A Short Story Collection

The Time is NowAnd Other Stories

A briefcase carrying half a million dollars drifts from hand to hand. A pair of celebrity chefs watch their clones steal their fame. A widower wrestles with ghosts from the past, while hackers in a submarine slip along the African coast. Elsewhere, an FBI agent hunts a gaming phantom, a woman turns invisible after a medical mishap, and three elderly knitters take on a corrupt politician with more courage than common sense.
In The Time Is Now, M.P. Newman delivers twelve tales stitched together with wit, unease, and a dash of the impossible. From the absurd to the heartfelt, each story peers into the strangeness of modern life through a magical yet skewed lens, where justice might come from an unlikely place, where the smallest slip can change everything, and where redemption or ruin is always just around the corner.
Darkly comic, strangely moving, and wholly unpredictable, this collection will leave you questioning what’s real, what’s imagined, and how thin the line is between the two.

Synopses

  1. Enjoy: Bill and Bob, two celebrity chefs, find themselves kidnapped, jailed, and cloned by a ruthless businessman. From their cell, they’re forced to watch their own show carry on without them.
  2. Where the River Flows: A leather briefcase holding a valuable bearer bond drifts from an affluent businessman’s hands to those of a poor immigrant, who alone recognizes its true worth.
  3. The Time Is Now: Three elderly bakers and knitters launch a chaotic crusade to save their community center from a corrupt councilman bent on power and profit.
  4. Done For. Done For What?: An unlucky cook, reeling from a workplace blunder and a failed relationship, loses sight of what matters most until an unlikely savior step in at the final moment.
  5. Ever So Lightly: Jake, a widower troubled by a haunting mystery of unresolved childhood trauma, struggles to live a normal life—until reality catches up with him in the most unforgiving way.
  6. Double Two. Always Two: Two private investigators comb New York’s underbelly for a missing young woman, aided by clues from the unlikeliest of sources.
  7. Quick: Five Robin Hood–style hackers hide out in Sierra Leone, using stolen wealth to aid the needy while cruising the West African coast in an old submarine when things get too hot.
  8. Waiting: Wade, an outdoorsman, breaks his leg in a tragic accident during an expedition. Stranded in the Alaskan wilderness, he must confront not only the unforgiving landscape but also the cruelty of his companions.
  9. Number One: FBI agent Ian and his colleagues chase the mystery of an online gamer who always wins, always stays ahead, and may be more powerful than they imagine.
  10. Nothing to See: After a routine medical procedure leaves her invisible, an elderly woman embraces her strange new reality and sets out to foil a terrible crime.
  11. Holy Smokes: Damian, a distraught masseur, stumbles on a new cigarette that grants blissful amnesia. What begins as an escape from life’s battles soon takes a comic twist of fate, forcing him to see the flip side of everything.
  12. An Ordinary Life: In New York City, Matt risks everything in pursuit of his dream to become a firefighter, wagering his well-being on one last desperate chance.

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Elsbeth has paid a million dollars for a private day with the president, an investment she believes will unlock insider secrets, market dominance, and a place among the ultra-elite.
But as the day turns more and more surreal and conversations drift into absurdity, she begins to question whether she’s negotiating with power or is being a mere play ball of it.
By the end of the day, only one thing is certain: in the pursuit of influence and money, someone is being duped.
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