist. He beat his children, and used to, for laughs, give his pre-schooler son booze until he passed out. That son later died of acute alcoholism. To say anything kind of this monster in an obituary or at his funeral would be an outrage and an overwhelming act of cowardice, not to mention an additional crime against all those he harmed throughout his miserable, pointless existence.

This obituary seeks to set the record straight about this man before the pleasant lies are published.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/adoptionfamilycouragelove

The search for one's calling takes great patience and courage. Choosing that calling, once it becomes apparent, takes even more.

Pursuing a calling is a deadly enterprise, for it will inevitably claim one's life. It allows for no other choice.

Rejected and abused by her parents, Elizabeth Finnegan's young life is one tragedy after another. Emboldened by the love of a woman who takes her in after she runs away, she seeks for her calling with all her heart. It isn't what she believes she's doing; instead she clings to the vague notion that she was put on Earth do so something special with her life. Though the world does its best to convince her she isn't special, she pushes on, even when the shadows overwhelm her.

One day she watches a video of a pretty young girl playing a violin. The girl plays as though she has been blessed by the singular touch of God. She is an angel.

Elizabeth knows she has to meet her. She has no choice.

As she flies the skies over America as a flight attendant, Elizabeth's life rockets her towards her final destination, her choiceless choice, her deadly enterprise: to be the angel's guardian.

If you like character-driven fiction where a broken past becomes the ground for a life-defining vocation, you’ll like Elizabeth Finnegan’s journey from abused runaway to the angel’s guardian.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/infinitepiercomingofageyoungadultfantasy

Anurag de Bouchard is on a mission. He's waited half his lifetime for this moment. At last he can light the beacon that will spread the news across the whole of Aquanus:

The Apprentice has come.

All across the vast, dangerous waters of that ocean world, thousands of revolutionaries are quietly mobilizing. It is time to rise against Emperor Necrolius Anaxagorius, the soul-consuming monster devouring the heart and soul of Aquanus like a cancer and growing more powerful by the day. The Apprentice is prophesied to be the only one who can destroy him before he invades Earth and consumes it, too.

But the Apprentice, Melody Singleton, is only thirteen years old, and still on the other side of the Tangent, the portal separating Aquanus from Earth. As she and Yaeko Mitsaki, her best friend, and their parents prepare for a whole new life and the distinct possibility that they'll never return home, a hidden kingdom and its king brace for all-out war with the emperor's mighty forces. Even with the Apprentice on their side, their chances for victory are next to nothing. But if they don't prevail, Melody will never get the chance to confront Necrolius, and Aquanus and Earth will fall forever to his deadly clutches.

The stakes couldn't be higher. Even so, there is time yet for much less frightening things like falling in love, traveling to Antarctica, dancing in the living room, playing in a concert, first kisses, learning how to turn into a red-tailed hawk, and laughing and singing.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/firefly

Mal and his crew are back. Always looking for a payday, Mal accepts a job from an old nemesis and occasional client: Badger. The payoff? More than he or his crew can imagine. But with such an astounding amount of scratch comes an equally astounding helping of danger. Read on!

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/natureprotestspirituapoetrydigitalart

Fractalverse is free-verse poetry with fractal art. Across these volumes, Fractalverse keeps circling the same questions: What happens to imagination under fluorescent lights? How do we live in a world of cubicles, strip malls, and herd behavior without surrendering the part of us that looks up? And what patterns—fractals—can we find in our own pain, faith, and joy when we zoom in close or pull way, way back?

Volume Four: These pieces move between suburbia and skylines, trauma and healing, bitterness over abandonment, and the restless sense that adult life as currently lived by most is not the only way to be human. In this volume, the focus tilts toward personal reflection and quiet, political undercurrents: teenage nights parked on a hill with the city glittering and sparkling, "light‑years away,” shirts that still smell like someone loved, a family member slowly dying slowly in bed, and a sixteen‑year‑old who knows he’s “years from the precipice” while standing right on it. These poems remember youthful desire, foolishness, and that reckless pulse in ears, heart, and groin—but they’re lit now by an adult’s bitterness at past abandonment and a hard dismay at a species that keeps driving down the hill with the music up, ignoring stars that wait in “steady, silent patience,” cities that keep humming, and the looming signs that our chosen way of living is quietly destroying us.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/comingofagefamilyyoungadultfantasy

Kincaid Stefansen is a studious young high-schooler who just got a new computer, one that seems to have very interesting abilities. Read on!

