Week 610: Happy Birthday to Us

A Humble Introduction

Well look at the time! Another year done and the next is at the door. But let us seize this moment and take a look at ourselves on this twelfth anniversary of the site. We are old enough to infuriate our elders with our tech skills (which began with setting the clock on the VCR) and just the right age to attract the eye of R Kelly (who will still be rotting in jail next year and many thereafter). 

This year we have decided to change things up a bit and offered spaces to some of our beloved writers to express themselves, and we were not only surprised but deeply moved and even flabbergasted by the fantastic results.

But first let us take a look at the Week That Was. No matter what week it is, the stories will always be the thing.

Monday brought Needle by Mark Reece. Mark is the perfect example of a fine writer who somehow had missed completely connecting with us until this knowing bit of fine work came along. The human touch in a story can be arrived at in infinite creative ways and Mark proved just how wide the endless scope is by arranging cross-stitch to expose further secrets of the human heart.

The Dead are Cold by our second site newcomer, Feride Guney has more than one show stopper line in it. Actually, these were more “the idea of thing” ideas–as in not kissing the dead but sticking that person’s toe in your mouth. Ferdie writes eloquently and fearlessly. Often eloquent writers use their “glide” to fly over certain subjects, but she didn’t fail herself or the tale.

Sometimes some things can never be made okay. There are events that cannot be improved even when they were caused by forgetfulness or another innocent quality we have in common with everyone else. All that is left is guilt and suffering and there is plenty of that in Perseids, which was created by one of our finest, David Henson (who will be making a guest appearance of a happier nature later in this post). Despite the darkness, this is a strong piece of work and should not be missed.

On Thursday, Albert’s Pig by Ed Reilly should be regarded under the old judging a book by its cover cliche. And although the temporary Christmas truces between the English (usually it is the Brits, not always) and the “Huns” have appeared before in pages (including our own), this one has an irresistible tone to it and it refuses to go cheap and mawkish. The set up well handled and the flow is first rate.

Another writer who does the work well but sometimes (by no fault of his own) fails to get over, is Edward Lee. But not this time and he receives the honor of closing out our eleventh year by presenting The Maker of the Dead. Extremely well written and “timed” it takes a minute for the fullness of the meaning of this work to bloom in your mind. Yet once it does you experience a mixture of horror and admiration.

As always we thank our writers and look forward to seeing more from them in the near and far to come.

I, and my sublime fellow Editors will return later in this post to share a few personal thoughts, but for now it is my pleasure to give over the cursor to a few of our finest contributors.

Leila

***

Christopher J Ananias

Their Person by Christopher Ananias

The firelight touched his sad little face. A handsome boy like his mother. I hadn’t noticed Roger was there. Roger seemed like such an adult name for an eight-year-old. “Go take a pail of water to the dog, since you’re up.”

Roger set the water pail on the keys’ table and opened the door. I wished he’d moved a little faster. A chilly fall breeze ran up my pajamas. I shivered. Mickey always made fun of those silly plaid pajamas. Like I was Ricky Ricardo or some other prude. Maybe that’s why she stepped out on me? Or rolled…

Someone in my position should be angrier. I think the term is a cuckold. Cuckolds are angry, right? I wasn’t sure that term applied while only living with someone. Something about living in sin nullifies the word cuckold. I heard the boy’s footsteps going down the handicap ramp.

I studied the flames licking over the log, crackling and popping on a bed of red embers. It should last for hours. The quiet old house creaked, a draft wrapped around my bare ankles in the slippers. Like the house was sighing in relief from the constant bickering. Something ran around in the closet. I stomped my foot, and it got quiet.

Roger shut the door and stood there watching from the dark kitchen. I knew what he wanted. It was part of the routine. I liked it. “Can I let Philly in?” said his squeaky voice.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

The dog, a big Catahoula hound mix, bolted inside and went to the kitchen. Probably going for the pork chop bones. “Philly, get down,” said the boy, sounding sheepish, like he caused it. He looked at me to see if he was in trouble. His big blue eyes were always searching my face. What had his life been before me?

