I don't know that this is necesarily non-fiction writing so much as a collection of thoughts, but oh well. In response to your thoughts: * Thinking logically is actually very much *with* the nature of thinking logically. * The units you've listed are all used to describe units of actual real world things, rather than concepts like "culture" and "feeling". To describe those things, we need to eitehr use metaphors with actually measurable things as a reference point. * The word for everything: ...

It's as if you took Romeo and Juliet -- and added an insane asylum and a lot of painting. Doesn't really do it for me. Is this set in a particular time period? Why do I care about these people?

I'd like to see more of this and see where it's going to fully evaluate. The imagery with the girl recreating the cross shadow from above with her own body on top of the existing cross shadow is very ... almost creepy, the way I'm imagining it. I think it depends on the look on her face when she speaks to us.

I am left with so many questions. For one, how can a chinese man be from Kentucky? Two, did he plan on getting it on with the ducky, or was that just the amazing outcome of his otherwise mundane adventure?

In terms of form, the short/choppy doesn't really do it for me. It's like a free pass out of actually being descriptive. Content-wise, this is sad. Go talk to her, I'm sure she's nice.

Promising beginning - if a bit muddled. I think I'd need to see more to understand where this actually going and what you're leading us into. If you are setting up what's going to be a tale of conflict between two things (christianity?, your friends?, your sadness? spirituality?, life?, etc) - it would be good to see these immediately contrasted up front - or at least presented in a way that would make sense once you've told us what that conflict is.

While it's been done over and over, the concept of showing how people deal with the loss of someone close to them -- especially in screwy imagine-theyre-still-alive ways -- is fascinating. You could do more to explain the relationship between the narrator and the person they are missing. Why are they gone? Did they jump to their death through a bedroom window? At first I thought there was some criminal activity involved, but...not sure at the end.

I think you could have more fully explored the conflict between the church and the men working the quarry, as I believe that's the point of the piece. It starts well, describing activities the men do that the church wouldn't approve of, but the men aren't mentioned again. Also, are you working in the quarry? A member of the church? An innocent bystander?

I'm not entirely sure who the "he" (that worked a miracle) is at the end. I would guess it's our esteemed president, but I'm not confident in that.

That's a hell of a thing to have stuck in one's craw. Perhaps you need a craw-bar to work it out... Did your daughters father murder your adopted mother? That's what I'm getting here. That, and that you're on drugs to deal with it. Overall sounds like a tough situation for the three year old.