Paperback on Amazon

Wandering Thoughts is now available in paperback form on amazon's website. You can go here http://www.amazon.com/Wandering-Thoughts-Michael-Shimek/dp/1466435151/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1319994039&sr=8-2 and buy it. And remember, there are two free stories from the collection in this blog.

Paperback Now Available

Hello everyone. Wandering Thoughts is now available to buy in paperback from. Currently you can find it at the CreateSpace eStore, https://www.createspace.com/3706232 The paperback form will also be on amazon's website in the next couple of days. If you are interested in purchasing my book, feel free to read two of the stories for free here on my blog.

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Wandering Thoughts

Wandering Thoughts is now available for purchase through amazon.com. I will have a paperback copy soon, but right now it is only in the kindle format. I am still kind of putting everything in place and together, and this is my first time doing this. So, if there are any comments or suggestions, let me know. Thanks everyone!

One More Sample Story

Here's another story from Wandering Thoughts, a collection of short stories I hope to self-publish in the next week or so.

A Vanishing Universe

         Natalie stared out into the dark, night sky. Living out in the country, and the fact that there was no moon that night, the stars above shown brilliantly against the black backdrop. There were millions of twinkling, sparkling stars she could see as she took in the sight from the roof of her house. Part of the Milky Way was even visible, stretching along a large portion of the sky in beautiful blue, pink, and purple colors. Some parts of the sky shown brighter than others, while large dark patches could be seen all around as well. The galaxy, and the whole universe itself, was utterly amazing to Natalie; it blew her mind away at how gorgeous it all was.

         She was currently sitting in a lawn chair on top of her house, sipping on a Long Island Iced Tea as she enjoyed the view while she could. She decided to come up and look into the sky, while she had a drink, after watching the late night news.

         The biggest thing, and really, the only thing, on the news lately was how the universe was disappearing. It started two weeks ago when a group of scientists claimed several distant galaxies had vanished from sight. No one paid attention, at first, because the galaxies were so far away and there could have been any number of reasonable explanations for them to disappear from Earth’s sight. It wasn’t until a few days later when astronomers all over the world began to witness distant galaxies blink out of existence, and they never stopped. It was a mystery; no one knew why this was happening, and people were freaking out.

         Millions across the world were frightened, thinking the universe was coming to an end. If that were true, then there was nothing the little speck of dust we call our planet could do to stop it. People knew this, so they were panicking. Natalie was surprised the world wasn’t rioting yet, but perhaps the true extent of the whole situation hadn’t gotten ahold of many people.

         “Hey babe, I brought you a refresher,” said her husband, Jimmy, as he popped his head out of the window they use for access to the roof. He held both his drink and hers, and she grabbed them both so he could safely climb out to join her. She set them both on the ground as she helped make sure he didn’t stumble to his death below. “It’s a beautiful night tonight.”

         “It sure is.”

         She handed him back his drink when he settled down in the chair beside her. She finished the last sip of her first drink, and then picked up the one her husband brought her and started drinking the new beverage.

         “Too bad it might not last long,” he said, taking a sip of his beer.

         “Don’t ruin the moment Mr. Negativity, just sit back in silence and enjoy it for a while.” This moment was perfect, drinking and appreciating the view with the person she loved most in her life, and she wanted to relish the moment.

         Feeling a sight buzz, Natalie continued to stare into space, thinking that at any moment everything could all be gone. The thought of all existence ending at once scared her; she was only thirty years old and didn’t want to disappear into nothingness. The galaxies that were vanishing were only the farthest from their own, but at the rate they were disappearing, people were worried it could be any day before everyone, and everything, was gone. She looked up and half expected to see stars blink out in front of her eyes, but she knew that wouldn’t happen because everything she could see with her naked eye was too close and not as distant as the parts of the universe that were receding.

