Diane’s He Believed He Would Win is a thoughtful slice of darkness that brings forward many uncomfortable questions about hope and faith.
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Author: ireneallison12
Week 394: Seeking Inspiration; Five Inspired Tales and Must See Comic Strips
Seeking Inspiration
The human ability to whine at any level of existence may be the crowning glory in the evolution of our species. The aged, the sick, the poor, the abused, the cheated all have plenty to rightfully complain about; yet even when we are young, healthy, rich, safe and on the winning team, we are still able to find something wrong with our lots. That is the point when rightful complaining turns into cry-baby whining.
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Where Have All The billigits Gone by Leila Allison
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If you can imagine a realm that is both infinite and a place where nothing is farther than a mile from anything else, then you can imagine my land of make believe. You see, I failed High School Geometry and have no sense of scientific proportion. I went every day, but it was the first period, and I fell asleep with my eyes open. I wound up with four A’s and one F on that report card. I got my high marks in History, Drama, Music and Sociology. But the world is run by Slide Rule Supremacists who’d rather have kids bomb out in those and score big successes in the ometries.
I had to take an extremely remedial math class (which was as intellectually demanding as “Celebrity Jeopardy”) to gain my diploma. My crowning glory there was the creation of a coordinate graph. When connected, the numbered points revealed the face of Fred Flinstone with dollar signs in his eyes and the caption “Bedrock Lotto.” Although giving up on a freshly minted adult and releasing her into a high tech society armed with no fancier arithmetic in her head than how to arrange a Fred Flintsone graph is probably immoral, that’s just the way the old hypotenuse bounces. Besides, it continues to give me the freedom to create scientifically impossible vistas. Hooray for the armor of ignorance.
According to the 70’s band America, “Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t, didn’t already have.” Well, the Wiz was hardly Great and Powerful then, now was he? For I, the ruling Penname in my little metaverse, have endowed all my Fictional Characters (FC’s) with unretractable Free Will, which they most definitely did not already, already have going in. The person who employs me (whose experiences, skills, shames and lacks are identical to mine) did the same for me; alas, you don’t need a head full of logarithms to conceptualize the vicious circle.
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Literally Reruns- Mary J Breen-The Bride of Christ
Whenever I reproach God I do so as a reproach of humankind. As far as I’m concerned, if there is God, then I figure that something I once heard is true, God placed us in charge of what we do and whatever happens isn’t by God’s hand, but is just stuff that happens. The “time and chance happeneth to them all” sort of thing; of course this is all due to our turning away from God–something well described in the Cohen song that goes “Lover Lover Lover Lover Lover Lover, Come Back to Me.”
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Literally Reruns – L’Erin Ogle – Ugly
This week’s entry into the archives is by the inimitable L’Erin Ogle. L’Erin always lands in an unexpected fashion, and I hope she doesn’t take the stunned silence that often follows her work personally, or incorrectly. It’s that in the case of something such as Ugly, the depth of the work and its refusal to be easily digested by the mind do not allow for the quick formation of intelligent comments. Nearly all the remarks that accompanied the story on its original release (including my own) are complimentary, yet not of great depth. For L’Erin’s work has to be examined and given time to sink in.
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Week 392: J.D. Raccoons Tip Flower Pots Because Cows are Too Tall; Another Week That Is, and the Operation Snapped Shoelace Diary
(3 A.M., 22 August)
Life is full of idiotic vexations that should not be. Silly, inconsequential events that should mean nothing yet are something enough to fret over. A continuing woe of mine involves my part in a neighbor (from here, “Green Thumb”) having her flower pots tipped by Juvenile Delinquent Raccoons.
As I’ve stated in earlier posts, my building features a common yard inhabited mostly by flitting little Birds and Squirrels by day and semi-wild beasts after sundown. The beasts include my feral Cat friends, Alfie and Andy, an occasional Opossum named Olivia (who has a way of popping out from under the bushes and scaring the hell out of people) and a marauding band of four to six Jugglao/J.D. Racoons who drink Faro and smoke discarded cigarette butts. Green Thumb seems nice enough, but she operates under the delusion that she can place potted flowers in the courtyard and expect nothing bad to happen to them overnight.
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Literally Reruns – Do the Right Thing by Hugh Cron
You never know what you might find in the sub-basement in Archives. But usually when you find something has the Strong Adult Content warning label fixed to it, odds are it was created by our own Hugh Cron.
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I, Feckwit By Leila Allison
Act One:
The Afterdream
Upon the gray dawn of the stark afterdream that inevitably follows prolonged bouts of alcoholic narcolepsy (induced by several gin and tonics), I awakened and recalled giving the role of an Artificial Intelligence to one of my Fictional Characters (FC) toward the end of my reverie and setting this individual loose in the realm of make believe in which I am the ruling Penname* (*just one word there, spell check–like “dumbass”).
As is usually common in prolonged bouts of alcoholic narcolepsy, I remembered only bits and pieces of the event. I recalled first swearing an FC to a vow of secrecy and endowing s/he with the mind of a supercomputer. I know that I laughed maniacally, which was stopped short by a flash of light. The next thing I knew I was coming to under my desk, amongst the dust bunnies, glasses askew, a bent yet unbroken, unlit cigarette still in my mouth.
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AI Week – Literally Rerun – Ronda 12 by Dave Henson
Welcome to the kick off of AI Week here at Literally Stories! And what better way to look into the future than by taking one look back at the past. Since the subject is Artificial Intelligence, we are happy to present a rerun of a tale written by long time site stalwart, David Henson. It’s called Ronda 12. As usual, David’s sense of humour and wit enhance the piece. And although she is a machine, attractive Ronda (think a “Seven of Nine” type of individual) is actually the most human person in this story.
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Literally Reruns – Chicken Farm Blues by Alex Sinclair
I have a feeling that if there wasn’t a place like Cambodia, we would have to create one. I’ve never been there; but I understand that any place capable of building Angkor Wat and nurturing Pol Pot (a unanimous first ballot inductee to the Evil Fucker Hall of Fame) is someplace one can still notice from a great distance.
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