Dr. W. A. Frost's Ides of Revolution

  Promising Sunnmore University Ph.D. Candidate Missing Aug. 31, 2006 A promising research student has gone missing as of this past Wednesday from the Sunnmore University campus. Sean McDonough, a Ph. D. candidate studying genetics at the university, left Swampscott Hall at approximately 9:45 PM and did not show up for his office hours the following morning. Campus police state that the incident likely occurred during Wednesday night's freak storm while the University security cameras were down for scheduled maintenance that evening.  McDonough, a native of Providence, has been intimately involved in various secretive genetic studies conducted by Dr. Howard West and Dr. Delia Whateley. Motives remain plentiful behind his disappearance, but local authorities assure the community at large that there is no evidence yet of foul play. Fellow colleague and doctoral candidate Elias Delahaye remembers McDonough as a "brilliant scientist" and "dear friend." --- Carefully...

 *PING* Rocco looked down and smiles. He'd been wondering what Carlo and their father had been up to for the past week. Ever since their mother left a couple of years back, their father had been relatively distant- choosing to spend his hours away from the office at the gym instead of at home with his sons. To be fair, Rocco had left the house at 18, and now at 24 he wasn't home as often as he'd hoped. Nonetheless, it took both boys by shock when their relatively distant father decided to take a month off of work to spend some "quality time" with his sons. Carlo got the first two weeks, and Rocco would have the second. What they were in for, their father wouldn't say.  Hey, Roc. Dad wants us all to meet up tonight. We're at the gym on Broad Street, meet us there in 30 minutes. The text was odd, definitely different than the normally chipper tone his brother is known for having. There wasn't even a single emoji... Rocco had hoped that everything would g...

Benjamin Howe walked into the Lamplighter, sweat dripping from his quaking chin. Slowly, hesitantly, he made his way past the men at the bar- each massive man glaring at the skinny young fuckup. For years he had screwed up deals. For years he had pissed off the members. For years he had insulted the legacy of his father. This time. It was different. The air in the room was noticeably tense as he shuffled to the black velvet curtains, breathing heavily and shaking visibly. Their eyes shot daggers at his back, as he pathetically stood there, delaying the inevitable. Benjamin slowly walked through to the back room, and was met with a sight he dreaded. Mack was the beast of the League. He towered over every single man, and tripled their size. For 38 long years, he was the loyal, obedient enforcer for Benjamin's father: silently and ruthlessly carrying out whatever orders came from the top. He was feared, but he was respected. He had paid his dues, he had hearts and minds of the League,...

 Dad had been acting strange for quite some time. Honestly, it wasn't that noticeable in the beginning, which I suppose made it difficult to pinpoint when things started to change. I only started to notice maybe seven months or so ago after he turned down the daily Budweiser. Patrick O'Shaughnessy turning down his biggest vice? I knew something was off right then and there as he sat there, smiling at me from his armchair with the game on in the background: red flag number two, my stepfather had NEVER been a sports guy. Binging Fox News while fingering pudding cups, sure; but actually knowing what was happening in a football game?  I'd originally thought he'd perhaps found a side girl to cheat on my mom with. It was far from outside of his character to do something like that, if he'd ever be able to get his nasty ass out of the recliner for ten fucking minutes... He'd gotten too comfortable in his laziness. When my mom married him a year ago, he was already a pie...

Waiting outside the door on the weathered, splintering porch, Robert took a deep breath. He was ignoring the various this and thats which littered the old veranda now covered in snow. A well to do gentleman like himself, college educated and next in line for partnership in his father’s property development firm, he couldn’t help but stifle the immediate gut reaction to the working class accommodations he was surrounded by. When he’d met Penelope, she was just some bartender at a local haunt. He never expected for things to escalate between them past a simple one night thing. Four months later, and countless late night calls to her, he found himself preparing to have dinner with her and her father. While he certainly could have anticipated the socioeconomic level which she resided in based upon the caliber of bar she worked at, as well as the countless hours she needed to work to merely break even, it was still a culture shock which he was neither prepared nor interested to foray into. ...