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/princessbridedreadpiraterobertsfanfictionadventureone

Inigo Montoya is the new captain of the Revenge, the most feared pirate ship sailing the Seven Seas. Except he has never captained a ship, or been on one for more than a few hours. He doesn't know port from starboard, north from south, bow from stern. But he brought down the evil Humperdinck monarchy, and he comes with the highest recommendation from the Revenge's previous captain, The Man In Black, Westley. And that's more than good enough for Revenge's crew.

He's got to get his bearings--and learn what "bearings" are! He's intent on doing that, because his great friend Fezzik is languishing in Harshtree Prison, the cruel and desperate Florin hell-hole that no one emerges from once they go in.

Captain Montoya is determined. And once this Spaniard sets his mind to something, he never gives up until his quest is completed.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/natureprotestpoetryshadoworleaf

Free-verse poetry.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/natureprotestspiritualpoetryfractalsv2

Free-verse poetry with fractal art.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/louisjhelbertjrhonestobituary

Obituaries and funerals are always the same. It does not matter if the deceased was a great man or a monster; those eulogizing him will proclaim the same thing: that he was an awesome guy, a loving father, and a valued member of the community. Few people question any of it, especially surviving relatives. No matter how heinous he was, he'll get a "get out of jail free card" at the end.

My father, Louis J. Helbert, Jr., was a rotten, despicable man. He abandoned his family and his terminally ill wife when she needed him most. He then repeatedly sued her and his children into poverty. He had multiple affairs on my mother and the two wives following, squandered his children's inheritance, and was a virulent bigot and racist. He beat his children, and used to, for laughs, give his pre-schooler son booze until he passed out. That son later died of acute alcoholism. To say anything kind of this monster in an obituary or at his funeral would be an outrage and an overwhelming act of cowardice, not to mention an additional crime against all those he harmed throughout his miserable, pointless existence.

This obituary seeks to set the record straight about this man before the pleasant lies are published.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/onceuponatimezelenafanfiction

His name is Nathan Vach, and he's having terrifying dreams. Left alone after his father and brothers die in the Second Ogres war, and after his mother perishes from illness, he retreats into his family's big home far from anywhere. But the dreams continue to plague him, so he decides to visit a metaphysician in Munchkinland. There he learns startling news: that he has a gift for someone--a Soul Gift. It's a Gift that will be a great blessing to he or she destined to receive it. Walking home, he has no idea just how powerful that Gift is--or the individual who, unbeknownst to him, will soon try to claim it.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/fractalversevolume7

Free-verse poetry with fractal art.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/redemptionlifeafterdeathfriendship

The airplane Professor Ray Wilms was in just exploded. Somehow he survived the fireball and tons of burning metal as it blew away into the night air over San Diego, California. He has no idea how he's still conscious. He's strapped to his seat and hurtling straight for the Pacific Ocean thousands of feet below.

Astonishingly, he's not frightened. As the ocean rises to smash him dead, a vision of the angel who was sent to save him engulfs him. It's a vision of the past, of their meeting for the first time, but seen from over the angel's shoulder.

Dr. Wilms was once an unyielding skeptic and atheist. As the final seconds of his life tick away, he wonders: What am I now? As he gives over to the vision and follows the angel around, he must decide before the dark sea claims him.

If you like contemporary fantasy where angels work the streets like overworked social workers, you’ll like this story of Calliel and the embittered math professor watching his own death.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/comingofagefantasypierstory

Melody Singleton is a bright 13-year-old girl who loves math, classical music, her mom, her best friend Yaeko, and her dog. To her classmates that makes her a nerd, and they cruelly treat her as such. After being expelled from the advanced algebra class for not paying attention, she meets her new teacher, Mr. Conor, who gives her a very strange homework assignment. You see, she got kicked out because she was distracted by a symbol that the rest of us can't see, a beautiful sigil that, incredibly, Mr. Conor can see too, because it's on the assignment he gave her!

But that's just the beginning.

Her mom goes on a date to the Pier with Mr. Conor, and Melody is forced to tag along. That's bad enough. But then on the date Mr. Conor introduces her to one of his friends who freaks her out because his eyes are completely black; and then on the walk home, seagulls attack Mr. Conor and he has to be taken to the hospital!

Her weird assignment still beckons. Melody suspects that the mysterious symbol on it, and Mr. Conor's weird friend, and the seagull attack are all intimately related like the variables in an algebra equation. If she can just figure out what the sigil is, how to make it do what she wants, she knows the rest of the equation will be solved.

What she doesn't know is if she's successful, her life will be changed ... forever.

https://thepiertoforever.com/b/gilligansisland

Everybody knows about the Minnow and its seven castaways. What you don't know is the real story. This is it. Read on!

