“Everyone is going to stare. Don’t make eye contact or speak to anyone. They’ll ask for money.”
“What about family?”
They’re even worse. Just look mean.”
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Author: literallystories2014
A Dog Named Job by Peter Biles
The city of Nodding had built the eight bullet trains in case the day of the bomb ever came, and when the day did come, to the horror of all, Jennings was at Pet Smart to buy dog food.
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Eclipsing Indy by Christopher Ananias
A lot of strange people flowed into Indianapolis for the solar eclipse. Not to mention, the “I-70 Killer” circling the city, with his fangs out, on the long swooping bypasses. The teenager Treat met Roger, a religious drug addict, at a Spaghetti joint on Lex Avenue.
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A Final Thing by Adam Kluger
She wants to meet on Friday at a restaurant.
We have to talk.
About what I wonder.
Could it be that after all these years she has had enough?
Enough of buying groceries and cooking you delicious meals
Enough of walking in the park
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Waiting for Robert Nix by Héctor Hernández
The discovery of skeletal remains in the woods near the Quitipea River has brought back memories of Robert Nix. I knew him as a kid and thought he was just weird at first—we all did, even the teachers. It was only later that I—and I alone—discovered he was actually insane; I just didn’t know the depth of that insanity, not back then, anyway. I know now.
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The Great Escape by Frederick K Foote
I do it on a cold December day in Oakland, California. I sign the papers and pass the physical. In three days, I will belong to the United States Air Force, my freedom from her and her freedom from me.
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Not Such a Weird Duck By Adam Kluger
Into the cab
In a daze
Leaving the bar
About to take leave of my senses
A complete lightweight all these years later
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Timeless Sympathy by Hana Carolina
Our house was what dreams were made of—a hazy vision of lost grandeur, countless rooms, and long corridors leading to an airy parlour. A crumbling gilded ceiling glittered in the light seeping through tall windows. A polished table with a deep, glassy sheen, where I sat my laptop, stood on the elegant curve of Queen Anne’s legs. Georgian bookcases were crowded with dusty oil lamps, their glass chimneys catching the cold, sterile shine of fairy LED lights. A heavy marble fireplace, its mantle cluttered with birthday cards, roared into the night.
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Eight-Ball Blues by Frederick K Foote
Tuesday. It was as dead as a doornail Tuesday night in my bar, The Rusty Spur. No games, fights, or anything else worth watching on the TV. No controversy or shenanigans in our town or county worth the spit needed to talk of them. It was as if this part of West Texas was caught in a kind of dull-as-dust malaise.
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Grayscale by Carolyn R. Russell
From behind a second story window, we three watch for the girl. Fissured by time and fractured by turmoil, the glass allows for less than optimal viewing, but my sisters and I can see well enough to take immediate notice when her slight figure emerges from a subterranean staircase and melts into the crowd. This particular evening is boisterous and punctuated by the trappings of revelry. A new year is preparing to throw its filthy arms around the neighborhood, animated celebrants studding the sidewalks like remnants of a tenement fire.
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