Author: literallystories2014

All Stories, General Fiction

Dying Things by Yancarlo

literallystories2014

There was a dog on the road. A mangy thing with grey fur falling out in tufts showing its wrecked body. I saw him one night limping up the road as I smoked my cigarette and did nothing. I watched it limp towards the side of the road snout burrowing deep into the dewy grass looking for anything to eat. He found the mouse whose body I had thrown there earlier in the day. I didn’t kill the mouse. Something else did. The mangy thing found the mouse and eyed it suspiciously for a moment, natural suspicion overriding starvation for an instant, and then ate the mouse. The mangy thing limped away just as I finished my cigarette and went inside.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

One Treacherous Evening by Claire Deans

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She shrieks, and the noise echoes through the vast space and up towards the high, glass roof. She is half running, half tottering through Glasgow Central Station wearing a pair of siren blue stilettos. They clatter. A huddle of lads, all pastel shirted up for a night in the town, look over and stare. She throws her arms around me as if it’s a feckin lover’s reunion. ‘Bernadette. Oh My God,’ she squeals. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’ 

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All Stories, General Fiction

Bills by Yashar Seyedbaghari

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Two dollar bills lie on an empty table in the coffee shop. It’s a corner table, away from the world, a space no one seems to notice. I’ve sat there many a day, hoping they wouldn’t ask me to buy something.

I make sure no one’s looking. Pick up the bills. I run fingers through crispness. Pretend to peel them, relishing the crinkle of ownership and small power.

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All Stories, General Fiction

All My Darlings Waiting by Antony Osgood

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I caught her eye. Recognised a kindred spirit. Her head then converted into cruor popcorn. Colour of grey nail varnish, millet porridge. Scarlet white and woeful.

I feared I’d lose my lonesome bench for good.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Creep by Boshra Rasti-Ghalati

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The turbulence on the plane makes my skin creep. I hate airplanes, motion that I can’t control. Two lanes down I see the back of a punk’s rainbow colored mohawk. What makes someone decide to get a haircut like that? The air hostess is giving him some advice about transferring at the airport. He’s transferring, he wouldn’t be allowed in Doha looking like that.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Horror

Dust to Dust by A. Elizabeth Herting

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The sheet snaps crisply in the wind, perfectly white, a blank canvas hanging on a line. A woman, neither young nor particularly old, bends over a large, wicker basket. Her hands are large and red, prematurely knotted from the harsh, unceasing wind. She is a good-sized woman. An old floral print dress clings to generous haunches as she efficiently plucks each item from the line and places it in the basket. She is one of an unbroken line of generations past, hardened and forged by life on the plains.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Ladybird by Joy Florentine

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The waitress who has taken my order wears a sepia-coloured dress, checkers faded and hem ruffled. She excuses herself as she leans in and wipes the table with a damp cloth. On her sleeve is a single red, round button. It gleams. She asks me something. My car is parked between two cargo trucks. I’m not usually the type of person who visits roadside diners. The red, round button reflects the light from the fluorescent lamp, its four holes laced with loose black thread.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Shadow of Your Smile by Yash Seyedbagheri

literallystories2014

Nick takes pictures of smiles, in coffee shops, at the store.

He especially likes crooked smiles, like his older sister Nan’s. When she smiled. When she was a being and not a shadow in the past tense.  He’s tried to store her smiles like contraband. A smile on the way to bed, the two of them exchanging a glance. A smile pronouncing his nickname. Nicky. Or a smile while watching The Big Lebowski, a smile transforming into real, crackled laughter, especially when The Dude lit a joint without care.

But time makes it impossible to store things.

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