Author: literallystories2014

All Stories, Science Fiction

Lost In Thought by Dan Bell

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An urgent knock on the apartment door woke him.  He lay there, waiting for his mind to coalesce around a coherent thought. The knock turned into a thump, which soon became a rapid hammering, accompanied by yelling. Gustald recognized the voice. It was Gerti, a work colleague from Concept Compliance. He only vaguely knew her. Enough to give a polite greeting as they passed each other in the corridor, but certainly not sufficiently well to expect her to be banging on his door in the middle of the night. Why is she hitting the door with her fists at all? he wondered. Is the access sentry inoperative?

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All Stories, Horror

The Breather by Rebecca Petty

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Evelyn stared out the kitchen window willing herself to ignore the breathing coming from the living room.  It was a wet labored breathing. She wiped the last dish and set it in the rack. Another breath was pulled from the lungs in the other room.

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All Stories, Fantasy

The Bone Reader of Tucson by Dana Wall

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The bones spoke to Angelina the way other women heard gossip over garden fences. Snake vertebrae whispered of rain coming from the east. Coyote teeth predicted claim jumpers and cattle thieves. But it was the human bones that spoke loudest, and those she kept hidden beneath her floorboards, wrapped in red silk stolen from a dead Chinese merchant’s shop. Each bundle reminded her of her own lost child, the daughter whose bones she’d never found to read.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Meant for the Dead by Susan Jennifer Polese

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Envision a seamless sky lining a hillside speckled with white stones. The air surrounds them, almost scentless, incensed lightly by pungent moss. Gaze ahead as the lush hills overlap, take hold of one another, layered green and hazel veils each saying to the next: Spring.  Translucent Spring. And I could see through it and taste it as anyone can at seventeen. Every day seemed to be like this one, then, endless and shady, but on this Tuesday morning curiosity did more than lead me. We ran. Run with me now.

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All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever – “M” T-shirts No Longer Fit Me to a T by Elliot Wilner

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Two of the drawers in my bedroom dresser are packed full with colorful T-shirts,  about fifty T-shirts in total, and I cherish them all.  Each shirt tells a story: the date and the distance of a particular road race – an 8k, a 10k or a 10 miler – that I had once run, together with the names and logos of the race sponsors.  Of the fifty shirts, about forty have found eternal repose in my dresser drawers, never removed from the drawer, never worn.  Those are the ones labeled with a “M.”  The other ten, those labeled with an “L,” I do wear on occasion.     

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All Stories, Historical

White Horse by Kate Mole.

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Yesterday I walked another bit of the South-West Coast Path, from Praa Sands round to Marazion.  I was with a friend, who is aiming to complete the entire circuit of the path, from Minehead to Poole Harbour.  He does bits of it as and when he can, and invites people to accompany him if they live locally, or are keen walkers, or just feel like doing it with him.  This was a short section, only about six miles – well, short for him; about the right distance for me to walk comfortably. 

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Wheelbarrow Man of East Hastings Street by Harrison Kim

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As Travis crosses East Hastings Street, he hears the high trembly voice of Sasha Asputi.  She’s trilling a speech, waving her skinny arms in the air in the centre of a small circle of men and their shopping carts, “Tonight we homeless will take back our rightful space.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Prize by Robert Stone

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I heard about this magazine running a competition offering a substantial cash prize for a piece of writing simply on the subject of how you would spend the cash. Well, I have no cause for hesitation, I would buy a tank. Surely second-hand and probably vintage WWII, or a little more modern. I don’t see how an individual would be allowed to buy or could afford a new one, but I have seen older models in private collections.

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