         Even though Natalie was worried life would end, she was also content with the fact that she might die; she was ready. She might have felt different if she had cancer or some horrible disease, something would claim only her life, but the fact that everything was being affected meant something to her. Since everything was being affected, she felt like the universe had its own plan it was carrying out for certain reason, like what was happening was meant to be; she kind of believed it was fate, and that it was eventually going to happen.

         “You know,” said Jimmy, breaking the silence, “you seem pretty calm about all of this.”

         “Yeah, maybe a little. I mean, sure what’s happening is scary, but there isn’t anything we can do.”

         “That’s true,” he replied, with a sad, depressed look forming on his face. “Do you really think the universe is collapsing, or disappearing, or whatever the hell is happening?”

         “I suppose. Can you think of any other reasonable explanation for what’s going on?”

         “No, I guess not.” A look of disappointment took over his saddened face, like he was waiting for Natalie to have the right answers only to be let down.

         “The truth of it is this, Jimmy. This whole thing is terrifying. Everything around us could be gone in the blink of an eye at any second. It could happen a minute from now, a day from now, or years in the future. We don’t even know what exactly is happening; no one knows a thing about what’s going on. And, to me, that’s the scariest thing, the fact that we could all vanish at any given moment.”

         She paused for a minute while she looked up into the sky. It was beautiful, yet it gave a sense of dread at the same time. Although it all seemed so horrifying to think of, Natalie liked to try and stay as hopeful as she could in a situation like this; it was all she, or anyone, could do to keep from going crazy.

         “But,” she continued talking to Jimmy, “there’s nothing we can do about any of it. We have no control over when it’s going to happen, or what’s going to happen; it’s bigger than us, so the only thing we can do is hope that in the end everything will be okay. I mean, do you think there’s anything we can do to stop this?”

         “Not at all. But then, what do you think is going to happen?”

         “I have no idea, but I’d like to think that if we disappear, or die, or whatever happens, that we will somehow live on.”

         “You mean like heaven?”

         She knew Jimmy was raised Catholic and still practiced it, going to mass every weekend, but she didn’t share his beliefs. She also didn’t want to hurt his feelings, either, by telling him she didn’t exactly believe in heaven. He knew she wasn’t Catholic and that she didn’t share his same views, but she didn’t want to get him any more down than how he looked right now.

         “If that’s what you believe, then yeah, I guess that’s what I think will happen. I think that whatever you think happens after you die will indeed happen.”

         She truly believed what she said just then, too. Everyone in the world thought different things happened when you died. Some people would go to heaven, some would go to hell, and some people believe you would get reincarnated as an animal or part of nature; everyone had their own opinions on life after death.

         Natalie didn’t believe in heaven, like her husband, but she believed that there was something after death. She believed everyone exerted an energy, and that energy is what remained when the physical body died. Even if the universe was disappearing, she felt some part of her would remain in some parallel plane or a different universe. This is what she hoped would happen when she died, and since that is what she wanted, that is what she believed would happen. She wanted everyone’s death to be what they had hoped and wished for their entire lives; it’s the only thing people have that keeps them from going insane, that their wishes will be fulfilled upon their deaths.

         She looked at her husband, who still seemed down and lost at what to think. “I love you so much, sweetie.”

         “I love you too,” he replied, smiling at her loving and kind face.

         She scooted her chair closer to him, and wrapped her arms around him as she rested her head against his shoulder. She held him close like that for a couple minutes, like the vanishing galaxies had caught up and they would disappear in the next second.

         Grabbing her drink, but leaving her other hand on Jimmy’s leg for reassurance, Natalie continued to sip her beverage as she stared into the night sky. She felt serene as she stared into the radiant, twinkling stars, planets, and galaxies. As she looked up into space, she thought she saw one of the stars go out, but she was probably just imagining things.

Sample Story

Sometime in the near future I am hoping to self-publish a book containing a collection of my short stories. Please keep in mind that I haven't been writing too long, so I'm fairly new to this. The following is a story that will be found in my book.

