Author: literallystories2014

Short Fiction

Sunday Whatever – An essay by Geraint Jonathan – Shakespeare the Tease (Or, The Rest is Scilens)

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It’s somehow apt that among Shakespeare’s most idiosyncratic spellings is his rendering the word ‘silence’ as ‘scilens’. No other writer of the period is known to have spelt the word in this way. It appears in the printed plays and it appears in the manuscript of Sir Thomas More, a collaborative work written in six different hands, one of which, referred to by paleographers as ‘Hand D, is thought to be Shakespeare’s. There’s good evidence to back it up: quite apart from the distinctive spellings, the handwriting seems consistent with that of his various signatures.

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All Stories, General Fiction

An Arrangement by Kenneth N. Margolin

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Darlene’s husband, Warren Mason, sells his lumber company for twenty million dollars. They build a forty-five hundred square foot deck house on thirty wooded acres bounded by three hundred acres of conservation land in rural North Carolina and plan to grow old amidst the trees. Five years after they build the house, while cutting down a diseased tree, Warren collapses and dies. Darlene considers moving closer to town, but cannot bear the thought of leaving the birds, the deer, the unseen creatures that forage through the woodlands and visit her backyard. At eighty-three years old, Darlene resolves to live and die in her beloved home.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Twolips by Gerry Coleman

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“A dream fulfilled is a dream lost.” 
                                                                          —Mickey Lafferty

The year Rosemarie Zuccarrelli moved away from Ninety Second Street to live with her maternal relatives in the Midwest, we were thirteen.

She quickly metastasized into likenesses and lies, was diluted by adaptations and revisions I fabricated to fill forward the missing frames. I did what most teenaged boys did: I played sports, pushed my luck with inaccessible girls, snuck beers, and cheated on tests. I wrote poems. Spare poems I did not share, poems touching upon alienation and nothingness, the depths of the surrounding black and unyielding ocean, and the silence of God in the world.

I idolized her.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Last Number by Arpi Vanyan

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She had done the same thing every evening for three years.

She would pour tea into a cup with a chipped rim, sit by the window, pick up her phone, and dial a number.

The same voice, every time.

“The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Resurrection Blues by Joel Bryant

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After the break-up of Dystopian Dentist, I immediately decided to form a new band. Screw those other guys, holding me back, crushing my artistic vision.

I was looking to move to a more blues sound, which made me immediately think of bringing in Croydon Dan. He was the only string slinger I coveted. Cat played like he’d been born in the Deep South, not South London. We’d lost touch over the years, so imagine my major dismay when I found out that Dan was pushing up the daisies. I never did discover how, but the dude did have issues. Still losing him was a massive bummer. He’d have been perfect; music was in his bones. Weird to think that would soon be the only thing left of him.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Relentless Pickle by David Henson

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I look out our window at the crowd — men and women with their shirts and blouses untucked on one side, some holding up sneakers onto which they’ve written obscenities. The people chant my name and that of my wife, Monica. A few also cheer for our daughter, Lori, who runs up to her bedroom and slams the door.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Claw  by Mark Czanik

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Everyone was scared of it, although it was just a hand I found in the gutter. Not even a gripping one. ‘The Claw! Beware the Claw! Son of Claw!’ I cried as I chased them up and down the garages.

Pamela and Trudy ran screaming into the sanctuary of Trudy’s back garden. Harry flapped his arms like a wounded bird. Windy somehow heaved himself up by the drainpipe onto the asbestos garage roof and sat there hunched like a gargoyle, while Pods was so terrified he ran into Ted’s empty garage and pulled both doors shut on himself. I couldn’t catch any of them.

‘Revenge of the Claw!’

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All Stories, General Fiction

No Moon In January by Joe Mallon

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Danny got to Average Joe’s early.  Ten o’clock.  Before Bobby.  Before he lost his nerve.

Maybe ten people there, a couple along the bar, a few at the tables.  A geezer sat on a stool near the door, with a cop’s buzzcut and a hard stare. A baseball bat leaned against the wall.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Baby’s Breath by Leanne Simmons

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Peggy Garrett must have been glad that Geary’s had given up on the old way and got a ramp fitted. For years I’d watched her lump poor Jim up the step, the wheels catching on the threshold, before she’d lean forward to see to him, like a magpie claiming a crust. She, always in black with her wispy hair that had turned white the night of the accident.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Second Husband by Cris Aboobaker

literallystories2014

If I’m born again as a man instead of as a woman, I will aim the silly-looking mushroom waggling between my legs and shoot my stream so it splashes dead center in the toilet bowl. Bullseye! Bango! How hard can that be?

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