Lawrence Lease
Bio
Alaska born and bred, Washington DC is my home. I'm also a freelance writer. Love politics and history.
Achievements (1)
Stories (275)
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The Compliance of Ordinary Things
The first time the ceiling began to drip, everyone looked up like it was weather. It wasn’t water. It was thick and pale and slow, the color of skim milk left out too long. It gathered in a soft bead, swelled, and fell with a quiet, wet punctuation onto the carpet beside Reception.
By Lawrence Leasea day ago in Fiction
The Moment Before Yes
The first sign wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t come with a bang, or a phone call, or a knock at the door. It came as a pause in the hallway—Mara’s key hovering in the air, the teeth pointed toward the lock like a question she hadn’t decided to ask.
By Lawrence Leasea day ago in Fiction
Something Has Already Begun (We Just Don’t Know What Yet)
They didn’t realize it had started until they were already standing inside of it. Not inside a room, not inside a decision — just inside a feeling, the way you sometimes find yourself already halfway down a hill before you remember choosing to walk.
By Lawrence Lease2 days ago in Fiction
The Disappearance of Nancy Guthrie: What We Know, What We Don’t, and What Comes Next
What began as a missing person case has evolved into something far more troubling. There are blood droplets at the front of the house. A Ring camera is gone. There are alleged ransom notes circulating. Helicopters have circled low overhead. Deputies have conducted grid searches through cactus-studded desert terrain. And yet, despite all of this activity, law enforcement maintains a clear position: there is currently no identified suspect or person of interest.
By Lawrence Lease3 days ago in Criminal
The Invisible Machine That Runs Our Minds
There is a system that hums in your pocket all day, every day, so quietly that you forget it is even there. It does not announce itself with rules or edicts. There are no posted hours of operation, no governing body you can confront, no clear center of authority. Yet it organizes behavior, distributes power, and promises a kind of order that feels both intimate and impersonal at the same time.
By Lawrence Lease3 days ago in Humans
Where the Water Moves One Way and the Truth Moves Another
The river had always flowed uphill, though no one in Bellmere ever said it that way. They said instead that the town was “cleverly engineered,” or that the water simply “knew where it needed to go.” Children were taught in school that Bellmere sat on a rare but perfectly respectable incline that confused outsiders more than locals. On field trip days, Mrs. Carrow would line the class up along the iron railing and point toward the water climbing, slow and patient, toward the distant hills.
By Lawrence Lease3 days ago in Fiction
At 2:14, the Earth Listens
The first time Mara noticed the hour, she assumed it was coincidence. 2:14 a.m. The clock on her bedside table glowed that soft, watery green that feels almost alive in a dark room. She had rolled over half-asleep, arm searching for Elias out of habit, and instead of warm skin she found cold sheets and the faint dip of where his body had been moments before.
By Lawrence Lease3 days ago in Fiction
Shadows in the Desert: Inside the Disappearance of Nancy Guthrie
The desert is quiet in a way that feels deceptive. At first glance, Tucson’s foothills look like the kind of place where nothing truly bad happens — open skies, endless cacti, distant mountains, and sprawling homes set far apart from one another. But standing outside the house of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie, that quiet feels heavier now. It feels charged. Tense. Almost fragile.
By Lawrence Lease4 days ago in Criminal
Don't Forget to Celebrate National Margarita Day
National Margarita Day doesn’t arrive with the gravity of a federal holiday or the chaos of a three-day weekend, but it holds a special kind of power anyway. It’s the rare celebration that asks very little of you—no gifts, no speeches, no complicated traditions. Just a glass, some ice, and permission to pause for a moment and enjoy something bright.
By Lawrence Lease6 days ago in Proof
Europe Thinks it Can’t Deter Russia Without America. It’s Already Doing So
Europe is in trouble. For decades, the United States has been Europe’s primary security guarantor. That arrangement now looks increasingly fragile. Political crises are pulling the two sides of the Atlantic apart, placing at risk the security framework Europe has relied on since the end of the Second World War.
By Lawrence Lease6 days ago in FYI
