For five days, from Thursday June 19th to Monday June 23rd, my short story “Opting In” will be available for free download on Amazon.com here.  Stop in and pick yourself up a copy.  Here’s what it’s about:

An old man, feeling useless, leaves his daughter’s home to go live in a homeless shelter. Following up on a tip from a fellow vagrant, he finds an alien being preparing to leave Earth who invites him on a journey from which he can never return.

It’s part of my short story collection “Opting Out and Other Departures” which is newly available on Amazon here.  Here’s a description of the collection:

A homeless man fleeing confiscation of the van he lives in stumbles upon a seemingly paradisiacal haven. A housewife enters a mysterious portal to another world. A coma victim, wide awake in a world of the mind, finds that the struggle between light and shadow in his dream is a life and death battle for the real world he left behind. A man who feels redundant and forsaken is offered a one-way ticket for a fresh start on an alien planet.

Those who embark upon a hero’s journey are often not heroes when they begin. The choices they make and the deeds they do make them heroes as they encounter obstacles and dangers. These stories concern misfits, outliers, wanderers, loners – those who have stepped beyond the norm or who have never fitted into it. Each is confronted with the call of the open road. For some it is physical and for others metaphorical, but all must choose to either cower in mediocrity or set forth on the path of adventure and destiny.

While you’re there, stop in at my Amazon author’s page and peruse my other works.