I’m thinking about shaving my beard but leaving the mustache and listening to a break-up album in bed. My friend Glenn says I should sleep with the first five girls I see and if I still miss her after that, then maybe I’m in love and that’s not so bad. But he has a girlfriend and his dad’s a surgeon.
All Stories
Never Coming Back by Matt Hobbs
‘This is Britain! My fuckin’ Britain!’ shouted Gleeman as he slammed his ham-sized fist into his wife’s stomach. ‘Things are different now! There’ll be no more of your lip and no more of your equality. We don’t do that shit in my country no more!’ He stuck out his oily hand. ‘Gi’s it!’
A Scene of Grief by Anuradha Prasad
Nakul Pandey sat staring at the frail corpse that had been his father. A group of mourners in various shades of white sat in vigil. Suffocating floral bouquet notes arose from the garland-draped cover of the coffin cooler in which the corpse had been kept as the mourners waited for Nakul’s older brother, Vipul, to come from the UK and perform the last rites. Through the huddled fog in his head, Nakul observed the cable snaking from the cooler to the switchboard and anticipated that someone might trip over it. He tripped over it when he got up to take a call. A few hands were raised in alarm, “oh-oh” and “watch it” and “careful” were exclaimed, all garbed in the tone and pitch appropriate to mourning. You wouldn’t want to wake the dead especially if the dead was his father, Jeetendra Pandey.
Literally Re-Runs – Before We Started Worrying by Martyn Clayton
Leila has dug out another super piece from the dungeons. This time it’s from way back in 2015 and it’s a dark and disturbing little story. This is what she said:
Week 219 – Masters, Monks And Truthfully Lethargic Cults.
Before we start, I would like to congratulate Mr Woods on his Masters win. I’ve mentioned before that he was a mad shagger and I stand by that. But to have the natural drive to look for birdie after birdie by sinking a few long ones is an amazing achievement. (Shame on any of you if you tittered. Or even more shame if you didn’t see that coming!!)
Sister by Eddie Fogler
I hated my sister. An easy thing for me to say, despite (according to my parents) hate being such a “strong word.” But it was true; I detested my sister. Loathed her. I didn’t always hate her; in fact, I felt nothing the day she was handed to me.
A Turtle’s Farewell by Lisa M DiFruscio
The chair belonged to the table set I inherited when my mother passed away. It didn’t fit anywhere in the house, not in the kitchen, not in any corner space where it could be made useful. So when my partner decided to claim it for his own, the chair ended up in the garage, at a new table, where it was sat upon and enjoyed, as a resting place, a work place, a smoking place, a social place, and finally, his quiet place. I would hear the legs of the chair scrape periodically when I was in the kitchen, and although it was buffered by the door, I came to know the squeak as a prelude that soon I would have to stop what I was doing. Interrupting myself was voluntary. He would stomp into the kitchen and re-fill his coffee cup. I would generously get out of his way.