Beautiful Deaths

       The time was around four o’clock in the afternoon and Bill was just getting off work to head out to a special dinner at The Paradise with his wife. He had asked his boss to get off work early to celebrate Hannah’s thirty-fifth birthday. They first met seven years ago at that very restaurant, and Bill made reservations for five o’clock that evening. By the time he drove the thirty minutes home to pick Hannah up, and then traveled another twenty minutes to the restaurant, they would be cutting it close to their reservations. He was worried his boss would say no, but the man liked Bill and adored Hannah so he let Bill leave early. He didn’t really have much work that day anyway.

       He opened the main office-building door and exited the small law firm he worked for, Hamilton and Barnes. It stood just on the outskirts of New York City, and as he exited the building he could see the huge skyscrapers standing erect in the beautiful background of the late afternoon. Bill loved New York and tried to travel into the city as much as he could; he and Hannah would go just to walk around and people watch. They wouldn’t have any real purpose to be there except to gaze and look at the interesting people that can be found in this world. And New York City definitely had interesting people.

       The weather was nice that day; it was partly sunny with scattered white, puffy clouds, and the temperature was a comfortable seventy degrees. If it was this nice tomorrow, Bill was going to ask Hannah to met him in a near-by park for lunch, which they did whenever the weather permitted it. There weren’t many clouds above the city itself at the moment, but a weird haze seemed to hang in the air around the busy city. At first he chalked it up to air pollution, something he would see quite often around New York City, but as he peered a little closer, he noticed just how strange the cloud looked.

       Bill looked at the city landscape, making sure he could process what his eyes were looking at. The whole city was shimmering in the haze around it, appearing to wave ever so slightly in the background. He had never seen anything like it in his life; it looked like the image came directly from someone’s dream. Lights sparkled here and there in the dust, looking like the tiniest stars blinking in and out of existence. It cast the city in a magnificent cloud, making Bill take out his cell phone to take a picture and capture the beautiful event. As he tried to focus the low-resolution camera on his phone, the alluring background started changing oddly.

       The outlines of the city started shrinking, disappearing into nothingness. The city, with all of its buildings and structures, were melting away as if millions of insects were eating away at it. Tops of buildings started shrinking down, holes became apparent in several of the skyscrapers, and other man-made objects were disappearing right before Bill’s eyes. Natural objects, like trees, were the only things that seemed to not be affected by what was going on. He stared in astonishment as New York City was vanishing before him. He looked around him to see if anyone else was witnessing this strange event, when he noticed the shimmering fog was not just over the city but also around him and the area he was in as well. His office building, the cars in the parking lot he stood in, and the walled fence surrounding the plot of land all flickered just a little in the twinkling haze that now covered his surroundings. It was eerily beautiful.

       Not only could Bill see all of this, but he could start to feel what was around him as well. His body felt like it was being lightly tickled all over, and there wasn’t a spot on his body that couldn’t feel the sensation. The feeling excited him a little, it was something he had never felt before, and it felt good. Those feelings stopped as soon as he saw everything around him, including himself, start to disintegrate.

       Parts of his office building were being eaten away by the mysterious, shimmering haze that shrouded the area. The building was vanishing from the top down, with holes appearing where windows and walls stood on the outside. He could vaguely see people inside running wildly around in disbelief at what was happening through the newly developed holes in the building. He saw all of this and that’s when the tickling sensation his body was feeling turned to pain.

       There was no way to describe how excruciatingly painful his entire body was feeling at that moment. He collapsed to the parking lot pavement, screaming and withering in agony, as the flesh on his body started to disintegrate. Skin started dissolving everywhere on his body and show right into muscle tissue and bone. Holes that were gradually getting bigger in the palms of his hands allowed him to see straight through himself, even the bones inside him were dissolving. Everything was being eaten away, and it was the most painful thing in the whole world.

