Rata baboon-leered as the twenty stone clown started to sweat, the meth ravaged copper coloured flesh peeling back from his skull, rubberized dead slug lips baring his yellowed teeth.
Continue reading “The Child of Smoke by Alex Sinclair”
Author: literallystories2014
The Metamorphosis by Jess McColl
After my husband died I gained a friend, Kafka is his name. One would suppose that having a cockroach is somewhat akin to having lice or genital crabs, a tabooed parasite that will ultimately tarnish a lady’s reputation and habits if discovered, but Kafka is a special kind of companion. His favourite place is atop the kitchen radio where he habitually gyrates to Jazz FM in the early hours of the morning, watching me drink cheap Chardonnay and speaking to me reassuringly in the sweet-butter voice of Jeremy Irons. Before I was enlightened to his more practical uses, I admittedly went through a spell of being rather ruthless; I wanted to kill him, but in the most decent, kindest way for everyone involved. So, naturally, I concluded the obvious. Flushing. Yes, flushing him down the toilet in a vortex, much like a flume at Water World except with feces and used tampons at the end, a cockroach’s paradise. So I tried. I dutifully dropped him in the toilet and flushed, watching rather sadly as he spun. But the little chap just coughed, spluttered softly, and crawled back up. I discovered after that they can live for up to a week without their head, a month without food, and can hold their breath for forty minutes at a time; a species that would undoubtedly survive an apocalypse. They are resilient, gregarious creatures. So of course, in time, Kafka soon had a friend, a wife perhaps, and spawned a tribe of lovers and cousins and acquaintances and one-night-stands. I began to realise Kafka’s army were quite efficient at cleaning up my often neglected messes. Far more so than my old Henry Hoover friend, with his can-do eyes and pleasing suction trunk, that now just sits looking forlorn, gathering dust. Cockroaches eat crumbs, dust, hair, sewage, decaying matter, and even each other; they are the perfect companions to a less than perfect housewife. Someone like me needs a helping hand once in a while. Try as I might I can never keep on top of the housework for long, being too easily lured by afternoon wine and my artistic pursuits. George, my late husband, used to (rather too sternly, if I do say so) remind me to ‘CLEAN YOUR F*#&ING ACT UP’, but there’s no one here anymore to keep me in check.
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The Karma Chameleon and the Diplomaniac: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical (Season Two Opener) by Leila Allison
A gecko named Keeler escaped her enclosure about twenty minutes after Renfield had brought her home from the pet shop. Keeler didn’t care for the transparency of her new digs and decided that her happiness lay in a blended existence with the walls, furniture and such in the haunted Stoker-Belle household. You see, Keeler didn’t think of herself as a gecko; she self identified as a Karma Chameleon.
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Letti the Yeti by Dave Henson
“Letti the Yeti. Letti the Yeti,” the children chant.
… “Mama, what’s Yeti?”
“The Yeti is a monster, Letti. It’s also called Bigfoot.”
Literally Reruns – Mr. Zimmerman Flies to Buenos Aires (Economy Class) by Adam West
Adam was the founding member of Literally Stories, as such he has his own cupboard in the dungeons at LS Towers. Access requires a special key, a code and a bribe for the hunchback guardian. Apparently Leila has stolen the key, guessed the code and we just don’t know what she gave the hunchback!! Anyway – she found this:
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Dodging Traffic by Tim Frank
Nina and I were just kids when we started running into oncoming traffic. Dodging cars was something that felt natural – a part of growing up, facing demons we didn’t know we had. We’d sit on the low curb, flicking crisps into the gutter like cards into a top hat, then as we heard the rumbling of a car approach, we clamped hands and dashed into the street. We experienced short spurts of ecstasy, drifting away on a sublime high and yet the feelings were short-lived, elusive.
Cutthroat by Alex Sinclair
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Murphy Conway was half Albert’s age and twice his size, but all Murphy had to do was look into the pieces of flint that were Albert’s eyes to know he could never take him, even if he did him dirty and started it from the side.
Rêverie by E. F.Hay
Dribbling saliva, slumped in the deepest of rêveries, he was approached by a French accented usherette- a veritable mini-skirted caricature, advertising a take-me-from-behind coquetry; she tottered wantonly, making a beeline towards him. Continue reading “Rêverie by E. F.Hay”
Only a Jellyfish Would Live Forever by Leila Allison
The Scenario: Part I
He crushed two pills between his teeth and swallowed. That made four in an hour. A stomach that wanted to stay alive would have objected; but for once there was consensus. He believed that two more similar doses within the next thirty minutes should punch his ticket to the Undiscovered Country. Perhaps such an important event as flirting with self destruction should come accompanied by an unfilched metaphor, but when in doubt go with Shakespeare–Besides he’d used up all the sparklers in his suicide note. It was a fine suicide note. Well written, streaked with effortless pathos and humor. It was the best thing he had ever written. “All show, no tell,” he’d said after lighting it on fire and watching it curl to black in the kitchen sink. “Best punched ticket ever.”
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Stretch by Anuradha Prasad
The leg swept in a wide arc, missing her face by a margin. Avni scooted further back, her eyes trained on the dancer who strode across the room and leaped twice, a leg stretched one way, a hand stretched the other way. She didn’t want to miss a thing. The dancer fell to the ground lightly, the body surrendering to the fall, to the pull of gravity. In its surrender, the body defied the will of earth.
Avni followed her mother and her friend out of the studio after the dance performance.
“Did you like it, dear?” Avni’s mother’s friend asked her.
“Yes, very much, aunty,” Avni said.
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