Venezuela Crisis: The tragic, predictable result of yet another Marxist-inspired "people's utopia"

This is always the tragic result of "people's revolutions". The Venezuelan people deserve better. Wishful thinking is not a philosophy. Planned economies do not work. And thugs will be thugs--when manipulating the Constitution to achieve their ends fails and people revolt, they throw away even the pretense of democracy and call for achieving by force what the people will no longer support at the ballot box. That is what Maduro is doing and what every Marxist dictator (by any other label) has always done. And the press in the West which largely shrugs off decades-long tragedies, begins reporting in earnest only when there is blood in the streets and children dying of hunger.

Venezuela is spiraling into civil war. Maduro like his predecessor is a tyrant, pure and simple, who is married to a corrupt, failed political philosophy that will never recognize its fatal flaw and always resorts to imposing privation, pain, famine and hopelessness on its people by force in the most pervasive, rabid form of fascism the world has ever known. When will the West treat Marxist-inspired atrocities like it (properly and rightfully) treats the Nazi scourge? Where are all the movies, reports, studies, documentaries, historical exposes and endless drum beat against this equally evil scourge that has enslaved, destroyed and tortured millions upon millions of people with no less zeal than the despicable Nazis? Evil is as evil does--from both the left and right of the political spectrum. It is completely inexplicable to any rational, thinking person why both the popular media and academia have such glaring blind spots for inconvenient truths.

I hate Nazis--I am, after all, not insane. But I have no great love for Marxists either for the very simple, obvious reason that they are the same animal marching to slightly different drumbeats, imposing their will with force and suppressing opposing points of view at any cost. You see it in the current dynamics in the U.S. political dialogue and the media's unwillingness to even attempt a neutral stance. You have second-rate comedians and first rate actors calling for the assassination of a president they hate simply because the hate him, and that is seen as funny to the intended audience. We have more than a handful of people marching on the streets yelling "What do we want, dead cops. When do we want it, NOW!" and "Pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon" and the media largely shrugs, except for right-wing commentators that actually cover these stories--often more than a tad too gleefully.

Since when is inciting violence Constitutionally protected free speech or wide-spread looting simply a form of political protest? Why are these people not arrested? Can you imagine a right-wing comedian or actor (few as these are) holding the bloody severed head of President Obama while beaming widely or saying that its been too long since an actor has assassinated a president and it may be time to do it again? Threatening the President is a federal crime that used to be investigated with perpetrators prosecuted. But not for an unpopular president I guess.

Venezuela has already stepped off the edge of the precipice. It breaks my heart. We are slowly marching towards the same precipice ourselves, though it is still far in the distance. Shrugging our shoulders will only encourage those beating the drum to become more aggressive at doing so until, like Venezuela, we run at a fevered pitch into the abyss.

Venezuela crisis: Five things that can happen in a day - BBC News

From alleged power grabs to helicopter attacks, a lot can happen in a Venezuelan 24 hours.

BBC.COM|BY BBC NEWS

FREE (Through July 4) Two Science Fiction Short Stories from my Mindscapes Short Story Collection

The two shortest stories from my Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories collection free through July 4 only. You can download them in your choice of eBook format only from Smashwords. Click on the following link (Click here) or on the cover below and scroll down on my author's page to download the eBook version free of charge as my gift.

And Happy Birthday America!

Free - Complete SF Short Story from My Mindscapes Collection -- "The Riddle of the Sphinx: Solved"

The Riddle of the Sphinx: Solved

(C) 2014, 2017 Victor D. Lopez All rights reserved.

Published in Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories

The midday sun blazed in blinding glory directly over the Great Sphinx of Giza as Dr. Zahi Hawass, the famous Egyptologist whose love of Egyptian antiquity seems rivaled only by his love of the camera, faced the score of reporters with his well worn Indiana Jones hat and best cat-who-swallowed-the-canary-smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. This is a great day for Egypt and the world,” he began with an enthusiastic smile and eyes sparkling like a sleepy child’s on Christmas morning. “Our efforts over the past year to excavate the recently found chamber under the right paw of the Sphinx is complete and we are ready to reveal its content for the first time. Please, come with me that we may share this moment together.”

Without further ado and in an uncharacteristically brief fashion, Dr. Hawass turned to his left, gesturing for the cameras to follow. As he walked, he continued, turning to the cameras and beaming contentedly. “We have uncovered a portal but have not yet broken the seal as we wish to share this moment with the world.”

