Category: All Stories

All Stories, Fantasy

Fashioned at Last Into an Arrowy Shape by Travis and Lucas Flatt

literallystories2014

I watch the Mayor dash about the rooftop, clutching his toupee against the wind. “My building!” he says,  “Grey–what have you done to my building?”

I get it. They gave him the city in decent shape; he doesn’t want it broken.

Over on the balcony, rock-megastar Alex Grey is not empathetic, mumbling: “Just hang on, brother,” his voice a rumble beneath the shrieking wind. Grey tweaks his low-E peg, plucks his tortoiseshell plectrum across the string, holds the guitar up to his ear, and nods, satisfied that he’s in tune. We’re standing on the world’s biggest amp. During the morning bustle to blockade the New York Harbor, Grey sent a battalion of roadies to lash, strap, and solder hundreds of amp cabinets to the Empire State Building.

 

Continue reading “Fashioned at Last Into an Arrowy Shape by Travis and Lucas Flatt” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Aussie Girls by Kirk Alex

literallystories2014

(story excerpt from Blood, Sweat & Chump Change ––
Taxi Tales & Vignettes by the author)

I’m first up on the taxi stand at the Beverly Center, after waiting for close to an hour and a half. Two Aussie girls climb in the backseat. One is blond, the other a particularly thin brunette with pocked cheeks. They want to go to Melrose.

“The Bank of America on the corner,” they tell me.

Melrose is a long street, goes for miles. I need a cross street. They can’t think of it, but explain the bank is “by the shops on Melrose.” Not much help really, but feel we’ll be able to find it.

I get the meter going and pull off the stand. Turning left on La Cienega, I take them north. When we reach Melrose Avenue I make a right. I find out that the blond has lost her wallet at the B of A “by the bus stop,” and this is why they are having me take them there. They wonder what the fare will be. I quote them between five and six dollars.

Continue reading “Aussie Girls by Kirk Alex” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Our Harbour by Paul Kimm

literallystories2014

Until the first ‘magical’ incident our harbour was like most others around the country. One side with its fishing industry and the other for the summer tourists. The South Pier reeking of fish guts and the north side either boarded up or packed with visitors stuffing seafood and sugar into their mouths depending on whether it was summer or not. That was until a few years back.

Continue reading “Our Harbour by Paul Kimm” →
All Stories, Science Fiction

Ray Guns of the Invaders 1202 by Tom Sheehan

literallystories2014

The cloud came in low over the horizon as if it was holding hands with sky and Earth, and shadows fell from its silhouette forming strange figures of shade across the landscape. Gurley Kindreck, at the lookout post on Foster Creek, grabbed the phone and twisted the crank on an old army land phone. Behind him, wires snaked all the way back to headquarters in the heart of Burrell, Kansas, much of its corn crop already pulled, the rest of it dying in the after-lights of the enemy’s rays.

Continue reading “Ray Guns of the Invaders 1202 by Tom Sheehan” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Sanctuary by Tim Frank    

literallystories2014

 You could say I’m an unhappy guy. I just want to blot out the days, smoke away the nights and dump my beloved books into the ocean. Books used to be my everything, but now they simply bore me – I can hardly read a paragraph my senses are so dulled. I have better days, it’s true, because I’m essentially free. I can choose when I wake – I have no alarms, no commitments, but sleeping in my car, that I’ve called home since the divorce, can be a real drag.

Continue reading “Sanctuary by Tim Frank    “ →
All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 394: Seeking Inspiration; Five Inspired Tales and Must See Comic Strips

ireneallison12

Seeking Inspiration

The human ability to whine at any level of existence may be the crowning glory in the evolution of our species. The aged, the sick, the poor, the abused, the cheated all have plenty to rightfully complain about; yet even when we are young, healthy, rich, safe and on the winning team, we are still able to find something wrong with our lots. That is the point when rightful complaining turns into cry-baby whining.

Continue reading “Week 394: Seeking Inspiration; Five Inspired Tales and Must See Comic Strips” →
All Stories, Editor Picks, Fantasy, Short Fiction

Where Have All The billigits Gone by Leila Allison

ireneallison12

-1-

If you can imagine a realm that is both infinite and a place where nothing is farther than a mile from anything else, then you can imagine my land of make believe. You see, I failed High School Geometry and have no sense of scientific proportion. I went every day, but it was the first period, and I fell asleep with my eyes open. I wound up with four A’s and one F on that report card. I got my high marks in History, Drama, Music and Sociology. But the world is run by Slide Rule Supremacists who’d rather have kids bomb out in those and score big successes in the ometries.

I had to take an extremely remedial math class (which was as intellectually demanding as “Celebrity Jeopardy”) to gain my diploma. My crowning glory there was the creation of a coordinate graph. When connected, the numbered points revealed the face of Fred Flinstone with dollar signs in his eyes and the caption “Bedrock Lotto.” Although giving up on a freshly minted adult and releasing her into a high tech society armed with no fancier arithmetic in her head than how to arrange a Fred Flintsone graph is probably immoral, that’s just the way the old hypotenuse bounces. Besides, it continues to give me the freedom to create scientifically impossible vistas. Hooray for the armor of ignorance.

According to the 70’s band America, “Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t, didn’t already have.” Well, the Wiz was hardly Great and Powerful then, now was he? For I, the ruling Penname in my little metaverse, have endowed all my Fictional Characters (FC’s) with unretractable Free Will, which they most definitely did not already, already have going in. The person who employs me (whose experiences, skills, shames and lacks are identical to mine) did the same for me; alas, you don’t need a head full of logarithms to conceptualize the vicious circle.

Continue reading “Where Have All The billigits Gone by Leila Allison” →
All Stories, Science Fiction

Home Again by Keith LaFountaine

literallystories2014

1.

Alarms blare. It is the end. David knows it as much as he knows anything else. Below, glorious golden clouds meld in a blue atmosphere. So much like Earth. But his family won’t see the light of this star system for twelve years. They will grow old and die, and if he ever makes it back all that will be waiting is a grave. Assuming, of course, there is a planet to return to, and a way home.

The ship falls, and David with it. McLonsky’s blood bubbles and flutters around the cockpit in globules that have minds of their own.

This is it. The end. David closes his eyes, and he waits for his Maker’s embrace.

Continue reading “Home Again by Keith LaFountaine” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Dreaming in the Third Person by Adam West

literallystories2014

He dreams he is a young Asian woman. Diminutive. Pretty not beautiful. Not distinctly of Indian or Pakistani heritage but notionally from that region of the world sometimes known as the Indian Subcontinent.

And yet in his dream he isn’t actually the young woman in question. Not as such. More, he is her in the third person.

Whilst the dream lacks structure he experiences a resonance throughout the day. An intangible notion of being someone else. It’s a novel experience but one that returns periodically.

Earlier in the day he had a fall.

Continue reading “Dreaming in the Third Person by Adam West” →