All Stories, Humour

The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place by Tony Dawson

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Clutching my holdall, I slipped into the chantry of an early fifteenth-century chapel. It was late at night, and the only light in the chapel was provided by half a dozen flickering candles that created disturbing shadows on the walls. I was interested in the tomb of a medieval knight and his lady and although I had never felt comfortable in the presence of death, even in the daylight hours, if I had come during the day, I would have been spotted by the sacristan and asked to leave.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Telling Two Granddames Apart by Tom Sheehan     

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She was different from my father’s mother, Mary Elizabeth King Sheehan right out of Cork. There was an elegant thirty-year widow for you, tall and gracious, precise of language, with her little black widow’s hat on her head and the shiny glasses on her nose and a bread roll or two in her pocketbook whenever she supped outside her Somerville home. Her pocketbook was always black. It always shone the light around it. A touch of new leather at her hands as if a bargain had just been made. At Ginn and Co. in Cambridge, she was a bookbinder, for more than sixty years eventually, and never baked a pie in her life it seems. Or baked bread. But she could wash your feet and scrub your back on a visit with her slender fingers and make you feel new all over.

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All Stories, Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns- Hi, I’m Stacy by Nyx-Bean

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Quite often a writer will streak across our virtual sky, a word comet, who graces our viewing for a while before moving in. From late 2016 into ’17, Nyx Bean gave us four memorable stories, and it is a shame that they should sit in the vault, alone, neglected.

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Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 338 – Time And Motion Has Never Been For Me, Loads Of Words And Huge Testicles.

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And here we are at Week 338

First question for anyone who would like to answer – I was wondering, do any of you actually make time for writing either each day or even a few days of a week?

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Final Frontier by Doug Hawley

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Sally got home from her nature guide conference after being gone for a week.  She was surprised to see an envelope with her name on it in Duke’s handwriting propped up on the phone.  He used to send her little love notes, but with his recent problems, he had dropped the habit.  Could he finally have some good news?

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Short Fiction

Meet the billygits by Leila Allison

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Word has it that the first billygit was the result of a passionate affair between a runaway Disney Princess and a Flying Monkey on leave from the Wizard of Oz. The Princess was tired of being a thirty-two-year old woman forced to play a “tween” and the Flying Monkey was bored due to the liquidation of his Witch. It was a “what happens in the Emerald City stays in the Emerald City” sort of fling. Or so I heard. I really can’t say much more due to copyright issues, but I won’t refute it, either. Whatever their origin, the now plentiful billygits (who did not stay in Oz, and insist on a lowercase b to start their name) are. Yet unlike most things that are, billygits multiply when some PDQ Pilsner is poured over their heads; this action instantly produces a twin billygit.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Whole Me, the Whole She, the Whole Nine Yards by Antony Osgood

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For an ugly man making minimum wage in his thirties – okay, then, mid-twenties – it is a hard life – for a man who could do with a change of apron, you’re full of mucky questions. Rather than stare at me and pepper my face with questions, you could be busy changing blown bulbs, or turn up the café’s heating, maybe put the clock right, or making a decent cup of coffee. Maybe you’re simply the curious kind, or have learned to believe I am, as your only customer, late at night, your business. Perhaps my being alone is nothing less than an invitation for you to make enquiries while you run your eye over me. What’s the unshaved old man doing out so late at night in Brighton on a wet weekend in March? Shouldn’t he be thinking about escorting his accent back to Lincolnshire? Has he no home to get to? Where is he staying?

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Long Way Home by Tom Sheehan

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The sun warm, the air pleasant, but me like a beggar lost in thoughts, I stepped up to the back door of the old farmhouse on Route 182 in Franklin, Maine. Home at last from the army was topping off my day. Coming home from military service, I’ll swear forever, is better than birthdays, weddings, or vacations.

Or should be.

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All Stories, Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – Word Puppet by Nik Eveleigh

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Word Puppet by Nik Eveleigh is something I can relate to. Writers create characters and then take the job of their God and that of whatever Universe the character inhabits. Even though we control the action, no one can be certain exactly what kind of God is in charge of her/his reality. Does your God care about you? Or are you stricken with a God who has a nifty twist in mind and you are nothing but a means of arriving at it?

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