EXTRACT FOR
Charles in Charge
(Craig M. Sampson)

Charles McElroy looked back on his current situation and actually found himself smiling. It had been a long time since Charles could remember himself smiling, but right now in this run down pathetic excuse of an apartment in Aberdeen, he was actually smiling. Whether or not it was a genuine feeling of happiness was up for grabs....it had been so long since Charles had identified with true happiness that he doubted seriously that this might be the case.

His childhood in Cranston had been good.....loving parents, a beautiful home, and a great neighborhood. They had not been rich by any means relative to the families of his friends, but they had been quite comfortable from his perspective. However, when darker times approached and his idyllic atmosphere was wiped away, Charles often had trouble remembering just how good things had been.

There had been too much lying and deception....too much death and illness......too much loss.....Charles had never considered himself a vengeful or even spiteful person as a young boy or grown man, but sometimes a man is just the victim of his times, he thought.....he liked that phrase.....maybe a song lyric he had heard somewhere? Anyway, maybe those bad times and bad luck and bad memories were now over......he was after all smiling, wasn't he? 

He held his hands out in front of him just in his line of vision so that his palms faced the ground. Despite all that he had endured and all that he had done, his hands were steady as a rock. Even the police, who had pestered him for days-he was not really sure how many-could not begin to imagine his inner turmoil-his calm, placed exterior masking a violent inner struggle as he strode away from the station. It was all over now....and Charles was smiling......