I sat there listening to the boy pulling at the unruly dog that got into everything. Mickey was late again. I rehearsed what I would say. Something like: I want you out, or get out, or damn you, get out. It all sounded lame. Maybe we could be roommates for the boy’s sake? He had more riding on his mom’s relationship than I did. Sometimes he would apologize for her behavior. The uncertainty in his little voice was kind of sad. Saying adult stuff like, “I-I know Mommy is a handful, Mister Tom, but she’s got a goodie heart.” Roger would probably grow up to be some kind of mediator, join the Peace Corps, or stuff it all down and go nuts.

“Philly, get in here!” The dog trotted in and put her black and white spotted head on my knee. Her snout was long, like a German Shepherd’s. I stroked her ears. They were velvety and warm. She stared at me with her bright brown eyes, which had a blueish hue. “What ya thinkin’ about, Philly?” Everyone in the house had all these things on their minds, even the dog.

The boy stood in the kitchen, searching for headlights to sweep across the yard. If his mother stayed out all night, she would force me to do something.

“I like it here with you and Philly,” said Roger, standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.

This startled me out of my thoughts, and I felt low. I had them and all their junk loaded up in the Uhaul with the boy’s blonde head barely peeking over the dash—never to be seen again. Like the rest of them. Mostly bar women, and their incorrigible kids, who would never take Philly a pail of water.

The last two kids, I didn’t even trust to be around Philly, always running around like maniacs, throwing the sofa cushions, hopping back and forth, and doing somersaults. Philly was too old for all of that, so I kept her outside when they were inside, and brought her inside when they were outside. Then I started doing the same thing, except if they were downstairs I went upstairs.

I had grown accustomed to Roger. He was quiet and never talked back and did his chores. “Well, son. We like you too. Don’t we, Philly girl?” Philly’s tail started in and she ran out into the kitchen, and I heard her feet land on the countertop, going after the pork chop bones.

I listened to the dog chomping and the fire crackling. The little boy snored in the big chair. I threw a blanket on him. Where would Mickey take him? Back to the low-income apartments?

I heard the van idling out in the driveway. I put down my book. The Complete Stories of Ernest Hemingway. I was expanding my literary horizons. I should get tough like Ernie. He wouldn’t take this crap for a second.

The cold air hit me. Leaves blew inside. I heard the electric whine of the van’s lift. The driver-side door slammed shut. Mickey pointed her chair at the sidewalk, always driving it too fast.

“Don’t start in, Tom.” Her blonde hair sticking up, and her red lipstick smeared. Now she wasn’t even hiding her affair. Mickey zoomed up the ramp. I jumped out of the way. I still had bruises on my right thigh from when she ran into me.

“Hey look, Mickey, this isn’t working.”

She looked up at me. Her face was stunning. Guys were always following her around. Wherever we went, some guy would be talking to her. “There’s my little Roger,” she said, smiling, acting like she suddenly gave a damn.

Roger stood with his hand on Philly’s mane. “Hi, Mommy,” he said like a little worn-out man. Philly trotted around me and went to Mickey and put her head on Mickey’s knee. Philly loved Mickey. Mickey had become her person, which was annoying. Roger stood beside me; he reached out and grabbed my hand. I had become his person.

***

An Article by Dale

The energy it takes to keep a daily creative writing publication running for twelve years is absolutely extraordinary.

Personally I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t done it myself, but I can try to imagine it. And right now I am trying to imagine it. And I know that doing such a thing is not only a matter of just doing it.

Such a thing is, or must be, a labor of love.

And this world needs a lot more love.

Love comes in multiform, multifoliate, myriad, and even infinite guises. Sometimes what is really love beneath the surface looks like hatred up here. Then again, not all hatred is love. But all passion for the arts of whatever kind probably is a form of love; and storytelling is the most primordial and profound form of the arts.

To keep a publication running like this for twelve years takes a passionate intensity. But it must also keep itself sane and steady over the long haul. That is a dual talent.

It is not just the stories in Literally Stories that impress me. It is also the ATTITUDE/S of all three Editor-Writers (because all three editors are not just “editors” but are also writers).

And these Editor-Writers don’t fall prey to the latest fads and they are not simplistic trend-followers and gaping cheerleaders of, and for, THE SYSTEM.

There is an attitude of Resistance, and by “resistance” I mean intelligent rebelliousness, in their stance/s.

In a world trying to turn us all into robotic cash cow drones without our realizing it, nothing is more crucial than the right attitude.

