The clap of sandals as I lick my fingers, chocolate gelato leaking onto my wrists. Should I Google heatstroke symptoms? A young woman lies topless on the rocks below, her stomach chalky with dried salt. I take a swig of lager, the bitter foam spilling onto my beard.
Continue reading “The American by Ata Zargarof”
Billy Bootle had loved music for as long as he could remember. He loved to sing along with tunes on the radio. He loved to sing with Grandma Bootle while she was baking, and whistle with Grandpa Bootle while he chopped wood. At school, Billy was the only child in his class who loved recorder lessons. Because of this, the other boys hated him. They hated him because he loved singing. They hated him because he loved books. They hated him because of his name, which they changed to Bootiful Bootle and scrawled in chalk on the playground walls with a drawing of a cross-eyed, buck-toothed, knock-kneed boy. Their hatred increased after the teacher, Miss Snafferty, asked the class what they wanted to be when they grew up. Billy told her he was going to be a singer. He was going to be a Rock Star. He was going to be famous.
Continue reading “Billy Best’s Mighty Metal by Sandra Arnold”
The night after maami was laid 6ft deep in the ruthless earth, Tunde lit a cigarette and settled at the backyard to smoke. I observed him from the kitchen window. No, I won’t go outside and pass judgement; after all, both of us have been engulfed in our own sins since maami’s death. I was angry, though I can’t quite put my finger on the source of my anger. Perhaps it was Uncle Ade’s bellowing, demanding more beers for him and his friends earlier today at the funeral service. Ever since father’s demise, none of his relatives reached out or showed up. But Uncle Ade had the audacity to come to this house for maami’s funeral, demanding beer to be served to him and his friends. I wished for him to choke on it, his body discarded like refuse on a dunghill. However, this alone didn’t trigger my anger enough; it’s something else I an’t quite fathom.
Continue reading “Red Prints by AJ David”
The children tumble into the church basement, pushing, dodging, and shouting. Good boys and girls, but wild with pent-up feral energy. Deacon Grumpus pauses at the top of the stairs. He understands the cacophony and approves. Good old-fashioned childish exuberance. So human, organically human, as it should be. Exactly what the Divine Order of Cellular Humans teaches its followers.
Continue reading “Sunday School by Marco Etheridge”
Today’s whatever is a beautiful piece of prose written by the legend that is Tom Sheehan. Anyone who is a regular reader will be aware of Tom’s enormous contribution to the site. Newcomers would be well advised to have a look at his back catalogue. All four pages of titles. Now, though we give you Winter Solstice 2016
***
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever”
The sixtieth anniversary of The Kennedy Assassination is rapidly approaching. It also marks the sixtieth anniversary of my memory because 22 November 1963 is the first certain date I remember (although I hold what are most likely older visions). It is also the sixtieth anniversary of the conspiracy theories that have dogged the event since.
Continue reading “Week 452: It’s All a Conspiracy; The Real Things and X Marks the File”
‘Tiredness can kill. Take a break.’
The sign expanded, glowing in the beam of headlamps, and was gone.
The lights in the darkness were beginning to blur; the flecks of winding taillights, the flickering ribbon of the lane markers, merging to one. He put on some Iron Maiden to drown the hum of the engine and lowered the window for an inrush of air. The icy blast stopped him yawning. He blinked and leaned forwards.
Continue reading “Tiverton Southbound by Matthew Roy Davey”
The night had muted the crickets and, as if the fluttering of their filmy, prehistoric wings brought the heat down, the air had cooled into the namesake fog of these Smoky Mountains. The clouds moved into the darkness, rolling down Evelyn’s tongue into her throat, joining the vast, black distances between the flickering bulbs of a far-off holler and the lantern light cocooning her as she worked.
Continue reading “Dead and Gone: A Reckoning by Ashley Laughlin”
Sometimes I go to Mordialloc pier to watch people fish. I never fish myself. I hate the smell and getting my fingers sticky with bait and having to watch behind you to make sure you don’t snag anyone with the hook and permanently blind them. But I like watching. Interesting things happen when you watch for long enough. Nothing of the adventurous kind. Just odd, amusing things squeezed between stretches of monotony. I am then assured that my life will, at the very least, be filled with amusing details if I care to look. I don’t hope for adventure anymore. The feeling I get when I return home from one is dreadful. I’d like no more of them.
Continue reading “Mordialloc Pier by Matthew Lee”
-1-
Famous fantasy realms are ridiculously wealthy– them with their pool parties and scantily clad underage lawsuits in waiting. But for every emerald high rise in Oz there’s a dozen impoverished lands of make believe held together by duct tape and the wages of mental illness. My realm of Saragun Springs is as threadbare and stone soup as it gets, but that might be a-changing. Yes, prosperity and the torpedoing of what little charm we have may be just around the corner. Actually, it is up in the sky–and to paraphrase Dickie Plantagenet, we aim to pluck it down.
Continue reading “Hobnob Standard by Leila Allison”
literally stories 