General Fiction, Short Fiction

Bird by Danielle Burke

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We are gathered here. Waiting for the opportunity. The younger one thinks we are loathsome, ignorant creatures, but the old woman knows better. 

***

Ava Nash finally possessed almost everything she knew she deserved. 

She thought back to the winter, to the morning her landlord, Philip, had accosted her. 

“Don’t think I’m going to be persuaded once again by you blinking those pretty blue eyes at me, unless there’s going to be more to follow,” he leered. “Rent’s due by tomorrow at 3:00. If it’s not in my hand by then, we’re going to have to work out another arrangement.” 

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All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

A Thing about Spiders by Alex Faulkner

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I was surveying the sandy beach laid out before me from a vantage point on the clifftop. I’d been hiking for hours, days on end, along the coastal path. It was late in the century. Herring gulls and fulmars rode the thermals of the summer’s day and I was thinking about the latest spiders.

The creepy beasts have a long and honourable history, beginning in the depths of ancient time. But it was millennia before we were able to unleash their true potential.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Minute by Robert Reece

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That goddamn Buick screamed around the corner with its rusted chrome hubcaps shooting off like flying saucers from Plan 9 from Outer Space. Talia’s face and her yellow whiskey eyes came to me in that frozen millisecond like an old 3D image in a ViewMaster. I can’t remember what she said when she left me the night before, but there were those eyes from the day we met four years ago, and that’s what I saw as the tires smoked skidwild across the asphalt, and the cracked tri-shield hood ornament narrowed down as a laser reticle focused on its target, which was me. But I was late because Talia took the alarm with her when she left, and I had to take the commuter train, which was delayed that morning by a single minute due to a signal malfunction.

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General Fiction, Short Fiction

When the Railroad Comes by Leila Allison

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1985

There comes a moment when God stops everything and shines the Big Light on you. You’re presented with a problem that has no solution, and doing nothing isn’t possible. When that first happened to me in 1985, I learned the truth: the closer you get to God, the further you are from your humanity. I have yet to decide if that’s sarcasm, irony, or the wages of being holy. But none of it mattered at that moment. It was up to me to select the least shitty course of action, and I had to choose now.

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All Stories, Science Fiction

For the Good of the Company by Chaz Osburn

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When news broke this morning that the Chloe Dunham, the largest and most powerful freighter in our company’s fleet of intergalactic transporters, had disappeared following an intense storm in the Outer Belt, I did what any good chief executive officer would do. I called a press conference.

You don’t get to be a president of one of the largest mining and exploration businesses in the sector without being pro-active. I was thinking of my company’s reputation. Over the years I had attended countless media training sessions—this is a dangerous business—and I knew it was my job to get out in front of the story and do everything in my power to control the narrative. That’s the only way to negate bad publicity.

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All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever: The Faith So Great by Dale Barrigar

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“My cup runneth over.” – David

Many who love Leonard Cohen and his most famous song, “Hallelujah,” are not aware that the song is a STORY SONG about the biblical character of David.

David is a religious figure for billions of people on the planet; he is, for sure, a historical figure; and he’s considered in this essay as a literary character, mostly.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Humour, Short Fiction

Week 605: Never too Late, Hitler Found Love at 56

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I will open with a stupid “duh” remark: Lots of things have changed in writing in the past fifty years. I’ve been at it that long, but the first ten I was a songwriter. That began with dreamy eyed teen minor chord ditties about things I knew nothing about and eventually devolved into writing drunken snatches of genius (i.e. drunk shite, as they say in Scotland) on anything that would take a pen (I hate pencils, they feel like dirt and their smell makes me sneeze). Then, later, when not too shitty they were matched to a number of beats and a chord pattern. I have probably written two hundred songs in my life and not one of them exists on one sheet of paper. Some were recorded on a demo that someone somewhere probably recorded over a long time ago.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Kicking It by James Blindell

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The match is in full flow, 22 teenagers running around the frozen pitch, a few desperate to get the ball and some desperately hiding from it.   To absolutely nobody’s surprise, we are 2-0 down after ten minutes.  I’m not arsed about the score, though.  It’s the ten minutes thing that’s doing my head in.  80 more bastard minutes of him.  In actual fact, the match will be stopped and an ambulance frantically called before halftime, but who’s to know at this point?

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All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

Insert Coin by Ari Derin

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There is something about the feel of a coin. It’s that cool heavy feeling. I had a year’s worth of Alcoholics Anonymous coins in my pocket, and I jingled them as I walked down this country road.

The concrete road was cracked and unmarked, and the sky was darkening. A few hundred meters ahead stood what looked like an old-timey photo booth.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Attic Room by Cris Aboobaker

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In the dim twilight of Charlie’s bar an old man sat at the counter muttering about the weather. Outside, night winds blew up from the sea, salving the day’s heat still rising from baked pavements. It was too hot the old man said, it was too dry; his bones ached, his bowels didn’t move; John, the barman nodded, wiping glasses with a small towel. The barking laughs of other regulars, the clinking of the pool table, the air conditioner’s hum and Bob Montgomery’s measured voice on the TV lamenting another Red Sox loss mixed with the old man’s mutters.

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