Year: 2023

All Stories, General Fiction

Lakota Betty by Tom Sheehan

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It had been about 20 years since the ignominious raid on the Indian village at River Hill had taken place. The army captain, Gregory Merton, who led the raid, and all his officers, and supposedly all but one of the enlisted ranks, had been killed in later actions. The sole known enlisted rank not dead was a retired sergeant, Martin O’Keeffe, who told the discharging officer on the day he left the army that there was one other witness to the raid, and he hoped she was still living.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Clean up in the Meat Dept. by J. Bradley Minnick

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I see her in the supermarket. She wears an oversized pink sweat shirt displaying two big cloth cut-out letters that signify sorority. She is maybe 30, beautiful, and not alone.

Her cart rattles against the unevenness of the shiny supermarket floor. A large man, her boyfriend I imagine, dressed in unmatched wrinkles, stands facing backwards wearing a backward baseball cap on the front of the cart she pushes. I watch as he cleans off various shelves with his broad arm while he uses the heels of his untied sneakers at intervals to slow the cart. “Woody” is written across his massive gray sweat shirt.

“Woody,” I murmur to myself. 

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All Stories, Sunday whoever

Sunday Whoever

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Another chance to satisfy the nosey parker in most of us. This week we have a cheeky look at a writer who has been with us since 2015 and has two pages of diverse and excellent stories. He is a delight to work with and without further ado I give you Mr Frederick K Foote:

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Editor Picks, General Fiction, Latest News, Short Fiction

458: Personality Issues; Beautiful Losers and Winners

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Personality

Hypocrisy and altruism stop at roughly the same point in a person. Although finally copping to your own rottenness and experiencing exhaustion at the highest level of do-goodishness you are capable of are not the same thing, both terminate close enough to the center of a person to form a picture.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Sorting Apples by Ann Marie Potter

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“One of his girls, the youngest I think, got killed by that thing a few years back. Got her scarf caught and strangled.” Like many of her father’s words, poorly formed and slick with alcohol, these came with a belch.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Horror

Simian Revenge by Marco Etheridge

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Cling mama fur. Green tree. Blue sky. Rain, mud, vine, climb. Chase, run, catch, tickle, roll-roll-roll. Run, catch, tickle, Hoot! Hoot! Eat warm fruit. Sleep high, night breeze. Morning sun. Hot sun. Little bugs, itchy. Fingers in fur. Bad bugs. Find, bite.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Elephant in the Room by Barbara O’Byrne

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Across from her, Mabel was spooning her poached eggs while Emily rambled through a litany of complaints. Today it was the eggs, over-cooked, the night nurse tapping on her door at night, “You can’t hear her, can you, Frances? So annoying.” Frances nodded. Anything else would invite more exchanges with Emily, who laced every conversation with a side order of disdain. A smoke. She needed a smoke. Where was Jerome?

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All Stories, Historical

Two African Lessons by Michael Bloor

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All through the eighteenth century, Britain had profited from the slave trade more than any other nation. Finally, in 1807, an Act of Parliament was passed prohibiting the slave trade. The act also established a squadron of navy ships to patrol the West African coast and intercept slave traders of all nations, not just British traders. Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron intercepted an estimated 1,600 ships and freed an estimated 150,000 slaves.

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All Stories, auld author

Auld Author – The Library Of The Dead by Glenn Cooper by Hugh Cron

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As always, don’t expect an in-depth character review or story synopsis. I try, with these, to tell whoever wants to read, what has stayed with me and to a lesser extent, why.

I’m writing this review just after I’ve written the review for ‘The Bad Place’. This story is also a bit random and that is why it came to me. It is unique and very entertaining.

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