       The vision in Bill’s left eye slowly faded away as he still screamed in pain on the ground. He realized he was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it; he would soon vanish into nothing. The last thought he had before the holes in his brain became too numerous to think, were that of his wife and how he wished they could have made it to Hannah’s birthday dinner.

       Jun Li was staring out of his fourteenth story office-building window at the chaos that was occurring on the streets below. It was about seven in the morning and he had just gotten to work, getting everything situated on his desk, when he noticed there was a weird haze lingering in the air outside. It looked almost dusty, but also glinted a little in the light. Everything surrounded in the haze shimmered slightly, like Jun Li was looking at the outside through rippling water.

       He had gotten up from his desk and walked over to the window, peering at the outside and wondering what created the unique shimmering cloud. People all along the streets and sidewalks were looking up and at each other, entranced by the phenomenon that now covered at least part of the Tokyo area. Everyone had pretty much stopped moving and was now focused on the haze. Most people looked excited, or even happy at what was going on. Jun Li could even see people on the streets laughing and pointing at each other. He was wondering why people were so excited about it, when everything changed for the worst.

       Everyone he saw now had horrified expressions on their faces, shocked by something that was happening to the people outside. At first Jun Li had no idea why these people started acting crazy, many were screaming and running around wildly as if they were going insane. He could see several of them scratch and itch at their skin, like something was crawling underneath. Looking around to see what was causing this crazy panic, he saw literally everything start to disintegrate around him. Holes were appearing everywhere and on everything, getting bigger and eating away anything that stood in the way. He was astonished by what he was seeing outside, the world was vanishing right before his eyes.

       As Jun Li leaned on the window glass to peer down at the street again, he heard soft static sounds coming directly from his right. He looked and saw that a small hole had appeared and started spreading across the window he was leaning on. At that moment, the window cracked around the hole and spread like veins through the rest of the window. Before the hole could spread any farther, the window shattered, sending glass and Jun Li falling to the ground below. He could feel a tingly, tickling sensation shoot through his entire body as he fell, and he couldn’t help but smile at what he was feeling right before he fatally struck the sidewalk below.

       Salah Muhammad woke up from a dream he forgot as soon as he opened his eyes. His clock said it was midnight, and he still had five more hours before he had to get up for work in the morning in downtown Cairo. He was normally a very sound sleeper, never waking up for anything, but for some reason he had woken up tonight. He sat up in his bed and stayed like that, listening and looking to see if there was anything that woke him up.

       His eyes must have still been drowsy because his entire room was a little blurry, with small sparkles twinkling all around. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his vision, but when he looked again everything was still hazy. The window to his right had been left open, the summer nights are what usually cooled off his room, and his curtains were gently blowing in the wind. A fog or mist must have crawled into his room from the outside air while he slept.

       Rolling out of bed to close the window, Salah Muhammad started to feel a tingling sensation that traveled all through his body. It was an odd feeling, something he had never felt before, but it was also an enjoyable feeling. He had no idea why he felt that way, and then thought maybe he was still dreaming.

       He approached the window and was about to close it, when he saw his whole neighborhood was encased in the haze. The haze made everything look like it was moving just a little, like everything was cold and shivering a little. He turned around to examine his room again and noticed the same thing was happening to everything in his room, the haze made it look like everything was moving a bit. It was beautiful to look at, and he figured he must have still been dreaming because there was nothing in the world he has seen that could cause this.

       He was enjoying the strange mist and the way his body felt when the tickling sensation suddenly turned to extreme pain. Out of nowhere, his entire body felt like it was on fire. He itched and scratched himself furiously, trying to get whatever substance was hurting him off, but it didn’t work and he was soon drawing his own blood. He dropped the floor and curled himself into the fetal position, cowering because he hurt too much to do anything. He had to close his eyes from the immense amount of pain, but before he did he thought he could make out tiny holes appearing on one of his walls. The pain lasted for only a few more seconds, and then Salah Muhammad knew no more.

