Author: literallystories2014

All Stories, General Fiction

Bibliophilia by Martyn Clayton

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In a large detached house surrounded by high privet hedges at the foot of a low hill range there is a room filled with books. Some of them date from the 19th century. There are books about geology and Greek mythology, there are books about the flora and fauna of far off lands. There are books about subjects that no longer exist. Phrenology, mediumship, gruesome racial theories. There are books whose pages have crumbled to dust. There are books that have not been looked at since the day they were pushed into place on the high shelves that surround the walls.

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General Fiction, Romance

Notes Pinned on a Returnable Container by Tom Sheehan

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No shit, there I was watering my flowers. Orchestration or habit bent on outcomes, I do it daily, making sure I can get back from all my Elsewheres in time to do so before the day is gone with the moon. I am faithful to that compulsion, and when this chick comes along, made nice in a certain way, yet points out dismal little failures in the front garden or the narrow plot beside the driveway to an occasional walking companion, it pisses me off no end. I’ve heard her through an open window say things like, “Wouldn’t you think someone would know better than to plant the short ones in the back.” Or, “Don’t you agree that his color scheme is a bit off base? Needs a little more imagination?” Or, like one totally elliptical occasion when she said, “Who does he thinks likes so much orange?”

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All Stories, Humour

A Lost Cause by Adam Kluger

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“Alfred,

Thanks for letting us see your work…
I’m afraid we are unable to offer you publication in Pushing Down the Daisies magazine.”

” Hi Rudolf…Thanks for the kind and quick reply. Submitting two pieces of fiction (The Pencil-Pusher & The Rain Washed His Underwear Clean) and some artwork that perhaps, might be a better fit for Pushing Down the Daisies. Best regards, Alfred…”

“…sorry we dont publish fiction at all…”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Evan Stalworth’s Wealth of Words by Tom Sheehan

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I’ll have to tell the story because I’m the one most at fault here. I should have known better, I’m the new generation type. Even on the way home from the cemetery, going back to the house with my mother, my two younger brothers and my sister, it was me who should have known better. Lots of things should have tipped me off; instead of being bigger, having more room with a body gone from it, the house appeared smaller, at least to me. It felt smaller, smelled smaller, corners were tighter, the air cooler. I swore, after spending my first twenty-two years in it, it didn’t have its hand out for me, “Not a touch in the tally,” as my father used to say about things found useless, unproductive, too much emptiness to expend much-courted energy on.

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All Stories, Fantasy

A Snowman at Christmas by dm gillis

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The snowman smiled. He was driving a ’72 Lincoln with the windows down and the A/C on full. He smoked Kools and drank frosty cold cans of beer. The Stones played on the eight track. It was December 24th.

The Voice was speaking to him. It had been all afternoon. It was the same Voice he’d been hearing since he’d opened his bottle cap eyes and walked off of the abandoned lot of his birth. The Voice had told him to steal the car. It was nameless. The one that whispered. Sometimes it even spoke backward, as though in tongues. Now it was saying, “Smoke, drink and drive fast, for snowmen melt sooner rather than later. We have seen the future, and you are not a part of it.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Long Haul Driver by Tom Sheehan – Adult Content

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For a pure moment trucker Gene Denport had felt above it all, above dawn at its tatters, above the voice coming at him from day’s edge. King of the throne he was, king of the hill, the road having slammed under him all night long. The 455 horses loose in the Volvo 670’s D-13 truck engine sounded their endless music, hummed under his seat bottom, talked lightly to his wrists; the way a woman might have it, he’d often thought, when the road took the edge off his mind.  (Controlled rampage, the voice had said long before he used to think about owning a rig like this Volvo, Earth-mover, star-hauler, space traveler. Piling the superlatives on top of each other would be done at endless ease.)

House-big, highly modified for cruising, like a humdinger Lincoln Town Car in a sense, the Volvo 670 went over the crown of the hill.

He froze on the edge of the seat.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Song Writer by Ronald J Friedman

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He’d burned the titles of his hit songs into the planks that formed the stall where he kept his favorite horse, a high-stepping Paso Fino of no particular value beyond the curiosity of its unusual four-gaited step. A short length of pine tacked on the half-door of the stall bore the horse’s name in brass letters, Dominus.

Colin looked about. The stalls and tack seemed unfamiliar. He took a deep breath and smelled sweet feed and hay mixed with the sharper scents of leather and manure.  

“What the hell?”

A horse whinnied somewhere across the corral and Dominus stirred.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Teaching You to Know by Sarah Walker

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I stop explaining aloud to my children that I am not lonely.

I used to tell them these things as if they would understand automatically. I’m not lonely when I lie down at night and fall asleep with five fluffy pillows surrounding my head. Or when I wake up, make my way to the kitchen—the red and white tile floor cold under my feet—and stare out across the green lawn and watch the birds eat from the feeder and sing into the morning light. Even when I eat almost every meal alone, I do not yearn for someone to sit beside me. Instead, I enjoy my breakfast, lunch and dinner outside on the patio and throw the remains of my meals in the lawn and look forward to watching the deer find the hidden treasures.

I give my children the simple answer now when they ponder and poke. “You know what the doctors said. I should spend this time how I want and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Goodbye Blues by Frederick K Foote – Adult Content.

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Got the news straight from the horse’s ass. No fucking around at all. Dr. pull-no-punches, straight arrow motherfucker.

“The cancer done got you, boy. Got you good from asshole to elbows. Not much we can do, but wave to you as you go.”

“How about, chemo, radiation, experimental—“

“How about six to eight weeks to go? How about that?”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Delete Browsing History by Diane M Dickson

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I love my computer; the hours and hours we spend together. Locked in the semi-darkness of the office, everyone else in bed, while the fire ticks and spits and becomes glowing dust.

I checked my e-mails, updated my website and transferred some money into my savings account. The main purpose of tonight’s work though has been an article for the local newspaper, a “My life and times” that sort of thing, living in the sixties.  It was fun and now I’m not ready for bed.  My mind is buzzing, too much mental stimulation. Another brandy will be one too many, and I don’t want herbal tea.

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