Bravo for LS at 12, a magic number if there ever was one!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dale Williams Barrigar

***

David Henson

***

Gerald Coleman

***

Harrison Kim

Twelve Years Old by Harrison Kim

I stare across the lake at the low hill spread with golden late afternoon sun.  Cactus and rattlesnakes live there for sure, but is there a secret world under all that cover?  Beneath the gold light?  Could be simple as flipping a flat rock, the turn of a stone.  A stone that’s key to unlocking a clear crystal hollow dropping into the future.  Might be me, at the bottom of that hollow.  I could flip that rock, look down the gap at myself at twenty-four, twelve years older than now, an astronaut on the planet Venus.  I’m accompanied by my friend Frank, the kid with the turned-up brown hat, now a man with long sideburns visible inside his space suit.  We’re talking with the Venusians about ghosts.  The six-armed aliens tell us that Venus is indeed where earth people go after they die.   The Venusians wave their arms about, and spirit outlines waver forth out of methane ponds behind them.
“Look! “I point to show Frank. “There’s my great grandpa Felix with the white handlebar moustache!”

Felix holds out his arms and calls in a loud voice “the saucepan!”

But it’s not Felix. It’s my dad’s voice breaking in, bringing me back to the family holiday on a clear August-warm lake. I’m twelve years old imagining secret worlds and watching the sunlight fade over the hills.

“Leon, fill this saucepan with water from the back of the trailer,” Dad says.

I must obey this command.  My duty is to the here and now, that’s where I’m locked in. But why is Dad’s voice so loud and harsh?  I take the pan.

“Make sure you use the yellow jugs at the front of the trailer,” Dad states, as he pumps up the camp stove.  “The ones at the front are water.  The ones at the back are kerosene.”

Dad wears a peaked cap with a maple leaf on the front.  He strikes a match, it flares bright, he bends to light the stove, his straight nose close to the glow. 

“Can I trust you to do that?” he says, “You can’t accomplish anything by standing there.”

Accomplishment.  That’s what I want to find by the time I’m twenty-four.  Maybe as an astronaut.

I turn, move my legs towards the trailer.  There are at least twelve identical yellow jugs in rows at the back, standing like little soldiers. 

I stare at them and repeat out loud “The jugs that hold water are in the front.” 

But did Dad mean the front of the trailer was the part closest to him, or was the front the part of the trailer closest to the truck?  I open one or two jugs and smell the liquid.  No scent at all.  Not like the methane ponds of Venus.

Last week when I camped with Frank down at Trout River, cottonwood seeds wafted past our lean-to.  We sat on some pine logs, Frank wearing his hat with the King of Clubs stuck in the rim.  I couldn’t keep my feet or legs still, watching the whirling seeds drift by.  I asked Frank if he thought there could be a secret world waiting to be found across the river.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Though that would be fun.”

“Let’s go, let’s go,” I insisted.  “We won’t know until we’re there.”

Frank stared over at the black river cottonwoods so tall on the other side and said yes, maybe there’s hidden places, with flying pigs and talking dogs. 

“I always wanted to talk with my dog Tip,” Frank said, “Or to a horse,” then he snorted and neighed and told me, “Let’s smoke this,’ as he pulled up his sleeve and took out a pack of cigarettes. 

I hear a yell. It’s Dad.

“Hurry up and bring me that water!”

“Was it water in the jugs at the front of the trailer or the back of the trailer?” I ask.

“I just told you!” Dad shouts. 

I grab a jug and fill the saucepan.   Frank and I didn’t bring any saucepans on our overnight camping trip.  We ate mostly gum and licorice, and my mom’s peanut butter cookies.  The cookies were good, but my mosquito repellent can accidentally discharged on them.

I already tried smoking cigarettes,” I told Frank.  “Larry Malton gave me a puff.” 

Frank grinned, showing me his crooked front teeth.

“Did they do anything for you?”.

I couldn’t understand why he was stuck on staying in one place. My legs wouldn’t stop jumping around.

“Let’s run upriver. There could be another world around the corner.”

“Sometimes when you have a smoke, things feel better” Frank said.  “And you can relax.”

He lit a match.

I smelled pine. I lifted my hand and found my knuckles streaked with pitch from the logs we’d been sitting on. 

That scent of pine brings me back to the lake as I walk over to Dad by the camp stove.  I offer him the almost full saucepan and check the back of my hand.  It’s clean.

