Month: December 2020

All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Band of Barnyarders by Leila Allison

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22 August. According to my Writer’s Calendar it was Dorothy Parker’s birthday. Mrs. Parker was famous for her wit, light verse, stories, book and theatre reviews, A Star is Born, dogs, as well as alcoholism, suicide attempts, failed romances and a hodge-podge of emotional problems of varying severity. She was the sort of human who was aware that she was human and desperately wished to surrender and join the other side.  Although she already knew that such a thing was tantamount to squaring the circle, it didn’t keep her from trying.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Summer Nightsweats by Shane O’Neill

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Three months have passed since the death of my wife. It has been a long summer, hot and unbearable. My only solace is knowing that it will be my last. I sweat incessantly. Others thrive in the sickly heat. Oh, that the rain would rinse the smiles from their faces. I keep my ghastly body hidden from the outside. Sometimes I cough. Recently more and more. But I rarely dwell on this. Hacking out a thick wad I get on with my business of living and dying. It is all I know.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Cheap Tricks by Alex Sinclair – Warning Adult Content

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“Thanks love,” the red-faced punter wheezed, tossing over a tenner, as Charity Proudfoot wiped away the spunk he had dispensed on her lip with the back of a frayed coat sleeve.

She didn’t reciprocate with a banal pleasantry of her own, as per usual, she just took the dishonest twenty and climbed out the motor, which is how she knew a monster of a rattle was on the way if she didn’t hurry up and get her shit together. Normally you couldn’t shut her up.

Charity the chatterbox had been her school moniker, or as her mam preferred, a right mouthy little pain in the arse.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Once Screamed to Drunks at the Vets Bar, Memorial Day Evening by Tom Sheehan

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Sixty-six years now and they come at me, in Chicago, Crown Point, Indiana, by phone from Las Vegas.

I tell them how it happened, long after parting, one night when I was in a bar, thinking of them all.

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Better Mousetrap by syndie allen

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Chairs splintered. Egg yolk dripping off the ceiling. A gash here, a bruise there and he was tired. He was more than tired. The lumps and blame he had taken over the years finally put him over his line and as he sat nursing the latest wound, carefully devising another excuse to avoid punishment, a little place in his feline brain began expanding. Instead of the inevitable excuse, instead of the blood dripping down his paw, the brain space began to grow. It began to focus on his blood.

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All Stories, Literally Reruns

Literally Reruns – Overpowered by Diane M Dickson

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Leila has brought a big grin to my face by choosing this piece for a Rerun. I read it over again, it’s a while since I wrote it and – though I freely admit it has glitches it did make me smile. This is what she said:-

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Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 301 – Questionable Bargains, Aneurisms And Remembering Petunia’s Tongue.

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Thanks to everyone who took part in last weeks celebratory post!!

It was a lot of fun to do and to see the response.

Onwards and upwards to posting number 301!

Continue reading “Week 301 – Questionable Bargains, Aneurisms And Remembering Petunia’s Tongue.” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Out of the Universe Endlessly Calling by Tom Sheehan

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Far ahead of him Knock Craften could see the last of the lead-pack bike riders sprinting around a slow bend in the road. The Pan Mass Challenge 200-mile bike ride across the state to raise funds for cancer was in full bore; 3600 riders on the move for two days, Sturbridge to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod. Then the yellow shirt of that rider disappeared, roadside greenery swallowing it up.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Last on the List by Robert P. Bishop

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Olin Bahr sat on the end of the exam table, his feet on the footrest and waited for the doctor. The exam room in which he sat, typical of all exam rooms in any medical facility, he thought, felt impersonal, devoid of anything suggesting human warmth, compassion or comfort. The only decoration in the room, an articulated human skeleton with a hook protruding from the top of its skull, hung on a metal pole in one corner and stared at Olin with empty eye sockets.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Last Light of the Library by Jennie Boyes

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In silence, we drew back the curtains and watched the bombs explode. Josef leaned his head against the wall, cigarette limp in his mouth, his round glasses askew. He didn’t look afraid, and he wasn’t curious like me, not any more.

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