All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Riptide by Manoela Torres

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Today we celebrate Bella. Our beautiful, breathtaking, beloved, buried Bella. Our connection was less affection than ancestry, the sort of intimacy that shared blood makes inevitable.

Born less than two months apart, we were always together. Twins they called us, until our features grew too distinguishable to sustain the lie. I was small and sturdy, my skin the deep tan that made Nai Nai click her tongue and mutter about rice pickers and fieldwork. Bella possessed that particular alchemy of mixed blood: jade eyes set in porcelain skin, her father’s Scandinavian height stretched over her mother’s delicate Chinese bones, creating something that demanded worship.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

The Cats’ Game by Ross Hetherington

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Do you remember the night you went out, and all the cats were there? I can remember everything you told me, and you know that’s not how I usually am. You came in and sat right where you are now, and I was up on the chair. You waited till the programme finished, then you asked if you could turn it off. There was still a bit of cold in the air from you coming in.

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All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever – No Mean Mercy by Geraint Jonathan

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Take this down, Brother Slycup.

Beggars can be choosers. The procedure is very simple. Apply to the skin a generous layer of fatty soap, sprinkle with vinegar, wait a minute or two, and, tantara: there it is – as any mirror to hand will confirm: your face is a veritable mass of yellow pustules. Then all you need do is develop a graveyard wheeze, adopt a drool, take up trembling, swivel the ol’ eye and speak a little bedlamese. Trust me, hearts will move, stones’ll weep.

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Editor Picks, Latest News, Short Fiction

569: More Grammar Gripes

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Every year or so I feel obliged to make a statement on behalf of proper grammar in the English language. Before the tongue is finally killed and left to rot in the Pop Culture Wood, I feel that it is the duty of writers long acquainted with the written word to get in a few shots at the would-be murderers. The killers of language are the Usual Suspects, namely the Selfish and Lazy (from here, “Sal”).

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All Stories, Humour

Smile if you’re not wearing knickers by Peter Arscott

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I was pleased the butcher knew my face.

For months I’ve been coming here, wanting him to look at me, to really look at me, watching the sinews in his forearm tighten with each effortless chop of the cleaver as it neatly parts a chicken’s neck from its body, or a pink cutlet from half a ribcage. He carries himself with such grace, his every move unhurried, as if the world outside, with its fuss and hurly burly, is of no concern to a man who functions by his own imperatives, and in his own time.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Are You Going to Kalamazoo? By Christopher Ananias 

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Tonight Jack would talk to the ghost. He took to the street. The warm wind is blowing on his face. Splash—pound—Nikes scrape the edge of a curb. Whoa that was close. He lets his mind wander down into his feet. His mind is splash-pound.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Short Fiction, Writing

Stuart by Hugh Cron – Adult Content.

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Stuart died in prison.

That is wrong,

Stuart was killed in prison. He was stabbed with a blade between his ribs.

None of these sharpened toothbrushes or pieces of wood or shards of glass, an actual knife. The investigation is ongoing. Some poor dweeb will probably lose their pension over that.

Did Stuart deserve to be murdered? Opinions vary. Some would say he was a bad guy, others would say he did what he did to survive. I suppose it depends on their involvement with him.

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All Stories, Fantasy

The Old Fisherman by Joe Ducato

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Every night the pictures on his lampshade came to life.  Rodeo cowboys on galloping stallions threw ropes at the moon.

The boy’s sister once called him “Nutsy-Crackers” because of the strange things he was always seeing.  Later she shortened it to just Crackers.

In the middle of the night, he lifted the window (quiet as a thief) climbed out and lowered himself to the ground, praying that the weight of all the coins in his pocket wouldn’t rip through the material.  The rest of the house slept.

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Writers Reading

Writers’ Read. It’s a Mystery to me by Doug Hawley

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Real Ones

Dashiell Hammett is famous for The Maltese Falcon and the Thin Man Series.  Not remembered today, but Red Harvest is an example of something different from him.  It happens in Poisonville / Personville (fictionalized Butte Montana) where crime ran rampant in the street.  Most crime stories and mysteries have involved a single bad guy or a small gang.  Hammett was a leftist, but worked for the Pinkertons which were sometimes involved in strike breaking, which was an obvious conflict.  Later in life he was jailed for his beliefs.

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