Fiction is a reconstruction of reality, duplicitous by nature because it forestalls the recognition of what exists, what changes, what constitutes the real nature of reality. Easing into narrative is a delicate series of steps, the task of memory and imagination putting flesh to bone, clay to hearth, shape to shapelessness. Night becomes day, for the man sitting still inside the house is like so much firewood waiting to burn, like leaves gathering and recircling, collecting and dispersing in a fierce wind, taking the dead to their last place of refuge. You want him living, breathing, thinking, but imagination is depth and breadth. There is too much to remember, like the broadness of the sea when it rises and collapses.
Continue reading “Paper Flowers by Thomas Sanfilip”Author: literallystories2014
Happy Birthday to Us – 7 Years.
What can we say?
Do we have a skin complaint?
Do we feel lucky?
Are we a colour of the rainbow?
Which of the dwarves would we be?
And could we consider ourselves a continent?
Continue reading “Happy Birthday to Us – 7 Years.”The City, the World by Tim Frank
There are forces in the city greater than the stream of cars and buses charging through the streets day and night, greater than the parades of pedestrians and rows of skyscrapers towering like giant chess pieces at war, and these forces combined are nothing less than the world wrapped into a fist, lodged just beneath the surface of the earth, ready to explode.
Continue reading “The City, the World by Tim Frank”It’s our 7th Birthday. Thank you all for your support. More to follow. Come back on Saturday!!

A Given by Aishwarya Srivastava
The winter always belonged to the writers but the writers never belonged to anyone. That is why a 60-year-old Mr. Shaw sat in his two-story bungalow all alone eating flatbread with a new jar of ‘grandma’s homemade pickle’ that he had bought from the grocery store seven kilometers away. He lead a life of passion and compassion. Passion for his hobbies and compassion for… himself. But Mr. Shaw’s life, contrary to the belief of all the forest rangers who passed his ‘haunted’ house, was not empty. A murder of porcelain and granite along with the ominous howling of distant hungry wolves filled his nights like winds filled windmills. He just loved buying sculptures.
Continue reading “It’s our 7th Birthday. Thank you all for your support. More to follow. Come back on Saturday!!”The Bridge at Drochaisling by Anthony Billinghurst
Georgia was being difficult before we landed in Dublin, which was nothing new. She changed and became assertive the second she was promoted to Deputy Head at her primary school; she even adopted a power walk. It’s true the flame of our marriage no longer burns like a log fire, but it does glow like anthracite when fanned enough. My friends who noticed told me I’m hen pecked but as Georgia said, I needn’t wonder if I’m hen pecked, she’ll tell me when I am.
Continue reading “The Bridge at Drochaisling by Anthony Billinghurst”Anne: Office Monster by Michael W. Clark
She shouldn’t have red hair. Also, it shouldn’t be the red that it is. It is a dye job, a bad dye job. She should act her age, but it’s not clear what that age might be. She has too much energy for her skin. Her skin has the pale of age, old age, too many years, is the phrase I would use. Her skin had too many years on it for the energy she had. Her thin pale epidermis indicated she should be slow moving, if not immobile, bed ridden maybe, but not walking faster than all the other employees. People so much younger, so much stronger, should have so much more life than she had. Her energy and her fire engine red hair, they just weren’t right.
Continue reading “Anne: Office Monster by Michael W. Clark”As If He Still Drives a Capri
In the lull between my husband’s condemnations, I reminded our daughters that each Sunday is a Christmas. This way of thinking is Karen’s idea. She does Fridays and Saturdays in the shop with me.
She said when sorting citrus, ‘When life serves you lemons–’ and I held up my hand and asked, ‘Is there a cliché for grapefruit?’
Karen couldn’t think of one.
Continue reading “As If He Still Drives a Capri”Too Close to Hell by Phil Hurst
Someone is locked in the trunk of the car. They bang against their prison as the woman climbs onto the roof.
Continue reading “Too Close to Hell by Phil Hurst”Hacienda of Love by Monika R Martyn.
The weather app on my phone lies and says there’s only a 10% chance of rain; it’s raining. I listen to the sound of the soft rain as it mingles with the stillness evaporating with the rising sun. The world sleeps, and only the doves are awake with me. Humidity is 96%. Maybe it isn’t raining after all, and the sky is merely sweating. It’s hot in Mexico.
Continue reading “Hacienda of Love by Monika R Martyn.”Seroquel by Olivia Austin
I sit in darkness, isolated from the world by a dark wooden door. If I think hard enough, I can imagine I’m standing in a sunny field, or listening to the roar of ocean waves. But I’m not. As much as I try, the thin closet door in the bathroom is not enough to block out the screams.
Continue reading “Seroquel by Olivia Austin”