I stopped drinking after my younger brother Cody chose assisted death. He was paralyzed from the neck down and never able to get high again because of it. That gave him courage.
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Confessions of a Digital Nomad by Dan Shiffman
Inside Saint Anthony’s Basilica in Padua, he turned to his wife and whispered that he had a “confession to make,” darting three steps toward a dark, vacant box.
“You got me,” she whispered back. She still liked his jokes, even after six years together, three as digital nomads. Pointing to her fitness tracker watch, she reminded him that they each had Zoom meetings starting in thirty minutes.
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The Stringer by Christopher Ananias
Extreme Adult Content – refer to the tabs at the bottom of the story
A small dark-haired boy was walking in the fog like a phantom. Lenny Coins thought about his father. How could his father do such a thing—things? But the balloons. What about those?
At the bus stop, Tom waited for Lenny and offered him a Marlboro cigarette. Like he did every morning.
“I’m only eleven. I don’t smoke, Tom.” This was in the eighties when the Marlboro Man rode the range, instead of a hospital bed. Smoking was cool, and serial killers were coming on strong.
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Literally Reruns: Artificial Love by L’Erin Ogle
Of all the writers who have appeared on the site, L’Erin Ogle is the one whose name I most expect to turn up on the list of famous writers. She is not a commercial type of writer, but she is just plain so damn good that you’d think that even the doofs who control the money would notice her. But maybe it is for the best that she continues to make her way under her own control and at her own speed.
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Week 576 – Pretty Colours, Being Alert And An Attempt At Misdirection.
Hello there folks and folkessess. Here we go again and are at Week 576.
Before I start I need to warn you that there is a new virus doing the rounds. If you get it, don’t go to A&E. With this ‘Peekaboo Virus’ go to ICU.
I apologise for that and I despise myself for admitting that it did make me smile. (Mr Cowan once again.)
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Dutch by Dirk Kortz
The ol’ boy downstairs humps his walker a few inches b’fore ever’ step he takes down the driveway. Had a stroke his wife tol’ me but she says he’s stubborn as a cocklebur and won’t let nobody else git his mail.
The Scent of Eternity by Susmita Mukherjee
In the summer of 1997, when most men of his age were discovering the quiet dignity of cholesterol, Gopal Banerjee decided to make a perfume that would outlive death itself. Not metaphorically, he meant it quite literally. “Eternity,” he called it, though Calvin Klein had already used the name. Gopal didn’t mind; he believed trademarks were for those who lacked vision.
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Flowers for Esma by Christopher Ananias
In a war-torn region of the Balkans. Esma weaved around the fly-blown corpse, hand-flipped out. Like she was a model on the runway. The other hand carried a bouquet of blue and yellow wildflowers held up to her face. She breathed in the fragrance like perfumed death.
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Beside the Dying Ash Tree by Michael Bloor
Andy put down the phone on his sister, though she was still sobbing intermittently. They’d already been talking for half an hour; he realised that there was no more comfort he could offer, til he saw her tomorrow at the undertakers. And he needed a break to process her news of their father’s death. So, booted and rain-proofed, he headed out the door for a familiar walk beside the river.
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Happy Point by Sergey Bolmat
Harry Pembroke, 67, a retired PE teacher came to London from Gobowen. It took him five hours to reach the capital; he had missed one of his connections. He felt really clever though when he arrived to his destination. He had paid for his tickets three months ago, used his National Railcard, and was able to save quite a lot of money with his advance booking: instead of £317 one way which he would have paid had he bought the tickets right before his trip at the station he had only paid £143 return. These numbers kept him warm and happy when he walked out of the train terminal into the cold November drizzle.
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literally stories 