Author Archives: Brian A. Klems

You are at a magic show with your family, and your eight year old son is called up on stage as a part of the disappearing act. The magician performs the first part of the act successfully, but is unable to make your son reappear. Read more

As a child, you were prone to night terrors, sleep talking and sleep walking. Now as an adult, you have long since grown out of your old habits. That is, until one night. You awake to find yourself in an unfamiliar place on the phone with a Pentagon official. Read more

You’ve signed up to go tandem skydiving for the first time. On the plane, your instructor says he isn’t feeling well, but jumps with you anyway. When you jump, he passes out. Write this scene and the stream of conscious thoughts as you fall towards the earth. Read more

Playing in the hallway one day, your kids accidentally bump into your grandfather clock, which has been in the family for years. As it smashes into the ground, you find a note hidden inside from your great grandfather, who died two months after you were born. Strangely enough, the note is addressed to you. Read more

One morning you awake to find yourself in a straight jacket, being taken off to an asylum. How do you prove your sanity? What do the guards and psychiatrists say you did? Read more

While preparing your garden at the beginning of spring, you find the blueprints for your house buried in the earth. When you pull it out and examine it, you find that there is a room in the blueprint that doesn’t exist in your house. Both disturbed and intrigued, you set off to find the missing room. Write what happens next. Read more

You are at the neighborhood garage sale, looking for nothing in particular. Something inside an old, wooden box catches your eye. The old woman who is running the sale comes over to say something about the object. What is it? What did she say and why? Read more

You get back to your studio to develop pictures from the hour you just spent in the park. All of the pictures turn out well, except for a select few. In six photographs, there is a man in the frame. Something seems slightly off, and rather strange about each picture. Who is he and what is weird about the photographs? Read more

On your way into work this morning, you look at the car on your left. Inside are two men dressed in dark suits, wearing sunglasses. They simultaneously look at you and meet your gaze. The one in the passenger seat rolls down his window and says something. Write what he says, and what happens next. Read more

Finish these sentences: “Ever day of the week I _________, but Sundays are different. On Sundays, I ¬¬________.” Read more