It's Always Darkest Before You Turn On The Light

    Alison Barry was the neighbourhood bully.  Everyone was terrified of her.  Small children would burst into tears if their stroller was wheeled past her.  Kids would stop playing and hurry inside if they saw her coming.  Grown men would cross the street to avoid passing her. At school she reigned supreme.  Kids parted like the Red Sea before her on the playground and handed over their lunch and any money they had without being asked.  It was easier that way.  Even teachers stayed out of her way.  She did whatever she wanted.  If a teacher said "the earth is round," and Alison said "No it isn't, it's flat," the teacher would immediately agree for fear that she'd be flattened if she didn't, which made learning geography very confusing.   Occasionally a new teacher who wasn't familiar with the routine would attempt to actually teach Alison, with predictably disastrous results.  A conversation along these lines would b...

  It was a dark, gloomy night.  A thick, heavy fog descended over the city making it impossible to see your hand in front of your face.  Fortunately, my hand was at the end of my arm so I wasn't concerned. I was in a bit of a panic, though, because I had accidentally run over my neighbour's cat with the lawnmower earlier that day.  In desperation I had run to the nearest toy store to get a stuffed cat, figuring that my neighbour, an elderly lady whose eyesight was so bad she once mistook me for the Dalai Lama (I blessed her and went on my way), would think that her cat was just having an especially long nap. But they only had stuffed tigers and I didn't want to scare the bejesus out of her.  Noticing that the pet store next door was still open, I ran in and asked if they had any cats. They didn't.  Besides a three-legged dog, the nearest thing they had to a cat was a hamster.  I had no choice.  I bought the little fella and took him home with me....