Category: All Stories

All Stories, General Fiction

The Cartoon by Cy Hill

literallystories2014

It would be a lark to sit before a cartoonist at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, a joke because last night two of her oil paintings were hung in an art exhibition hall side by side with a pair of her husband’s oils.  Would not a cartoon of her be the perfect ironic token to give him to commemorate their recognition?  One local art critic dubbed them the “Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera” of Orange County, California.  Granted, her husband had cultivated him and planted the phrase, but now it was out there.

Continue reading “The Cartoon by Cy Hill” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Black and White Christmas by T.L. Tomljanovic

literallystories2014

Isla liked to play a little game while driving on Highway 4 to Grandma and Grandpa’s for Christmas. She zigzagged her eyes between telephone poles and farm fence posts until her head hurt. The car window was an endless stream of canola fields blanketed with snow and open skies. 

Continue reading “Black and White Christmas by T.L. Tomljanovic” →
All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

PDQ Pilsner Playhouse Proudly Presents by Leila Allison

ireneallison12

Without knocking, Renfield entered my office pushing an antique television on a furniture dolly. The thing looked old enough to have aired the Lincoln assassination.

“What now?” I asked.

She smiled. “Every time you ask me that; every time I avoid answering you, and every time I wonder why you have yet to catch on.”

I leaned back in my chair, put my feet on the desk and attempted to look wise yet amused, all knowing but still a good sport. For I’d read somewhere that such poses are commonly associated with a tall in the saddle style of leadership that people find inspiring. Unfortunately, I am very short.

Continue reading “PDQ Pilsner Playhouse Proudly Presents by Leila Allison” →
All Stories, General Fiction

The Thursday Night Woman by Tom Sheehan – Adult Content.

literallystories2014

It was all hers, the night, the huge house, the loneliness, the dark corners of every room that she knew so well. It was all hers, and Thursday was special, just about every Thursday except the ones precluded by her natural flow. First, there’d be a soak in the tub, for an hour or so, after which she’d stand in front of the 7-foot mirror and study herself, always noting the dark mass of pubic hair, curled and rolled and headlining her view. There was a connection with that action, left by her husband, Kent.

Continue reading “The Thursday Night Woman by Tom Sheehan – Adult Content.” →
All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Snow by Diane M Dickson

literallystories2014

The body was a small broken thing from a distance. Seen across the snow field there was little more than a coloured smudge against the white.

They couldn’t go for it now, it was too dangerous. There were fissures out there, hidden and lethal.  If there had been any chance of life, there would be no option, but they couldn’t justify the risk. Witnesses said that he fell from the summit and there had been no movement since. No reason for him to fall they had said. He had made it to safety, removed the roping and then just fallen back. It was inexplicable, a tragic accident. Maybe a dizzy spell caused by the altitude. Jake had listened to all the radio communication. The panic and distress.

They had called his mobile of course and the helicopter had hovered overhead for a long time, powder swirling upwards in the wash but there was no visible sign of life and so he would stay out there. The dark would hide him and probably more snow would cover him as the season progressed.  In a few weeks he would be invisible, nothing but a hump and a sad memory for his climbing mates.

Jake moved away. He wouldn’t come back. Not then, not in the spring. If the season was very cold the body would be well-preserved and if they got to it before the wolves and birds there would be something left for the family but Jake didn’t need to see it. The hullabaloo, if they found the bullet might reach where he was and he would smile at the fuss, but he’d be long gone.

He pulled up the warm fleece around his face and bent to retrieve his ski poles. He had already tucked the rifle into his backpack. As the sun slid away the summits turned pink, and Jake turned to the East and moved off. He loved the snow, the chill and the clear cold air but it would be nice to feel the sun warm on his bare skin and he smiled under his face mask.  Life was good when the jobs came up this way. When he got back to the hotel, he needed to call his contacts in Hawaii and organise things ready for his arrival. Another few years working at this pace and he could retire.  Maybe he’d come back then and ski with no interruptions.

Diane M Dickson

Image by Alexgan from Pixabay 

All Stories, General Fiction

Here Come Grandfather’s Goats by Antony Osgood

literallystories2014

Ahmed falls from the steel deck thick with diesel oil and malice, through a rain unlike anything he’s known, and he glimpses an almost touchable shore, shameless, sharp and cruel, unreal and foreign, rich with waste and electricity, though the air’s not a thing to loiter in.

I’m flying to a distant destination.

Continue reading “Here Come Grandfather’s Goats by Antony Osgood” →
All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Cherries by L’Erin Ogle

literallystories2014

Frankie is his least favorite nursing aide. She wears cheap perfume that smells like cherries and he hates cherries, the knotted pits inside them, the red juice that blooms across fingers and teeth, the bittersweet taste spread across the tongue. His mother loved cherries, left bowls of them half eaten sitting on dressers and counters and even stacked on the floor, the pits stinking and rotting with bits of the fleshy fruit still attached. The stain on her fingertips resembling the lipstick smeared around her mouth.

Continue reading “Cherries by L’Erin Ogle” →
All Stories, General Fiction, Historical

What’s in My Wallet? By Tom Sheehan

literallystories2014

For these past 70 years, since 1951 in Korea, I have carried a 1000 Won Korean Banknote in my wallet with the signatures of all my squad members on the face of that banknote, our unit being Headquarters section, First Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division, when we were deployed on the far side of Lake Hwachon, and when squad members put their signatures on that bank note, given to me by a Korean worker assigned to our unit, Lee Bong Ha. He was a chief figurehead in his own right when he made a replacement crystal for a comrade’s broken watch crystal out of a plastic spoon, which was carried in many military papers under the title of “Time to Spoon.” Lee Bong Ha had been paid off from his government contract with a basketful of such banknotes, and passed them out like the near-useless paper that they were (some of them used for the most unlikely reasons you might think of.)

Continue reading “What’s in My Wallet? By Tom Sheehan” →
All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 366: Interstellar Demands, The Week That Was and the A to Z of Soul Crushing Coworkers

ireneallison12

Interstellar Demands

The ten billion dollar James Webb Space Telescope began its journey on Christmas Day. The Webb is reputedly a hundred times more powerful than the Hubble– a garage sale find, costing a mere billion and change. The giant eye is scheduled to get down to serious peering by “mid year”–which I call June. Considering how it goes with NASA and associates, I think we can safely assume that June will happen no sooner than September–or at a time when I do not start three consecutive sentences with “The.”

Continue reading “Week 366: Interstellar Demands, The Week That Was and the A to Z of Soul Crushing Coworkers” →