“Zahi,” a reporter following closely to his right called out, “Can you tell us what you expect to find?” The Egyptologist stopped and turned to the reporter, with a patient, avuncular smile, and stopped, facing the cameras directly.

“I have no idea, but I expect it will be wonderful things.” He then turned and took several steps before once again stopping and turning to the camera. “You will see that there are no artifacts in the small antechamber we have uncovered, nor any artwork or extensive writing. There is, in fact, no traditional writing of any kind but for a line of undecipherable writing above a sealed doorway that is unlike anything that has been uncovered in the past.”

“You mean the writing is illegible?” the reporter interrupted.

“No,” Dr. Hawass replied, dabbing at his damp forehead with a large, white handkerchief.” “The writing is quite legible but is unlike any writing in the ancient or modern world. There are no glyphs, but previously unseen symbols over the doorway. The writing is not painted but etched onto the stone and glows quite visibly even in low light. I expect it will take us quite some time to decipher its meaning and the means utilized to achieve the bright glow, though we suspect it is some type of radioactive material similar to that used in instruments and watches in the recent past, though no trace of radiation has been picked up by our instruments.” He then resumed walking again towards the excavation, still some fifty feet away. “It is all part of the mystery, and it augers well for whatever archeological treasures may be secreted beyond the sealed wall, don’t you think?” His statement ended right on cue at the foot of the vertical tunnel that resembled more a well than the traditional entrance to a burial chamber.

“You must be careful descending the wooden ladder. There is only room for a few people down there as the antechamber is only approximately two meters by two meters and we already have two workmen down there ready to breach the sealed door. I can only take a camera operator down with me and will be happy to hold an extensive news conference later, once what lies beyond the seal is uncovered.”

Dismissing the numerous questions shot at him by members of the media present with a wave of the hand, he pointed to the closest Egyptian camera operator and said “You can accompany me. Careful, though. The workmen will steady the ladder below, but it is a long way down and the ladder will be unsteady.” He then stepped onto the ladder protruding above the meter-wide circular hole with the camera operator first filming his descent, and then following carefully, holding onto the ladder with his left hand as he balanced his the light but awkward camera on his shoulder harness with his right hand, filming nothing but his handhold on the ladder as he descended, not wanting to break the suspense.

Approximately three stories down, he finally hit solid ground, finding a chamber that appeared dug out of bedrock, with perfectly smooth walls everywhere but for the circular hole on the ceiling through which they had descended. The cameraman immediately swept his camera around the tiny room panning back to the limits of his camera’s wide angle view. Two workmen could be seen to each side of a wall directly opposite the ladder, covered in sweat to which clung rock granules and dust from their intense chiseling into the rock. The cameraman focused on the recessed symbols that arched above the perfect outlines of a rectangular door approximately a meter in width and two meters in height.

“Keep the camera on the writing,” the Egyptologist commanded and wait to be amazed.” He then turned off the intense halogen lights lights by pressing a switch on the line leading to the dual work lights that had brightly illuminated the small room, and the symbols came alive with a blood-red glow from within the carved stone. The symbols themselves were reminiscent of geometric figures and mathematical symbols, but were neither glyphs nor words in an unknown alphabet but a sort of combination of the two that was disorienting to the mind.

“We are about to begin. Please wear this dust mask,” Dr. Hawass told the cameraman, handing him a surgeon’s mask and donning one himself.  As he did so, he nodded to the workmen and signaled them to begin again as they sported their own dust-stained masks, and began chiseling at the rock in unison.

The simple hammer and chisel sounds in the small chamber was loud enough to force a twitch from the cameraman with each strike of the hammer. The workmen continued the jarring hammering to the center of the door which had no visible means of opening from this side of the chamber and, apparently, had not yielded to prior efforts at pushing, prodding or otherwise forcing it open. The fit of the door was so perfect as to leave only a hairline crack to distinguish the outline of where the door met the rest of the wall on polished rock that was incredibly smooth and free of imperfections.