Dad takes the pan with a grunt and drops it on the blue flaming burner. 

There’s a whoosh. Fire billows up, a foot or higher, with immediate and urgent heat.  Dad leaps back.  I can’t believe how high the flare is, like a red beard flying.

“You put kerosene in the pan!” Dad yells.  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I watch the flames.  Wow, kerosene!  That must’ve been the pine smell I encountered.

“Maybe we can wait until it burns out,” I tell him.

Dad yells again, grabs the saucepan handle and throws the contents into the woods.  The air bursts with fire as the kerosene flies, then the woods start burning in sympathy.  The grass, the twigs.  It’s amazing how fast everything agrees.

I stand and watch, the orange and red bursting like wild earth spirits released from Venus.  I wonder.  What am I supposed to do now?

“Get some water!” Dad yells, as he dashes for the back of the truck.

Good answer. I run back to the yellow containers, but the old question stops me.  Which jugs are water filled and which contain kerosene? I don’t want to choose fire again, but I must accomplish something.

“Leon, what are you doing?” Dad shouts as he rushes by with the shovel.  “Get with this world, boy!”

That jumps me into action.  Beside the jugs, there’s a plastic bowl used for dishes.  I pick up the bowl, sprint the short distance to the lake and fill it up.  Meanwhile, the camper next door has a fire extinguisher, spraying the flames while Dad’s throwing on sand from the beach.  I haul up the full bowl of water and fling it on the fire, then run down for another load.

By the time I come back three times, the fire’s down.

“What happened?” asks the fire extinguisher man, stamping on the shovelled-up sand with his cowboy boots.

“An accident, an accident,” Dad says.   “I think my son filled the saucepan with kerosene instead of water.”

The fire extinguisher man looks my way.  A beard dangles from his chin, not orange like fire but black like the space between the stars at night.  That’s what Frank and I looked up to on our camp out as we lay outside in our sleeping bags.  That dark space. What would it be like to go beyond the black?  Where would the light begin again? I hear a high-pitched sound, like a coyote yapping at the moon.

It’s fire extinguisher man laughing, his red lips turned up.   He spits towards the lake.

“Filled the pan with gas? How the hell did you make that mistake?”

I don’t answer.  I run back to the lake and haul up another bowl of water.

“I’ll make sure this fire’s totally out,” Dad shouts.  “Go back to the tent. I don’t want to look at your face.”

I turn and stumble away, place my hands around the sides of my head.  It’s a way I use to see straight. I move to the trailer, walk around it with my hands still up, pondering which is the front and which the back.  Maybe I thought the front was the part of the trailer closest to the tailgate.  But didn’t I use the jug in the row closest to the hitch?  All I can recall is seeing Frank pull out his cigarette back at the camp, before I poured in the water.

Dad comes back from talking to the firefighting camper. 

He puts his face next to mine and points.  “This.  This is a trailer. This is the front.  And this is the back.  The water containers are in the front.”

His voice hurts my ears.

“I didn’t know.,” I tell him. “All the jugs look the same.”

Dad’s ears go red.  He says nothing for a minute, then lifts his stubble covered camper’s chin and laughs, “You can’t be that stupid.”  He pauses. “But maybe you’re not.”

He leans over the trailer, both his big hands on either side.  I see the rippling tendons in his forearms.  He tells me “You must’ve smelled the gas. I think you did this on purpose.”

This drops into my mind like a shard of glass.

“But why would I?” I say. “Why would I?”

“Only you know why,” he answers. “Go for a walk.  Go anywhere.  Just get out of my sight,” his voice rising as he slams his shovel back in the truck.

Yes, out of sight. 

I turn and jog down the track that ends at the bottom of the hill beside the lake.

Frank and I did paddle across the water on our camping night at Trout River. In fact, we waded in our old runners, against the current and beyond the cottonwoods.  We didn’t find any secret worlds, but dragonflies buzzed around us, and multicoloured flowers opened, full of bumblebees.

“Leon, you’re the only guy I know who still does stuff like this,” Frank said.

“What stuff?”

“Playing around,” he said.  “Like we did when we were kids.”

“We’re not kids?”

“Yes, we’re not kids anymore.”

I wonder.  Why did I fill that pan with kerosene?  What might my best friend conclude? Probably that all the containers looked the same. 

