Robert Dunman held the final tile above mortar, and with a bead of sweat at his brow, pushed it in. The lines were clean and straight and the tiles were pristine. He rose with a grunt; one hand rested in the arch of his back. He remembered a recent review posted on his website.
Simply the best. No detail left unconsidered.
Continue reading “The Devil in Detail by Tripp Watson”
Even with blurry eyes Kate could see it was just past six in the morning. She squeezed them shut, feeling hazy and warm like she did 134 days ago after her last briny vodka martini. Her stomach roiled as she smelled lilies. A few months ago, her husband, JJ, started with the flowers. He was up to at least three bouquets a week. Lovely at first, then morbid. She knew the lilies were white again even though he knew she preferred pink flowers and that she hated lilies. She slid her hand across the nightstand feeling around for her glasses, but they weren’t there. She laid her head on the pillow after she flipped it cool side up. She was alone.
Continue reading “Suffocating Half Truths by Natasha Dalley”
When Hartmann asked for a cigarette the two guards sitting with him turned away. He laughed. “What the hell, you worryin’ about my health … today?” He kept his eyes on them, craning his neck just a bit, toying with them. He’d promised himself no fireworks. Nothing physical. Be a man. He’d always been a man … when he was eight, getting beat up by bullies … when he was twelve, getting slapped around by one of his mother’s boyfriends … when he was sixteen, getting punched by the guy who said he was his father. Why didn’t he get praise for being a man?
“Where’s Moody?” he asked.
Continue reading “Family and Friends by Victor Kreuiter”
I watch her as she gets out of her car carrying a plastic grocery bag. She heads to the back door off the kitchen. Entering quietly, she walks with a sort of weird mechanical stride to the kitchen table and sits down, never acknowledging I am there. She fishes out the pack of cigarettes she just bought along with milk and a scratcher.
Continue reading “Like Swatting a Fly by Jon Beight”
Linny moves in upstairs to apartment 2B, so finally, Nadine, my wife’s kid has a buddy for first grade. I put out Coca Cola and Oreos when Linny comes down to watch cartoons with Nadine. Cook them bacon for supper when the wife goes to sisters in Paloma, leaving me in charge. Nothing sweeter than the smell of Linny’s nape – like peppermint Chiclets, fabric softener and perspiration all rolled into one.
Continue reading “A Bit of Storytime by Shoshauna Shy – TRIGGER WARNING – Disturbing Adult Content”
Jean-Claude loved women. He loved to draw them. At certain times, in certain places. He would position himself in a café at the bottom of a long flight of steps, say those leading down from Sacre Coeur. A location such as this was most promising in spring and summer. The way women’s skirts swayed at their knees. He remembered with great fondness the summer when fashion dictated women wear pleated skirts. His joy seeing the motion of the skirt against the statuary of the descending legs.
Continue reading “The Sketcher by Townsend Walker”
He is standing in a dark place, his own name forgotten, and no memory of how any of this came to be. The man blinks his eyes, senses he is not alone, then sees a shadow figure appearing in front of him. A creature coalesces out of the darkness.
Continue reading “Architects of Their Own by Marco Etheridge”
Sergeant Bonham walked the streets of East Berlin, finding a city mired in despair. President Reagan’s words hung fresh on the western side of the Wall. No graffiti marked the eastern side. Razor wire and sniper rifles kept would-be vandals at a distance. His counterparts on this side kept a watchful eye from imposing guard towers, in contrast to the humble structure on the other side of the checkpoint from which he stood his watch. This was an odd way to spend his R&R, but he needed to understand.
Continue reading “We Do Not Mistrust Each Other Because We Are Armed by Matt Garabedian”
Alright fine.
Okay so the rubber duck bobs in the water, ignorant of the vapor steaming from the pool and rising to the banisters and balustrades in the warehouse. It wears a yellow raincoat and holds in a cartoonish way an umbrella inscribed with the words “Gosh darn it, I’m wet!” It drifts in between two pillars of steam, bumping like a lily pad just underneath the nipple of child peddler Marc “The Lobster” Cameron. So fat is the nipple that one might consider it a breast. The tattoo on Marc’s pectoral is further an example of this fact, a strange attempt at a Chinese dragon that might have looked better on a fit body but has since taken the form of Mushu from Mulan. At least I think that is his name. I don’t know. I’ve never seen it. That or the godawful remake. Don’t ask how I have an opinion of a movie I haven’t seen. I just know. Okay. All I’m saying is that this really goes to show that some movies should be immortalized, having already stood the test of time with intergenerational audiences.
But anyway. I digress.
Continue reading “Gosh darn it, I’m wet! by Glen Dungan”
An overcast sky spills milk-pale light over a blighted landscape. The light is too weak to shadow the dry-stone walls that run along a potholed lane. The stone walls rise to a vanishing point at the crest of a muddy hill, and over that crest comes the figure of a man.
Continue reading “No Good Deed by Marco Etheridge”
literally stories 