Five minutes later, as the camera captured the faint swirling dust produced by the rhythmic strikes of hammer on steel chisels, the ancient stone gave up its last efforts at resistance, leaving a small hole the size of a sharpened chisel end on the stone which had yielded a concave depression several inches deep as a result of the repeated blows with hammers on chisels. An instant after the chisel had broken through, a bolt of plasma flashed through with the intensity at the center of the sun, filling the chamber and shooting up through the well-like opening to the outside, instantaneously vaporizing the still smiling Egyptologist, the cameraman, and the chisel-wielding workmen continuing upwards through the circular opening to the surface like a coronal emission radiating outward beyond the orbit of Mars. Blackest shadows followed, flowing outwards like a billion bats exploding from a cave in which dynamite had been detonated, evil personified shrieking outward freed from the restrictive seal placed by the protectors of what would subsequently become a primordial cradle of civilization.

The carved letters above the breached portal left by the victors of a galactic war whose final battle was fought on Sol millennia ago, and the remnants of whose vanquished hoards, forced to march through a portal to oblivion hidden below ground in an insignificant, life sustaining planet. The portal was then sealed and a guardian erected to mark the spot—using local materials and a magnificent predator from this planet to serve as a warning to the locals to stay away from this site marked by the gods.

With the passage of time and the rise of arrogant, foolish men who feared nothing but oblivion, the glorious lion’s head and flowing mane were ordered to be defaced and carved into the likeness of Khufu whose megalomania could not be satisfied by building the largest monument to himself that the world has ever known by way of the Great Pyramid at Giza. The result would become the iconic figure that would spawn mysterious controversies among historians and Egyptologists in the modern era with its too-small head in proportion to the lion’s body, the unavoidable result of having to fit a human face and headdress within the features of the original perfectly proportioned lion’s head. In time, Khufu’s face would itself be defaced by having its nose and beard chiseled away as clearly evidenced by the chisel scars left behind by the ancient defacers of the defacer. Whether the deed was done as some argue as an act of vengeance by another pharaoh, by religious zealots attempting to eradicate a blasphemous idol, or for some other reason, it matters little.

With the original warning unheeded, this now lonely symbol stands as a pointless monument to the boundless foolishness of a now dead race which loosed once more upon an unsuspecting galaxy the unspeakable evil that had been conquered at great cost before the ascent of homo sapiens, a race which having learned nearly nothing since climbing down from the trees in its infancy ignored a blazing warning in a forgotten tongue above a portal it blindly breached. The words originally written there would much later be echoed by Dante, inspired by the residual record of that prehistoric struggle between good and evil and which in the original tongue, as in its later Latin version, could be translated as “Abandon all hope all ye who enter.”

(C) 2014, 2017 Victor D. Lopez, All rights reserved 

"Earth Mother" SF Short Story Preview

"Earth Mother" SF Short Story Preview

Excerpted from Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories

(C) 2011, 2014 Victor D. Lopez (available in paperback, ebook and audiobook formats)

She awoke in the throes of a mind numbing panic.  Her eardrums sympathetically vibrated with the subliminal hum of an unseen, unheard yet very palpable force just below the threshold of audible frequencies.  Her heartbeat sloshed in her ears as though she were under water, desperately trying to escape a powerful predator.

The adrenaline in her veins and the irrational fear that paralyzed her made every joint in her body ache and yielded spasmodic pains as though her muscles were tightly coiling around themselves. Her mouth dry and vocal cords frozen from fear, Lisa lacked the power to give voice to a scream that was born, grew and died in her throat without expression.  Unable to move and still unaware of the cause of her discomfort, Lisa could detect a barely perceptible blue-green aura through the partially closed Venetian blinds and drawn drapes in her bedroom.  The air was charged;  she could sense it though the prickly itch of her hair standing on end. It smelled like a summer thunderstorm had just passed though, despite a cloudless sky.

After long, silent moments of languishing transfixed in irrational terror, satin sheets clinging coldly to her naked body as she lay in a  perspiration-soaked bed, a painful flash of white light inundated her bedroom, leaving Lisa temporarily blind, with multiple circular black afterimages receding slowly through her repetitive blinking, eventually fading to gray and melding into a humanoid form standing some six feet from the foot of her bed. The form, a hairless, androgynous ashen skinned humanoid with large, seal-like black eyes, button nosed, with thin, small lips,  approximately five feet tall and weighing perhaps ninety-five pounds, finally spoke to her.  More accurately, it transmitted words and fragmentary, vivid images into her mind accompanied by a soft, musical sound that might be speech and was as beautiful as it was unintelligible.

“Please, please don’t hurt me,” she thought, still unable to utter a sound.