“How could you tell which ones were gas and which were water?” Frank would say, as if this were as straightforward as our walk across the river.  “You were in another world.”

Yet Dad’s voice echoes.

“You did this on purpose!”

I’m locked in this place and time with him. He’s bossy, treats me like a child, and I know he doesn’t like me.  Not at all.

I climb the hill above the lake, see a flat rock lying beside some sage.  I turn it over.  Nothing there, except I get a few cactus spines in my finger. I see another stone, larger and flatter.  This might be the one.  I will lift it, to unkey the clear crystal hollow beneath, discover the secret opening to the future. I’ll be an astronaut there, exploring beyond this place and time.  I’ll fly down that hollow tunnel like an escaped spirit, and nobody including Dad will ever see me in this world again.

That’ll show him!

No, nothing under that rock either.  

I run along the hill, turning over stone after stone as the sun fades.  I use my teeth to pull out the cactus spines. Soon black will move up behind the stars, like the colour of the fire extinguisher man’s beard.

Twelve years old, and it seems like I’ll stay that way forever.

***

Mick Bloor

On Being a Reader – an Essay by Michael Bloor

Truly, I felt honoured when I was asked by the LS editors to be one of those to write something to commemorate  LS’s 12^th anniversary. Congratulations and long may you flourish!

(and I would like to take this opportunity to thank my mum and my dad, and my probation officer)

***

I must’ve started to learn to read at infants school, but I’ve no memory of it. There wasn’t much reading material at home. My parents took The Daily Herald and, on Sundays, The Reynold’s News, both newspapers long edited-out. I got a comic, ‘The Dandy.’ My mum took a couple of women’s magazines. I’d sometimes take a look at ’em: ‘Dr. Jonathan, so cool and collected in the operating theatre, found himself drawn like a moth to Nurse Madeleine Mowbray’s flaming red hair…’ They were about as interesting to a small boy as the writing on the sauce bottle.

Grandad, lived three doors up the street. To give my mum a break to deal with my toddler brother, grandad would take me with him to the local Carnegie Library (now closed and demolished) to change his Zane Grey cowboy novels. They were more to my taste, but the librarian had shown me into the separate children’s room. Maybe it wasn’t that big a room, but to a small child, it seemed to contain a terrific number of books. I dashed about in it, like a spider in the bath, looking for books on battles, Red Indians, space monsters, etc.

My plan, flawed but seemingly logical, was to choose books based on their titles. I could’ve carried on that way for ever, or at least until I discovered park football. But one day, I came home from the library with a book entitled ‘William the Conqueror.’

It was wonderful, a revelation. It wasn’t, after all, about invasion and conquest. It turned out to be about the various adventures of a small boy (‘William’), with a gang, a den, and a dog. A child with good intentions (that of catching foreign spies, etc.), frustrated by the strange, unsympathetic world of adult society. I loved it, galloped through it, regretfully returned it to the library, and carried on choosing books based on their titles. Until one day, some weeks later…

I stumbled upon The Concept of Authorship.

I had once again come across my golden book, ‘William the Conqueror,’ now returned to the shelves. And I noticed that the book right next to it was entitled ‘William the Outlaw.’ On a wild surmise, I opened that second book… Yet more absorbing adventures of a small boy called ‘William.’  Fantastic: my latest borrowed book was chosen. As I hefted the book in my hand, I noticed that below the title on the spine of both books was a name, ‘Richmal Crompton.’ The same name in both cases! Aha. I had taken a giant step forward. Progress then followed quickly.

Then, as an 11-year-old, in my first year at secondary school, a fellow pupil recommended a classic adventure novel, ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ by Rider Haggard. In my second year, the English teacher offered the class a longish list of recommended leisure reading. Among them was G.K. Chesterton’s fantasy novel ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill,’ which I still enjoy re-reading (though George Orwell hated it). But also on that list was Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings.’ That was back in 1960 or ’61, before it was issued in paperback and became a smash hit. It was a hardback trilogy, available from the central library in town, which I then got used to visiting on my way back from school.

I was now a dedicated reader, with all the resources of Derby’s Central Library to plunder. I started to have critical opinions: I read a couple of Dostoevskys and decided that I definitely preferred ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ to ‘Crime and Punishment.’

