A.T. Baines
Bio
I'm a small town author who hopes to bring hope. Inspired by the kindness of others, and fascinated with wonder, my fiction spans thousands of years and many interconnected stories. My non-fiction details my own life and hopes to inspire.
Stories (8)
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Two Ways to Hold a Child
I didn’t grow up around babies. The first time I really interacted with one was after I’d graduated high school. I couldn’t tell you how old she was at the time, or if she was a happy baby. I didn’t know how well she fed or what her quirks were. She was the child of a high school friend, A friend who I looked down on for having a child so young. Getting his girlfriend pregnant and starting a family right out of high school wasn’t something I wanted for him.
By A.T. Baines5 months ago in Families
Portmanteaux
1- Expressionisthmus: Life on a Thin Bridge I’m turning 30. In the grand scheme of things, thirty is young. But I’m also dramatic, much to my wife’s chagrin. So bear with me while I write about the end of my life coming at the end of this month, and if you feel so inclined, entertain my drama as I recount the path I’ve taken to get here in a few short passages while I mourn the death of my first youth.
By A.T. Baines3 years ago in Psyche
The Daughter of Time
“Moeteria, the Eternal Law must remain unfrayed" — The dragon crashed through the woods, her translucent scales carved grooves into the trees that weren’t knocked down by her tremendous size. Despite her large frame, compared to the other dragons that resided in these woods, she was a dwarf.
By A.T. Baines3 years ago in Fiction
The Great Spring II
Flowers don't heal suffering any more than the rain can prevent a wildfire. Digging through a mottled corpse, mangled from anxieties and past memories made real by fear and brought back to life by shame and sorrow is not how I pictured my post pandemic life, and yet, here I am. Rebuilding pieces of what I thought was at one time a capable pile of bones.
By A.T. Baines4 years ago in Fiction
The Great Spring
To live through suffering is humanity. To want a way out, perhaps more so. It is not the blooming of the flower buds that provokes my haunted heart, no more than the falling of the leaves brings me any deep joy. I can look out and see the orange and red of autumn trees and feel my heart spring upward in excitement, just the same as when the petals of the first daisies spread to meet the sunlight. The world spins the same as it always has and I've come to know of myself with each passing that I am sad in the springtime. It is a part of me, and has always been this way.
By A.T. Baines4 years ago in Psyche
Two Wishes
"How are you holding up, kiddo?" Katherine rested her hand on the young man's shoulder. His quivering subsided for a moment. The desperate gasps of the recently orphaned boy echoed through the apartment as she glanced at her brother, an imposing man who stood in the doorway with his arms folded.
By A.T. Baines5 years ago in Horror
