Mriya
To the boy it looks like a ravaged animal. Its head ripped-off, body torn apart with stringy guts hanging out. Scattered chunks of flesh strewn around the barren hangar.
“Thank God your grandfather is not here to see this,” the boy’s mother says. “He wanted to watch it take off one last time.”
Continue reading “Mriya by George Nevgodovskyy”
It was really a love story in the end.
The noise outside was consistent. Traffic, construction, and wandering conversations as New Yorkers enjoyed the relative peace of Memorial Day Weekend in the city. But for Steve, the owner of the New Amity Restaurant, it was the end.
Continue reading “It was really a love story in the end by Adam Kluger”
Right now it is Tuesday, 31 May 2022, 1:51 A.M. PDT in the Puget Sound region in the U.S.A. Due to some slow typing, errors and the run of time itself it is now 1:54, but all the other conditions are the same. Several months will pass before this is read on a Sunday morning. And, as always, people such as I, will operate on the assumption that the world will still be here and everyone we know is still in it in the relatively near future.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns -Retinitis Pigmentosa by Tobias Haglund”
I like fall, but I avoid saying “I like autumn.” I went to school with a girl with that name and hated her. I wouldn’t want the little god whose job it is to check up on the likes and dislikes of people like me to get confused. So, to be clear, I like autumn, but not the Autumn I knew in seventh grade.
But there are things about fall I can do without; for instance, grownups who wear “onesies,” and those who get as excited as a three-year-old seeing Santa for the first time when the subject is “pumpkin spice.” Usually these people are one and the same. I will hear no defense for normal adults who wear onesies with little fire trucks and/or race cars, Bunnies, Unicorns, Cows, Green Aliens and Sea “Horseys” on them and must tell me about it. What you do at home is your own business, but unless you want me to wonder if you wear a “dype-dype” and rubber panties to bed, don’t bring it up, especially if I am eating.
Continue reading “Week 396: Stumbling Leaves; Another Week That Is; Autumnal Vexations”
Rabbit man is belted into the traction machine at the physiotherapist’s clinic. His giant Easter Bunny costume head is hooked on the coat rack with the rest of the suit. He’s been hired by Mall Supervisor Frats to greet the Great Wizard and her children here in Munyayka.
Continue reading “The Rabbit Man of Munyaka by Harrison Kim”
I entered my building’s courtyard at dawn on a clear, cold November morning. I brought a bowl of tuna and a cat trap. I placed the bowl at a specific spot under one of the two box hedges that lined the walk and laid the trap nearby. Every morning I brought food to the same place; it was the trap’s only appearance.
I’d come for the benefit of a feline warlord in winter named Lemmy. I’d been feeding Lemmy on the sly ever since I first met him in the courtyard at least three years ago. Obviously feral, I appreciated the defiance in his attitude that wouldn’t allow him to beg. Oh, he certainly gobbled down what I gave him and shamelessly came back for more–but not once had he ever sought pity.
Continue reading “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It by Leila Allison”
I pour and they drink, and I am always mesmerized by their desires, their needs, their dry heaves between drunks so calamitous they’ll never know the impact till they get to the great beyond. I’m a bartender, barman, pourer, scoop setter, sudsman, but I will say at the same time that this menial job, though one with a great overview of the human soul, has saved my own soul for the long ride into the hereafter, though my travels don’t go beyond the 25 feet of the bar.
Continue reading “From the Other Side of the Saloon Bar by Tom Sheehan”
Have you ever ordered a DVD of an old film that, once upon a time, you thought was wonderful (back when you were at an impressionable age, say, between the ages of 15 and 25)? And when you settled down to watch it, accompanied by a wee whisky and some cheese and onion crisps, did you then discover that it was utter crap?
Continue reading “Citizen Wyckam-Smith by Michael Bloor”
I watch the Mayor dash about the rooftop, clutching his toupee against the wind. “My building!” he says, “Grey–what have you done to my building?”
I get it. They gave him the city in decent shape; he doesn’t want it broken.
Over on the balcony, rock-megastar Alex Grey is not empathetic, mumbling: “Just hang on, brother,” his voice a rumble beneath the shrieking wind. Grey tweaks his low-E peg, plucks his tortoiseshell plectrum across the string, holds the guitar up to his ear, and nods, satisfied that he’s in tune. We’re standing on the world’s biggest amp. During the morning bustle to blockade the New York Harbor, Grey sent a battalion of roadies to lash, strap, and solder hundreds of amp cabinets to the Empire State Building.
Continue reading “Fashioned at Last Into an Arrowy Shape by Travis and Lucas Flatt”
Every day I have submissions to read, stuff to write and books to catch up on. When I get tired I often catch myself skimming along the top of a piece, usually due to the false perception of overload. For I imagine that I am being driven, but that’s not true. I keep telling myself that the world is an increasingly hectic place, with too little time for careful reading. I believe the first person to say that was probably confronted by two wall paintings to review for the Hunter-Gatherer Digest.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Wingsy by Tom Sheehan”
literally stories 