My resources were slender. I had a paper round, but I was also an early tobacco adopter. Nevertheless, I bought myself ‘The Penguin Book of English Verse’ (6 shillings), which famously ended with Dylan Thomas’ ‘Fern Hill.’ And of course, I then started to write terrible verse of my own.

By 1964, The Beatles were taking the world by storm. I’d been doing my under-age drinking in the local folk club and was an early an early Bob Dylan adopter. And I was reading the great new American fiction – Catch 22, Slaughterhouse 5, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and the rest.

In my last year at secondary school, I ran into a little local difficulty which was only resolved by my agreeing to undertake, for the history teacher, a limited local history project. I chose seventeenth century Derby and began to explore the Reference Section of the Central Library, mainly used by old guys dozing in the central heating. That was another revelation: history at the local level was so much more engaging than the succession of sovereigns and the causes of The Industrial Revolution. My old town turned out to have a past full of strong characters and and strange oddballs – I subsequently wrote about one of them, a forger called Noah Bullock, in a ‘Sunday Whatever’ piece for LS. And, in my last year at school, I started to borrow historical novels from the library, first and foremost all those by Robert Louis Stevenson.

There was then a hiatus for a year and a half when I had little access to books – I spent the whole summer of 1965 in a tent, for example. But when I went on to the university I found the mother lode. Of course, I didn’t make the best use of it. For example, like a lot of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young readers, I was nuts about William Blake. Nothing wrong with that, but I wasted many hours in the university library pouring over the unearthly, but rather turgid, works of Emmanuel Swedenborg, the eighteenth-century Swedish mystic who’d influenced Blake. Not all my novel choices were wise either: I won’t be re-reading John Barth’s ‘Giles the Goat Boy’ any time soon.

But there were so many nuggets lying around that I couldn’t help stumbling on quite a few. I was part of a huge crowd that shuffled into a poetry reading by W.H. Auden, except it wasn’t a reading – incredibly, he recited everything from memory. Friends suggested new books by new authors, like John Fowles’ ‘The Magus.’ I discovered cinema was an art form. There was an art cinema that screened Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Seventh Seal’ – I went two nights in a row. Bergman could create a mood or a character like Dylan could find a rhyme.

And, maybe most importantly, a good friend who was studying Spanish presented me, as a 21^st birthday gift, with a paperback copy of the first English translation of the short stories of the Argentinian author, Jorge Borges*. That book was another revelation. More than fifty years later, I still have it, somewhat the worst for wear, 18 stories in 159 pages.

For example, the opening story, ‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,’ (which has its own Wikipedia entry) mixes fact and fiction, with Borges and his friend Bioy Casares as central characters, mixes philosophy and metaphysics, and mixes linguistics and mathematics. Borges and his friend stumble upon a reference to an obscure middle-eastern country called Uqbar, whose literature is entirely fantastical, centring on the beliefs, language, culture and institutions of an imagined planet called Tlön. Over the years, more and more details of Tlön emerge, piecemeal, such as the seemingly accidental finding of book entitled, ‘A First Encyclopaedia of Tlön, Volume XI, Hlaer to Jangr.’ It transpires that a nineteenth-century secret society, called Orbis Tertius, financed by an American multi-millionaire, had and has been painstakingly creating this parallel fictional world. The staggered reveal of the world of Tlön captivated the public, the language of Tlön found its way into schools, its fictional history likewise. Borges speculates that eventually these ongoing partial Tlön disclosures will gradually replace our beliefs, our science, our literature – ‘a scattered dynasty of solitaries has changed the face of the world’ (p.33). Borges, appalled, reports that he takes no further notice of this impending disaster, concentrating instead on translating into Spanish that seventeenth century work by Sir Thomas Browne, his ‘Urn Burial.’

(Can’t believe I dared to attempt that synopsis. Must’ve been drinking)

Borges rekindled my interest in short stories. Those Richmal Crompton ‘William’ books began as short stories for publication in magazines. Likewise, I realised that some of my favourite novels, for instance, John Steinbeck’s ‘Cannery Row,’ were really collections of short stories featuring the same main characters. Short stories remain my favourite reading material.