“No need to fear; we will not do you harm. Be calm,” the creature replied in visual words and images that were fragmented but quite clear.

“Please go away.  Oh. God, help me, please.”  Lisa would have cried and screamed and run had she the power to do any of those things.  Since she did not, she lay still, mentally pleading with the seemingly innocuous creature whose presence, despite its attempts at reassurance, had done little to ameliorate her dread.

“Do not fear.  We bring you a gift with which to bargain for your help.”  The creature’s facial expression and body language did not change, but the visual messages it transmitted clearly tried to show its good will. Warmth, happiness, contentment emanated from the creature as does the sweet scent of a flower carried by a slight summer’s breeze.

“You won’t hurt me?” Lisa half asked, half pleaded, somewhat reassured by the creature’s communication, yet certainly not yet disposed to accept its alleged good will at face value.

“We come only to offer a gift, in exchange for your assistance.”

“What kind of gift?  And what type of help do you want?” Lisa’s fear seemed to dissolve rather quickly with each reference by the creature to a gift.

“We offer a great gift, the ability to communicate without words as we now do, in exchange for your service” The creature retorted, seemingly encouraged into more negotiation by Lisa’s growing receptiveness.

“Are you offering me the gift of telepathy?”  Lisa’s heart, no longer beating fast in response to fear, was beginning to speed up in response to a new growing emotion.”

“You may call it that, yes.”

“What do you want in exchange?” Lisa asked, furrowing her brow slightly, and beginning to ask herself what in her power she would not be willing to do for that ability.

“You must incubate one of us and nurture it until it is strong enough to part from you.”

“I don’t understand. Do you want me to care for you or one of your kind? To be a baby sitter?”

“Much more,” the creature replied, sending Lisa a clear image of a human body, her body, in the last stages of pregnancy.

“No!” replied Lisa, tried instinctively to close her legs and gather her sheets about her, aware for the first time of her nakedness and vulnerable position with great revulsion. She also remembered the unpleasant reports of alien encounters with horrific medical exams and intrusive probes wielded by intergalactic perverts apparently intent on molesting humans for their own gratification. But her body would not obey her commands; whether she was paralyzed by some sort of stasis field of by the creature’s mental powers, she did not know.

“It is not copulation we seek,” the creature immediately offered, seemingly amused and sending a clear visual image of its honorable intentions.  “Our anatomy is unlike yours and would not permit it, but your womb is compatible for our purposes.  We would plant an embryo in your uterus that would grow, protected and nourished through your normal biological means” With this, the creature sent an image of a sesame seed-sized embryo being implanted into a human host, and later emerging in the usual means less than a fifth the size of a human baby.

“No pain?” Lisa asked, relived but cautious.

“Both the implantation and the subsequent birth are completely free of discomfort.”

“How long for the procedure and how long is the period of gestation?”

“Two of your minutes for the implantation and six of your weeks for the gestation to be completed.”

“A two minute implant and painless delivery six weeks later buys me the gift of telepathy, huh.  Is that your deal?”

“Yes.”

“Wait a minute.  My mother raised no fools.  How long does my telepathy last?”

“Throughout the entire period of your life.”

“Not bad.  A lifetime of telepathy for six weeks of work.” Lisa replied, more to herself than to the creature, who perhaps sensing that fact made no reply.

Then, her brow furrowing again, she continued, “If this is such an easy deal, why do you need me?  Why can’t your own kind do so themselves.”

“All of those capable of breeding on our world are dead.” The creature’s thoughts and mental images conveyed great sadness. AWe will cease to exist as a species unless we have outworlders such as yourself help us.”

“Sorry to hear that. “  She thought back at the creature, which again made no reply.  “Is there any risk to me from the pregnancy or birth? Will you return for the birth?  And how long need I care for the thing afterwards?”

“There is no risk to you.  We will give you medications to strengthen your immune system and eradicate any illness you may currently have. The medication will also prevent your antibodies from attacking the embryo.  We can guarantee your health and vitality for the rest of your life as a byproduct of the procedure.  As to our return, it is unnecessary.  Our infants are self sufficient and require only the most basic type of sustenance for a period that never exceeds two of your weeks after their birth. The infant would then move on without need of any additional assistance from you.”

