Tan Son Nhut Airbase, South Vietnam, 1968: 10° 46’ 5.99” N
Sweat stained the underarms of his short-sleeved khakis and dripped from his upper lip. But after six months in Nam, surviving its hot-and-wet and hot-and-dry seasons, Jeremy didn’t notice. His mind still wandered the jungles of the Central Highlands, in the teak forests, hunting the enemy and sometimes finding them.
My Family Values – Tess Overland
I love my family.
My family is the most important thing in my life.
My family is the wings that keep me aloft.
My family, sometimes, on rare occasions, can be a bit too much for me.
The accumulative effects of dealing with my family can be exhausting.
My family is getting on my last fucking nerve.
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Time for an older story – haha see what I did there. Oh okay – Leila found this without the aid of a torch- shining away in the back cupboard in LS Dungeons. this is what she said:-
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – 2:45AM by Todd Levin”
Delphine’s teacher cracked a joke. Delphine didn’t smile because she didn’t think it was funny. The teacher said, ‘Oh dear, Delphine. I do feel sorry for you. At the age of seven you ought to know what humour is.’ She brought her out to the front of the class. ‘Now, everyone, let’s show Delphine how we express humour.’
It was the summer that cost us more than we knew. When we atoned for our sins and kept on sinning. When a small part of us died and we fumbled to fill the growing void. When we forgot, in truth, how to ask. The summer Ben slept with Lola, who was loved by Jeremy who slept with Kat who fucked, despite her beauty, like a corpse. And later, when a rash smothered his groin like English Ivy, Jeremy scuttled around the kitchen, poking his member like a cactus.
A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Miss Renfield Stoker-Belle, Noted Supernaturalist Featuring an Appearance by Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender And a Futile Forward by Leila Allison
Futile Foreword
It’s a fallow and disconsolate world in which we live. Even here at this side of reality populated mainly by Pen Names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters, you’ll find more Juggalos per square inch than persons with sustainable IQs contributing to the gene pool. The pain of it all becomes clear on the day you look in the mirror and correctly suspect that the best years have gone by. You gaze into the reflection of your suddenly cautious, peering avatar and wonder what happened to the footloose, laughing face who had been looking back at you every day up through yesterday. It seems impossible that this paradoxically “new” used you has ever had an interesting thought in her life; or that she had even at one time tolerated the Juggalos–as long as they stayed upwind of her location. Continue reading “Zippy and the Zephyrling:”
Jonathan was out on his front porch swing, engrossed in another vampire book, when he gave a shiver and, looking up, caught his neighbor’s dark eye. Willy was across the street, standing on his own front porch. ‘Okay if I come over?’ he called apologetically.
ah – Tobias – We miss him. Leila has been down in the darkness and brought out this little gem from one of the founder members – this is what she said:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Michael by Tobias Haglund”
In my suitcase there were six pairs of knickers. Six was the number I’d need for a week of work, assuming that one night I’d swim or go to the gym and it wouldn’t be outrageous to wash a couple of pairs in the hotel shower.
I’d packed four tops, all of them black. Jackie in Rentals had told me that if you wear all black nobody notices. Once, she’d worn the same black shirt every day for a month and no one raised an eyebrow. Then she wore a yellow shirt twice in a week and four people said don’t you have another top?
“Tell me a story, stranger.”
The guy on the opposite stool was a typical weekday drunk, full of good humor at the pain of others and caustic remarks at nothing at all. That he was polite to me was an oddity; perhaps he sensed that I was different, that I was less tethered to this place and its vices than those of his usual company.
Continue reading “There’s One Just Like it Everywhere by Andrew Johnston”