The longer narrative poems that were so popular in the nineteenth-century seem to have gone out of fashion, but as a teenager I was unaware of this. My enthusiasm for Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King’ (which I can still quote chunks of, largely unaware of the embarrassment that I’m creating), led me on to other narrative poets, like A.H. Clough, Longfellow, and my great favourite, William Morris. I’ve written about Morris elsewhere in LS (in the ‘Auld Author’ series), so I won’t elaborate here about why he’s a favourite, but I continue to re-read his poems, his prose romances (a big influence on Tolkien), his translations of the Icelandic sagas, even some of his political writings. Accustomed now to reading longer poems, I find myself better appreciating modern longer poems, like W.H. Auden’s ‘Letter to Lord Byron’ and his ‘New Year Letter,’ MacNiece’s ‘Autumn Journal,’ and Tony Harrison’s ‘V.’

After graduating, I headed up to Aberdeen to a one-year postgraduate course and, eventually, a job. The university there is an ancient institution with a library that had an enormous ‘stack room’ of old books and journals that, surprisingly, I was allowed to wander around in all day long. Evenings too. Like most of the English, I sort-of-assumed that Scots literature (by which I meant Robert Burns, Walter Scott and R.L. Stevenson) petered out about 1910 and became English literature. I had a welcome shock. Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s lilting prose in his ‘Sunset Song’ is surely a match for any twentieth century novel set in England. And I’d also mention Edwin Muir’s poetry and his autobiography set in his native Orkney, and William McIlvanney’s novels and short stories.

I could go on… the twentieth-century great Russians, the new generation of American writers like Donna Tartt, etc, but the process of my learning to be a reader effectively ended – culminated – with my settling in Scotland.

Back near the beginning of this wandering tale, I mentioned the concept of authorship. Authorship is a status, it is an earned achievement. There is no equivalent term for readers: ‘readership’ simply denotes a group of readers, a collectivity. Surely we need a new word, to reflect the fact that being a reader is the end-result of a process, an achievement, a status earned over time? And richly rewarded, but not in cash. 

* Jorge Luis Borges (1965) Fictions, London: Calder Jupiter Books.   

***

Steven French

A Word From Leila

What amazing stuff by our guests today. Truly, the old White Warshing the Fence scam perfected by Mr. Twain long ago still works fine and dandy.

For the past few anniversary specials (which means I do not know when it began–certainly not before 2021), I have led off with the gift item according to the people who make up such things. No gifts are desired, but I find this sort of thing interesting. Silk is the suggestion. I hear that psychos can tie an effective granny-knot in silk–which also is not a suggestion, merely an observation.

I wish to introduce two new “Traditions.” Every time one of you submits something it receives an Omen Song. Which is whatever is playing on my Unsteady Jukebox at the time. The Omen Song of this post–the song which appeared randomly, is Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks. It can be looked at as a silky tune, so we have a relation between it and the first Tradition.

The third Tradition might be viewed by the gentler readers as “mean” or even “bitter”. But these are mean and bitter days, my friends, and I rather like this second new Tradition and I feel that it will be a comfort to me in the years to come. Today I would like to present the first annual WLSM award to Ed Sheeran. Ed is worth a gazillion dollars and makes music that I cannot listen to without the risk of hanging myself with a silk scarf while listening to Bobby Goldsboro sing Honey. I am proud to have connected all three Traditions together. I was not sure if I could do that, but there you go. 

I have nothing personally against Mr. Sheeran. But I do have plenty against a society that unceremoniously kicked me out the door ever since I made the mistake of aging my way out of the preferred age demographic. That is a shitty and unfair thing to do to a person because of the year they were born in. So, the best thing to do is something shitty and unfair in return to a fab person currently thriving in the preferred demographic. So with unseemly pleasure I present Ed Sheehan with the Weird Looking and Smells Funny Award (or, as tipped earlier the WLSM). 

The usual fine people (many of whom have spoken today) have made this another fine year. But I want to highlight the late great Tom Sheehan for special mention. I ain’t for mawkish displays, but in the four years I got to know him , I developed a fondness for Tom which will never abate. He was a gentleman for all his ninety-plus years and for his sake, I hope, if there is more, that he is having a great time, inside an eternal, sensing shape immune to shit like oracular degeneration.

And of course all my gratitude for Diane and Hugh for being certifiable in a productive fashion. I see no other state of mind to allow this thing since 2014, b.c.e. This used to been a six day a week publication and with the arrival of the otherwise boring twenties we appear everyday. I have never been involved with anything as long on an everyday basis save for breathing–and here’s hoping that both items continue to trend in the same direction.