       Cassandra was having a tea party with her little brother and some of her dollies in their sandbox outside. She had gotten back from kindergarten and decided to have a tea party in her sandbox. With the help of her mom, she moved her tea set to the sandbox. She wanted to dig and wiggle her toes in the sand and pretend she was at a beach while she drank her tea, just like the pretty women on TV.

       She was five years old, making her three whole years older than her brother, who was sitting across from her at the table, also enjoying the tea party. Her other guests included Princess Cinderella, sitting to her left, and Pretty Lady, who was on the right. She could see Mommy standing in a window behind her brother Paul; she was watching them play from inside the house while she was making dinner for later. Cassandra hoped Mommy was making pizza for dinner; pizza was her favorite.

       After taking a few sips of her delicious candy flavored tea, she looked up from her tea set to see a pretty cloud in front of her. It sparkled, like there was glitter everywhere in the cloud. It covered her brother and even her whole house behind him, but stopped between her and her brother. It made everything move a just a little while in the cloud, and it looked like she was looking through rippling water all around her. It was very pretty; the most beautiful thing Cassandra had ever seen.

       Her little brother thought it was interesting too, he was giggling and trying to touch the little sparkly things in the air.

       Reaching her arm out, she put her hand through the glittery cloud to also try and touch the sparkly things. She didn’t feel anything at first, but then her hand started to tingle a little bit; the cloud was tickling her and it felt fun. She was about to get up and walk farther into the cloud, when Paul fell over crying and Mommy burst out of the house running towards them.

       “Cassandra, stay where you are! Don’t move! Take Paul and run across the street to Sarah’s parent’s house!” She was screaming at her; she never heard Mommy scream like that before.

       Cassandra drew her hand back from the cloud and looked at her mom, very confused as to what was going on. She started to cry a little, hoping she hadn’t done anything wrong to upset Mommy.

       Paul was still crying, when Mommy fell to the ground, yelling and crying while she curled up on the ground.

       “Sweetie, please, take Paul and go to the neighbor’s.” Her voice sounded rough as she spoke, like it was hard for her to talk.

       Cassandra started crying even more, not knowing what to do. She looked at her brother, who was now bawling on the ground, and pulled him out of the cloud. At that moment, she noticed her hand no longer felt tingly but was now hurting a lot. She looked back into the glittery cloud and wanted her Mommy really bad.

       “Mommy!” Cassandra cried as she watched her mom start to disappear before her eyes. Parts of her were vanishing, like evil magic was taking little pieces of her away. Her brother looked the same way, holes had started to appear on him, and when she looked down at her hand, she saw the same thing happening.

       She was about to run to help Mommy, and was almost in the cloud, when she felt herself being lifted up by her neighbor’s arms.

       “Cassandra don’t!” yelled the voice that grabbed her. “Stay away from there, it’ll be okay. Everything will be fine, okay sweetie?” The voice was trying to stay calm, but her friend’s mother clearly was terrified at what was happening.

       “My Mommy!” she screamed, reaching out to Mommy, who was now still on the ground. She was trying to run to her, but Sarah’s mom held on tight to her. Paul had also stopped crying, and was being picked up by her friend’s father, who had run from across the street to help. She watched as the cloud ate up the rest of her Mommy before passing out from the pain in her hand.

       The bacteria-like entity left the planet just as quickly as it came. It was passing through this particular star system when it saw a perfect planet to refuel on. Taking only about seventy percent of the planets resources, it made sure it left enough so as to not completely destroy the planet. The living organisms on the planet would survive as a whole, and eventually recover from the entity’s visit.

       It settled down in the atmosphere and took what it needed to keep up its never ending journey through the universe, and then it left the blue and green planet as it continued on.

Small Introduction

Hello. My name is Michael Shimek, and thank you for visiting my blog. I will be using this place to post some writings of mine.