Carly’s hair is falling out. She leaves gold strands everywhere, Gretel’s nightmare version of bread crumbs. We don’t talk about it.
Author: literallystories2014
Love Triage by Jeff Blechle
The ridiculous battle, hopelessly lopsided in the enemy’s favor, sent deserters scattering into the flaming woods, shot hopeful messengers down in their tracks, and, perhaps as an afterthought, stuffed the triage tent to the flaps with wounded soldiers. The overblown histrionics, the saucy horse that trotted into the tent strapped with dynamite, might have struck a jaded audience as faintly humorous.
Deadly Robberies by Tom Sheehan
Somewhere along the line it all got out of hand. Somebody was robbing graves at Riverside Cemetery, sitting just above the Merrimack River on a flat hilltop. Stealing coins, too, strange as it seems. That’s the kind of thing can jerk a town right off its feet, even if the spread of the cemetery was closing fast on its capacity and a new site required.
The Talk by Frederick K Foote
Eight a.m. in San Juan, California and it’s already eighty-two degrees on this June morning. I’m in running shorts and a tee-shirt as I step out my front door to pick up the paper.
The black and white patrol car prowls my street like a predator looking for its next meal. The mechanical beast creeps toward my house, signals a right turn, pulls into my driveway.
Inappropriate by David Lohrey
Teaching isn’t easy. Certainly not in Jersey City. I might as well say it at the start, I hate it. It’s hard to be among the young.
The Woman Who Married The Man Who Could Throw His Voice by David Henson
I met a man named Frank today. He knows how to throw his voice. He said he learned it from his dad. Fun!
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The Box by L’Erin Ogle
The Box arrives on his fiftieth birthday.
It is sitting on the desk in his office, wrapped in shiny black paper, adorned with a scarlet bow. It is square, the kind of box that might contain a paperweight, or a large book, or a box of chocolates.
Really, it could be anything.
The Hiring of May Witherspoon by Tom Chambless
May liked to set out bits of meat for the big birds. It was one of her few pleasures. She would dice up some cheap round steak and set it out in cubes along the porch rail. The part she loved, the thing about the ravens she adored was, they left her presents. She left them food and they left her a fake pearl, a thimble, little shiny things.
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Felis Catus Bionicus by River Rivers
Well, I’ll tell it to you straight, my life has gone to poop. Here’s how I ruined it:
The Distress of Newly Made Ghosts by Karl Miller
I’m on my third slow loop through a nearly-empty parking lot, passing by darkened stores as the last workers depart on a Sunday night. The land on which the mall sits was once part of the Everglades – I helped survey it as a summer job years ago. I’d wade into the forest with a machete and mark the trees developers would be saving – the slash pines were going, but the live oaks would stay to be stranded in asphalt.
Three days ago, Tristan, my cousin’s boyfriend, was waiting at a stop sign on his motorcycle when an inattentive driver plowed into him. If I delay my arrival any longer, I’d miss his viewing completely, so I finally drive across the street to the funeral home.
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