Leila  

***

A ramble from Diane

On a personal note, 2026 has been a cruel year, and I won’t be sorry to see it consigned to history. However, one thing that has been a constant in the turmoil has been LS and the escape it offers from chaos. I freely admit it’s an escape that is sometimes littered with frustrations and sigh-making smatters, but all in all it’s still, after twelve earth years, something that gives more than it takes.

We met some new, brilliant writers and, thankfully, many of our regular contributors continue to send us wonderful work.

I honestly don’t have many friends IRL and Hugh and Leila are a source of constant support who I can rely on to listen to my moans and whinges and soak them up and then come back with something to make things feel better – yes, okay with Hugh there is often a trimming of expletives but it wouldn’t be Hugh without them! I thank them wholeheartedly.

There are still a few weeks left of the Gregorian year but as we slide into year thirteen of LS I wish everyone happy writing, great reading and all the best of joy and health.

Diane

***

Hugh –

I want to start off with a song that I adore.

‘Pablo Honey’ and ‘The Bends’ are two of the best albums that I’ve listened to.

This is the best of a lot of just as good!

Well here we are, twelve years in. I think on how I was twelve years ago. Not sure. Probably just as crabbit and sceptical as I am now. I hated life then. I hate life more now…And then some.

Technology has fucked us. AI will be the end of the world. Politicians are still cunts and I’m sad to say that our youngsters have stopped rebelling, swapping anarchy for staring at a fucking screen. Those kids who I have hated, now don’t repel me, they just disappoint.

Here’s a thing folks, wait for one pubescent walking down your High Street and do something mad, don’t kill them, that would be a merciful thing, speak to them. They will shit themselves more than if you were attempting to murder them.

Anyhow, I know that if I look back after I write this, I’ll have, for twelve years, written the same things!!!!

I may be getting more demented, but I wonder if I’ve let you hear this?

To my American friends, give it a few plays until you get used to the accent – To everyone else, loosen up and accept this as the best piece of religious satire that you’ll ever hear!

I can’t express how much Diane and Leila mean to me. They are two of the three folks that I can vent to and depend on. I would trust them with anything and they have enhanced my life since the day that I’ve met them.

This site has simply given me one of the few things to live for. I thank you all who have been involved.

I’ve stopped reading full length novels but that doesn’t matter as I have thousands of your short stories keeping me company.

Keep reading, keep writing and keep being involved!

A huge thanks from me to all of you!!!!!

I wanted a bit of edgy music and I’ve wanted to post this for years. (HAH!! Maybe I have!!)

I think I can now as I realise that most folks who involve themselves with the site are open. (Not like the woke snowflake, proclaiming fuckers who deserve to be hated.)

So here is the second tune. It truly is one that you need to listen to all the way through!!!

Just a few short riddles to end this:

– How can you predict the score of any football match before it starts??

– (I like this one!!)

What is unusual about the following words?

Bough.

Cough.

Dough.

Rough.

Through.

– And just to finish – Accordion to a recent survey – Seven out of ten people don’t even notice when a word in a sentence is replaced with a musical instrument.

Thanks to everyone – You make an angry man very happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the very best my fine friends and I’ll toast you with something tasty and alcoholic!!!!

What the hell, I’ve been meaning to play this. A month or so ago, we had a bit of a discussion about covers. This is one that I was surprised that I enjoyed – But the lady does this so well!!

Hugh

For the Road

Every good story contains good lines or it would not be any good. Duh. But mostly the lines depend on what goes on before and after. But there are times when something stands out and shines all on its own. And although some have been over looked (which is a danger faced by every list) the ones we share right now deserve a second mention. Please share any that you recall in comments!

People look at me with a spear point of judgement in their eyes, but they cannot see me at all. (Christopher J Ananias)

Trees crowd the perimeter, shoulder to shoulder, good
witnesses, terrible allies. (Lynne Curry – ‘Wolf. Normal)

If there’s something ugly about you, teenagers will nail you for it. (Cris Aboobaker, The Second Husband.)

It pissed me off that she got old and vulnerable. A part of me thinks she did it on purpose! (Leila whilst commenting between us on Week 596)

‘Her skin was the colour of old paper’ (Leila – When The Railroad Comes)

***

And there you have it – onward to year 13.