To this dying man whom the wolf already scents
And whom the crow watches.
Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil
Author: literallystories2014
Do Not Go Gentle by Tom Burton
Sunlight slices through the window bars, splashing over your face. I will carry this piecemeal image – eyes scrunched shut, your late father’s nose, pink lips suckling – with me to the hangman’s noose.
Mother’s Day by Frederick K Foote
The weather was the culprit. Thunderstorms stranded Ella’s date in Boston. Flooding in South Carolina kept her son’s girlfriend in Charleston. Ella’s planned evening of formal dress, fine dining, forgettable speeches, and priceless facetime with clients and potential clients was a must-attend event.
Margaret by Matthew Hernandez
It was late afternoon when Margaret’s doctor told us that her condition was deteriorating, that it was time to talk options. Mom sat closest to Margaret’s bedside, with her back to the window. Dad and I hunched forward in taupe, plastic chairs positioned around the foot of the bed. Margaret’s doctor stood in his white lab coat opposite Mom, a clipboard resting on his waist.
Literally Reruns – All Saints Day by Tobias Haglund
Ah yes – Leila has picked one from the far back corner of the catacombs – We miss Tobias so this is a lovely little reminder of his skill:
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A Sunset of Blue Smoke
The motel was distasteful. The wallpaper peeled off in strips, and water leaked from the ceiling into a near overflowing bucket. Everything had a yellow tint as the sun slowly set.
Out on the back patio, sat two men.
The World From This High by Andrew Jason Jacono
The World From This High
The stars are out chittering over the water and the bridge is cold on the backs of my thighs and for the last three years He The One has been jabbering in my head telling me to jump. I haven’t listened to Him until now, I’ve been strong and I’ve resisted, but there comes a point when you just can’t take it anymore and you give in and so here I am. I’m not happy about it but at least when I jump They’ll stop beaming all those messages into my head and They won’t be able to torture me anymore.
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The Line Man’s Last Drive by Harrison Kim
Scrawny old Bill Jackson worked twenty years as janitor at the mine. He swept the lunchroom, washed and waxed the office floors, operated the snowplough and weed whacked the grass. He liked to see things clean. After the mine closed, he spent most of his time driving up and down the highway and side-roads picking up cans and bottles. “Without me, the garbage would just pile-up” he told anyone who’d listen. He hauled discarded tires, old couches, rotten mattresses into the back of his pickup and drove them to the landfill.
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Walk on By by Jane Houghton
Christ. Almighty. Aunt Nell. Aunt. Fucking. Nell.
Bloodshot, enflamed eyes – well, eye: the right one. Skin like crumpled autumn leaves. Fleshy folds beneath her chin, dangling down like an over-spill tray on a coffee machine. A red, bulbous nose, courtesy of the ‘bloody rosacea’ that plagued Aunt Nell her whole adult life and transformed her nose into a beetroot.
It had happened. The unthinkable. The thing that she had been dreading for four years since finding out. She was morphing into Aunt Nell. Weird, you might think, turning into her aunt; turning into her mother would be more like it. A natural progression. What happens. This was what she found out: Aunt Nell was her mother. More on that can-of-worms later.
Literally Reruns – You Got That Right by Adam Kluger
Leila has brought out a piece by a regular contributor to the site. Adam keeps us on out toes with his off the wall stories and his art. He is a great friend and an unusual and entertaining writer. This is what Leila said:
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