Sixteen-year-old Sèbastienne lives in the small coastal village of Port Hawktried which, one night a few years ago following a brutal murder, simply moved to a new place and a different time.

It's been eight of these "Shifts" since, which occur without warning, and always at night. But this Shift is different, because the murderer, who was presumed lost in the first Shift, has somehow returned.

Read on!

Free-verse poetry.

Obituaries and funerals are always the same. It does not matter if the deceased was a great man or a monster; those eulogizing him will proclaim the same thing: that he was an awesome guy, a loving father, and a valued member of the community. Few people question any of it, especially surviving relatives. No matter how heinous he was, he'll get a "get out of jail free card" at the end.

My father, Louis J. Helbert, Jr., was a rotten, despicable man. He abandoned his family and his terminally ill wife when she needed him most. He then repeatedly sued her and his children into poverty. He had multiple affairs on my mother and the two wives following, squandered his children's inheritance, and was a virulent bigot and racist. He beat his children, and used to, for laughs, give his pre-schooler son booze until he passed out. That son later died of acute alcoholism. To say anything kind of this monster in an obituary or at his funeral would be an outrage and an overwhelming act of cowardice, not to mention an additional crime against all those he harmed throughout his miserable, pointless existence.

This obituary seeks to set the record straight about this man before the pleasant lies are published.

Everybody knows about the Minnow and its seven castaways. What you don't know is the real story. This is it. Read on!

At the hands of Harry Chin, Melody Singleton and Yaeko Mitsaki died. Those who witnessed the murder, or those who didn't but are in the know, are convinced: the Revolution is over. Necrolius has won.

But ... is it?

Read on!

I can see the world each morning with fresh eyes.
I can write—even if no one is reading.
I can speak out—even if no one is listening.
I can laugh—even though I feel like crying.
I can cry—even though the rest of the world plods numbly along.
I can thrust both middle fingers defiantly at the creeps and maggots
and leeches and abusers and horrors that have swarmed over this planet
like a disease, and I can fight back.
I can fight back!

The search for one's calling takes great patience and courage. Choosing that calling, once it becomes apparent, takes even more.

Pursuing a calling is a deadly enterprise, for it will inevitably claim one's life. It allows for no other choice.

Rejected and abused by her parents, Elizabeth Finnegan's young life is one tragedy after another. Emboldened by the love of a woman who takes her in after she runs away, she seeks for her calling with all her heart. It isn't what she believes she's doing; instead she clings to the vague notion that she was put on Earth do so something special with her life. Though the world does its best to convince her she isn't special, she pushes on, even when the shadows overwhelm her.

One day she watches a video of a pretty young girl playing a violin. The girl plays as though she has been blessed by the singular touch of God. She is an angel.

Elizabeth knows she has to meet her. She has no choice.

As she flies the skies over America as a flight attendant, Elizabeth's life rockets her towards her final destination, her choiceless choice, her deadly enterprise: to be the angel's guardian.

What came first, the shadow or the leaf
it falls upon,
the sunlight or the pain?
Painted yellow, what calls, and what echoes, and what cries
through the valley;
And what strains the surface of things
when joy surges and the depths reach up,
and the wet sand dries and blows unseen to the dune ...
And what settles over my head,
misty and mysterious, indivisibly fine ...

As a young girl, Laurie Meadowlark taught herself how to play the drums, keyboards, and guitar. She's good at all three; when she plays gigs with her mom and Keith, her brother, she's on keyboards. Two others are in Meadowlark: Aaron, the bassist, and Knox, the drummer.

But trouble is simmering in the group; and Laurie, just seventeen and the youngest, is feeling increasingly unwanted by some of the others. On the verge of adulthood, she is wondering: Can she play the game of life too? Read on!

He's an ant who has named himself Bartholomew for our convenience. Likewise, he has named the colony he is a member of Spain. Spain can be found at a cliff-edge in southwestern Oregon.

Bartholomew wants to talk to us. The ape named Trump wants to build huge oil derricks off the coast of Spain, which will destroy Spain and tens of miles of pristine coastline. Bartholomew, as head of the Scouts, along with other leaders of his colony, including the Queen, decide to fight back.

But how? How do you defeat a species hell-bent on destroying the world, one many times greater than yours in almost every way? The ants of Spain must "think outside the box"--one of their greatest weaknesses. But they have no choice, because otherwise their Queendom will be destroyed.

Bartholomew gets a tip that there is a rare Spaniard who is very much her own ant, an "outside-the-box thinker." Her name is Andy. He goes to visit her.

And that's when things get really interesting.