Author: literallystories2014

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Catholics by Alan Gerstle

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I can whip Tommy Bryce’s ass, no problem. Everyone knows it, including Tommy. You can tell looking at him with those spaghetti arms sticking out from the sleeves of his chocolate ice-cream stained t-shirt. And that blonde crewcut. What’s he think? He’s in the Marines?

So I’m walking home from baseball practice, punching in my Rawlings glove when out of nowhere Tommy rushes past me, grabs the glove, and keeps running. He has a five-foot lead on me minimum when I start after him. But I’m faster, any day.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Cheating the Jail out of Time by James Hanna

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When we get our first whiff of mortality, which typically happens in our sixties, we are inclined to take inventory of our lives.  For the self-satisfied, this is an easy matter: one simply declares himself free of baggage and on an express track to heaven.  But that is only true for God’s favorite children; the rest of us have a harder time of it.  The bits of good we might have done fade like yesterday’s news.  And sins long forgotten assail us like phantoms, leaving us as wary as thieves.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

A Hundred-year-old Man By Leila Allison

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Sighs, echoing laughter, and half-remembered faces that belong to all-forgotten names gather in the pooling shadows of Corson Street; the ghosts gaze at Holly More as he walks alone in search of a hundred-year-old man. No matter how much money Charleston pours into the “revitalization” of the Corson district, its ghosts remain stubborn and continue to luxuriate in the riches of the poverty into which they had been born, thus lived, and brought home from their graves.

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All Stories, Humour, Short Fiction

The Flexible Rules of Anthropology by Alex Colvin

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October 11th, 1997

I am about to make history. That I know beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Armed with several months of supplies and two inept-but-well-meaning graduate students, I have begun what I am sure will be a monumental work of scholarship. I, Dr. Reginald Fitzfauntleroy, will be the first person to contact and live among the ancient and reclusive Sentinelese People. These people have existed for thousands of years, and they have resisted contact with the outside world. There have been attempts, but all previous explorers have been killed or were engaged in skirmishes that made the Sentinelese passionately loath outsiders. To contact or to visit the Sentinelese is considered to be a death sentence. They are the most elusive and dangerous peoples in the world, considered a myth by some anthropologists.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Forgotten Tomorrows by Wylie Strout

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I wondered where the wonder went.  Another bottle of wine, another moment gone, carelessly misplaced along with the forgotten tomorrows.  I picked at the bandage above my eye.

I thought of the millions of self-help books I had read.

“Allow yourself to go to a different place, a better place, in times of difficulties.”

“Embrace your inner child.”

“Breathe.”

“Be kind to yourself.”

“Stay positive.”

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Science Fiction

Her by Nyx Bean

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A flashing light signalled that the surgeons had finished their initial examination and it was time to go over their notes. Despite knowing it was useless, I pushed my mind forward and past the wall separating me from the laboratory. First there was merely the reverberation of the ship’s metal, its atomic structure refusing my meddling. I continued to nudge and prod until finally my consciousness slipped through. The professionals clustered around with their assistants, presumably debating their notes while the test subject was showered and clothed. I could only guess. As much as I struggled I still found it impossible to drag out any substantial information. Where I should have been able to link into the surface conversation like a normal individual, I was instead assaulted by jagged lines and heavy static. It did not take long for the sharp pain of exertion to set in. I gave up. It had been pointless from the beginning.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

No is a Complete Sentence by Katy Watson

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She knew from the moment that the notion entered her mind that it was surely a terrible one. The odds were too high that he would fully transform. It seemed these days that the slightest annoyance and the stiff orange hair the color of an emblazoned sun would streak the ridge of his spine and he was all claws and jagged teeth. He bit a boy on the playground last week. A smaller boy who’d done nothing more than deny Wallace the privilege of destroying his small diligent sandcastle. It was like watching a Godzilla movie if Godzilla were an outraged baboon decapitating beach condos with shoddy foundations instead of a giant lizard. And then they had all spent three hours staring at the sterile screaming walls of the ER while both boys were tested for rabies.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Where the Air Tastes Like Copper by Lee Conrad

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Roscoe Griffin, sheltered by the corner of the three story windowless building, waited for the procession of cars to begin drifting into the parking lot. Morning was just breaking and the autumn sun converted the chemical fumes coming from the stacks on top of the building into a mosaic of colors. Colorful though the fumes were, they held a deadly future. The smell, as the fumes drifted down, made Roscoe’s already nauseated stomach even worse.

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