George Epley

  “The Walmart Bunny Brawl” It all started on a sunny Saturday morning when George Jenkins , 62 years young and grumpier than a goose in a windstorm, wandered into Walmart to pick up a jar of pickles and a pair of orthopedic socks. George wasn’t expecting much excitement that day—until he turned the corner by the frozen peas and came face-to-face with a six-foot-tall Easter Bunny. “Good Lord!” George shouted, clutching his chest. “What in the name of prune juice is that?” The Easter Bunny—aka Kyle, a 22-year-old seasonal employee trying to survive college—waved and cheerfully said, “Happy Easter, sir! Would you like a free chocolate egg?” George squinted. “You call that a bunny? Back in my day, the Easter Bunny didn’t look like he was in a boy band!” Kyle chuckled nervously. “Well, sir, times have changed. We’re all about inclusion and flair now.” “Inclusion? Flair?” George grumbled. “You’re wearin’ glitter on your ears! That ain’t festive, that’s confusing!” A small crowd ...

  Once upon a time, in a world filled with landscapes, portraits, and still-life paintings, artists dedicated their lives to capturing reality as accurately as possible. For centuries, art was expected to mirror nature—to be a window into the world. Kings, nobles, and scholars admired painters who could recreate the human form, the glow of candlelight, or the vastness of the sea with stunning precision. But then, something began to change. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the world was evolving rapidly. Machines roared to life in factories, cities grew taller, and people began to see the world differently. Science and technology were advancing, and with them, new ideas about reality and perception emerged. Artists started asking themselves: "What if art doesn’t have to show the world as it looks? What if it could express the world as it feels?" A painter named Wassily Kandinsky was one of the first to take this bold step. He believed that colors and shapes could spe...

  For 20 years, Harold Jenkins followed a ritual so bizarre, so utterly ridiculous, that not even his wife believed it. Every morning at precisely 6:17 a.m., Harold would shuffle into Stall #3 at the Maple Street Cum & Go, unzip his fly, and pee—directly—on a rusty, crooked bolt sticking out of the floor near the toilet base. This wasn't just some random aim, mind you. Harold had perfect accuracy. He treated that bolt like a sacred target. Rain or shine, sickness or health, Taco Tuesday or bad gas Friday—Harold never missed. One day, on a whim (and because his phone had 2% battery left), Harold snapped a photo of the bolt, mid-splash. The angle, the lighting from the flickering fluorescent bulb, the golden arc—it was, strangely… artistic. He uploaded it to a random online photo contest called "Moments of Modern Life." He titled it: "Bolt of Relief." Weeks passed. He forgot about it. Until a call came from an art collective in Berlin. “Mr. Jenkins? Your photo...

  The Day the Aliens Landed on the Playground It began on a perfectly normal Tuesday. The sun was shining, the juice boxes were cold, and the monkey bars were slightly sticky from mysterious child-related goo. But everything changed when the new "modern art installation" arrived at Elm Street Park. The adults called it “Ascending Shapes of Unity” — a towering sculpture made of neon-colored steel beams, oversized rings, and what looked suspiciously like a glowing satellite dish on top. But the moment eight-year-old Mia laid eyes on it, she dropped her sidewalk chalk mid-doodle and gasped. “Guys,” she whispered to the playground crew. “The aliens are here.” Tommy squinted. “How do you know?” “Duh,” said Mia, pointing to a spiraling pink coil. “That’s clearly an anti-gravity noodle launcher. I saw it on Alien Investigators: Junior Edition .” Lena, five years old and absolutely full of opinions, added, “And that blue thing? That’s a translator pod. You sit in it and it te...

  “The Porcelain Muse” They say inspiration strikes in the strangest of places. For George, a lifelong photographer with a love for the weird and wonderful, that place was the bathroom. Not just any bathroom—every bathroom. While other photographers scouted gritty alleyways or golden-hour landscapes, George wandered into gas station restrooms, truck stop stalls, and forgotten public lavatories like they were galleries of the avant-garde. “I’m telling you,” he’d say, pointing to a mysterious rust pattern beneath a broken hand dryer, “that’s not grime—that’s emotion.” George called his ongoing photo series “Porcelain Dreams: A Study in Flush and Form.” His friends mocked him at first. “You’re taking photos of toilets,” they laughed. “Who’s gonna hang that in their living room?” But George wasn’t just pointing a lens at plumbing. He found faces in the soap scum, landscapes in the cracked tiles, existential dread in the lonely, half-used toilet paper roll dangling just out of reach. Hi...

                                                    A few weeks ago, I decided to send a letter to the White House expressing my fears and anxiety about what’s happening with Social Security. In short, I urged them to handle Social Security with care and not mess it up for the 70 million Americans who have earned and rely on this benefit. Yesterday, I received a reply—and I can’t shake the feeling that no one actually read my letter. It seemed like a canned response, the kind they probably send out to everyone, no matter what issue you bring up. It left me with the strong impression that they’re not really listening to us, and that Mr. Trump is going to do whatever he wants regardless of what we say. The response I got was nothing more...