“Sounds like a deal to me.  The little bugger will pop out like a slice of toast when its time comes, care for itself immediately, leaving me with telepathy and good health for life, and I don’t even have to undergo morning sickness or stretch marks.  What more could a girl want?” She smiled, thinking about the possibilities that telepathy would provide for her.  To know what others thought, and to be able to plant messages in their minds.  The possibilities were intoxicatingly endless.

**** END OF FREE PREVIEW ****

Earth Mother is one of the ten short stories in Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories. The book is available as an audiobook, in paperback and in every major eBook format from a wide range of book sellers.

Mindscapes short story collection - Audiobook version. Click on any of the following vendors for additional information and and an audio sample:  Audible, iTunes and Amazon.
Mindscapes short story collection - Paperback and eBook versions. Click on any of the following vendors for additional information and and a free preview: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Scribd.

Free book of poetry -- One day only (Tuesday, June 27, 2017)

My book of poems, Of Pain and Ecstasy is available for free download for one-day only under Amazon's KDP Select program Tuesday, June 27. If you would like to download a copy free of charge for your Kindle reader or to read on any PC, you can click on the book's cover below. If poetry is not your cup of tea, please forward it to anyone you think may be interested.

Please note that the books will be free only on Wednesday, June 27. At other times, you will only be able to access the regular free preview pages from Amazon unless you are a Kindle Unlimited member, in which case the book is available free of charge to you through the end of August when my exlusivity agreement for its distribution through Amazon ends.

Thank you!

SF Short Story Preview: "Earth Mother" (C) 2011, 2014 Victor D. Lopez

A mysterious visitor from another world wakes a young, ambitious woman in the middle of the night to deliver an intriguing offer after nearly frightening her to death. He explains that his race is dying as women in his distant world are no longer able to carry embryos of their species to term. If she is willing to serve as a surrogate mother for an embryo for an accelerated gestation period of a few weeks, he promises to return to take away the child and to bestow upon her the gift of telepathy for the remainder of her life in exchange for her service. As an added bonus, the embryo will provide a boost to her immune system that will make her virtually impervious to all disease for the rest of her life. If she accepts, will her dreams finally be realized, or will she live to regret her choice?

____________________

Earth Mother

(C) 2011, 2014 Victor D. Lopez

She awoke in the throes of a mind numbing panic.  Her eardrums sympathetically vibrated with the subliminal hum of an unseen, unheard yet very palpable force just below the threshold of audible frequencies.  Her heartbeat sloshed in her ears as though she were under water, desperately trying to escape a powerful predator. 

The adrenaline in her veins and the irrational fear that paralyzed her made every joint in her body ache and yielded spasmodic pains as though her muscles were tightly coiling around themselves. Her mouth dry and vocal cords frozen from fear, Lisa lacked the power to give voice to a scream that was born, grew and died in her throat without expression.  Unable to move and still unaware of the cause of her discomfort, Lisa could detect a barely perceptible blue-green aura through the partially closed Venetian blinds and drawn drapes in her bedroom.  The air was charged;  she could sense it though the prickly itch of her hair standing on end. It smelled like a summer thunderstorm had just passed though, despite a cloudless sky. 

After long, silent moments of languishing transfixed in irrational terror, satin sheets clinging coldly to her naked body as she lay in a  perspiration-soaked bed, a painful flash of white light inundated her bedroom, leaving Lisa temporarily blind, with multiple circular black afterimages receding slowly through her repetitive blinking, eventually fading to gray and melding into a humanoid form standing some six feet from the foot of her bed. The form, a hairless, androgynous ashen skinned humanoid with large, seal-like black eyes, button nosed, with thin, small lips,  approximately five feet tall and weighing perhaps ninety-five pounds, finally spoke to her.  More accurately, it transmitted words and fragmentary, vivid images into her mind accompanied by a soft, musical sound that might be speech and was as beautiful as it was unintelligible. 

“Please, please don’t hurt me,” she thought, still unable to utter a sound.

“No need to fear; we will not do you harm. Be calm,” the creature replied in visual words and images that were fragmented but quite clear.

“Please go away.  Oh. God, help me, please.”  Lisa would have cried and screamed and run had she the power to do any of those things.  Since she did not, she lay still, mentally pleading with the seemingly innocuous creature whose presence, despite its attempts at reassurance, had done little to ameliorate her dread.

“Do not fear.  We bring you a gift with which to bargain for your help.”  The creature’s facial expression and body language did not change, but the visual messages it transmitted clearly tried to show its good will. Warmth, happiness, contentment emanated from the creature as does the sweet scent of a flower carried by a slight summer’s breeze.

