Week 179 – Borders, gateways and tales to tell our children

In my quest to find something interesting to say in Hugh’s absence this week I did a quick Google search for the significance of the number 179.

As you can imagine the results were thrilling.

I can confirm 179 is a prime number – an Eisenstein Prime no less as it is indivisible even by complex Gaussian integers, and  Chen Prime because it is 2 less than the next prime number.

Each of us has probably made use of the number 179 while connecting to this page. Port 179 is the standard port that the interweb uses to connect various autonomous gateway thingamabobs to other doobriewosisnames so that your browser gets to the destination you planned on.

I’m sure that to most of us (myself included) all that talk of primes, gateways and ports is a big steaming pile of unfathomable nonsense. However, if you put this next to the Trump administration’s current policy of border and port concentration camps for kids on US soil then it recedes into a relatively minor case of head-fuckery.

There are plenty of insightful articles written and being writ that can dissect the situation in the US with far more precision than I can hope to muster, but as someone sitting on the southern tip of Africa looking North I can only say that it fills me with despair.

As a writer there’s nothing more dystopian than reality it seems.

As a parent I hug my kids a little tighter, tell them bedtime stories and wonder at what tales I’ll need to tell them.

Creating some cute segue into the review of this week’s stories would be crass – so let’s just move right long.

This week was front-loaded with three Literally Legends (132 stories published on this site between them) and back-ended nicely by two new faces.

Our superstars need no introduction, but Ewa Mazierska and DT Mattingly most certainly do and so it’s our usual warm LS welcome to you both. Thanks for submitting your work to us and we look forward to reading many more of your stories.

 

Monday’s legend was Adam Kluger who introduced us to his Fat Cat with all his usual skill, wit and eye for detail.

“It’s rambling and circuitous and a bit like life really with things popping up from nowhere”

“Adam can be brilliant, inventive, he paints a story in very few words but he also does random very well”

 

On Tuesday Tom Sheehan brought us The Knock On Ransom Kegler and delivered it with all the panache and style we’ve come to expect from him.

“An old fashioned, well written story of revenge”

“You have to concentrate on this one, no skim reading and if you do, you will grin at the end and nod your head and say – yeah. I knew that”

 

There’s no day quite like a Wednesday. And there’s no writer quite like Leila Allison. Globsters Anonymous is yet another brilliant example of her work.

“The imagery regarding intense love turning to shit is brilliant”

“It’s really a romance but it’s snarky, and funny and the sogginess is perfectly acceptable”

 

And so to Thursday and the first of our new authors. If Homo Sacer And Her Lover is an indication of what we can expect from Ewa then we can’t wait to read more.

“This was more about the physical mutual relationship that any deep meaningful thought aspect of love”

“It was a good read, no great reveal or twist but just an interesting look at the interaction of two lives”

 

Friday belonged to DT who brought us to the weekend with an excellent, modern take on relationships in Neither Of Us Are Boyfriends. Welcome again DT – we hope this is the first of many.

“Cool – a story about a non-binary relationship!!”

“I like the tone and it has an energy that I find appealing”

 

That’s it for another week. As always your comments and thoughts are very welcome. So keep writing, keep submitting and keep supporting your fellow writers.

Thanks for reading.

Nik