Ned

Imagine... a friend and neighbor, affable but mysterious, easygoing yet also strangely intense when it comes to a personal life kept as close to the vest as possible. Who doesn't know someone like this? Mike and Janie Howell, residents of the bucolic town of Fielding, certainly do. Ned is their friend, dropped into their lives with a bit of lucky timing, swiftly becoming a fixture at their house, along with his excitable Daschund, Rocky. But who is Ned? And why are so many of his characteristics eerily familiar to the Howells? These are the questions posed and answered - to the extent that questions like these CAN be satisfactorily answered - in "Ned," a 7,700-word short story that explores the impossible. From the creative minds of both Linie Sherrod and Daniel Kelley, "Ned" takes a brief stroll into a magical world where things are most definitely not as simple as they appear. Enter this world, and savor a tale of what could happen to anyone. Anyone, that is, who chooses to believe in beauty, in fate, in the delicious illogicality that defies the rational mind, but enchants those willing to open their eyes to the alluring power of possibility