“You won’t hurt me?” Lisa half asked, half pleaded, somewhat reassured by the creature’s communication, yet certainly not yet disposed to accept its alleged good will at face value.

“We come only to offer a gift, in exchange for your assistance.”

“What kind of gift?  And what type of help do you want?” Lisa’s fear seemed to dissolve rather quickly with each reference by the creature to a gift.

“We offer a great gift, the ability to communicate without words as we now do, in exchange for your service” The creature retorted, seemingly encouraged into more negotiation by Lisa’s growing receptiveness.

“Are you offering me the gift of telepathy?”  Lisa’s heart, no longer beating fast in response to fear, was beginning to speed up in response to a new growing emotion.”

“You may call it that, yes.”

“What do you want in exchange?” Lisa asked, furrowing her brow slightly, and beginning to ask herself what in her power she would not be willing to do for that ability.

“You must incubate one of us and nurture it until it is strong enough to part from you.”

“I don’t understand. Do you want me to care for you or one of your kind? To be a baby sitter?”

“Much more,” the creature replied, sending Lisa a clear image of a human body, her body, in the last stages of pregnancy.

“No!” replied Lisa, as she tried instinctively to close her legs and gather her sheets about her, aware for the first time with revulsion of her nakedness and vulnerable position. She also remembered the unpleasant reports of alien encounters with horrific medical exams and intrusive probes wielded by intergalactic perverts apparently intent on molesting humans for their own gratification. But her body would not obey her commands; whether she was paralyzed by some sort of stasis field of by the creature’s mental powers, she did not know. 

“It is not copulation we seek,” the creature immediately offered, seemingly amused and sending a clear visual image of its honorable intentions.  “Our anatomy is unlike yours and would not permit it, but your womb is compatible for our purposes.  We would plant an embryo in your uterus that would grow, protected and nourished through your normal biological means” With this, the creature sent an image of a sesame seed-sized embryo being implanted into a human host, and later emerging in the usual means less than a fifth the size of a human baby.

“No pain?” Lisa asked, relived but cautious.

“Both the implantation and the subsequent birth are completely free of discomfort.”

“How long for the procedure and how long is the period of gestation?”

“Two of your minutes for the implantation and six of your weeks for the gestation to be completed.”

“A two minute implant and painless delivery six weeks later buys me the gift of telepathy, huh.  Is that your deal?”

“Yes.”

“Wait a minute.  My mother raised no fools.  How long does my telepathy last?”

“Throughout the entire period of your life.”

“Not bad.  A lifetime of telepathy for six weeks of work.” Lisa replied, more to herself than to the creature, who perhaps sensing that fact made no reply.

Then, her brow furrowing again, she continued, “If this is such an easy deal, why do you need me?  Why can’t your own kind do so themselves.”

“All of those capable of breeding on our world are dead.” The creature’s thoughts and mental images conveyed great sadness. “We will cease to exist as a species unless we have outworlders such as yourself help us.”

“Sorry to hear that.“  She thought back at the creature, which again made no reply.  “Is there any risk to me from the pregnancy or birth? Will you return for the birth?  And how long need I care for the thing afterwards?”

“There is no risk to you during gestation.  We will give you medications to strengthen your immune system and eradicate any illness you may currently have. The medication will also prevent your antibodies from attacking the embryo.  We can guarantee your health and vitality for the rest of your natural life as a byproduct of the procedure.  As to our return, it is unnecessary.  Our infants are self-sufficient and require only the most basic type of sustenance for a period that never exceeds two of your weeks after their birth. The infant would then move on without need of any additional assistance from you.”

        “Sounds like a deal to me.  The little bugger will pop out like a slice of toast when its time comes, care for itself immediately, leaving me with telepathy and good health for life, and I don’t even have to undergo morning sickness or stretch marks.  What more could a girl want?” She smiled, thinking about the possibilities that telepathy would provide for her.  To know what others thought, and to be able to plant messages in their minds.  The possibilities were intoxicatingly endless.

[ **** END OF PREVIEW **** ]

For additional information about most of my published books, you can visit my author pages at Amazon, Smashwords and iBooks and most other book retailers. You can also recommend my books for purchase by your local library if you use Livebrary and Overdrive. Thank you!