She wants to meet on Friday at a restaurant.
We have to talk.
About what I wonder.
Could it be that after all these years she has had enough?
Enough of buying groceries and cooking you delicious meals
Enough of walking in the park
Continue reading “A Final Thing by Adam Kluger “
The discovery of skeletal remains in the woods near the Quitipea River has brought back memories of Robert Nix. I knew him as a kid and thought he was just weird at first—we all did, even the teachers. It was only later that I—and I alone—discovered he was actually insane; I just didn’t know the depth of that insanity, not back then, anyway. I know now.
Continue reading “Waiting for Robert Nix by Héctor Hernández”
I do it on a cold December day in Oakland, California. I sign the papers and pass the physical. In three days, I will belong to the United States Air Force, my freedom from her and her freedom from me.
Continue reading “The Great Escape by Frederick K Foote”
Our house was what dreams were made of—a hazy vision of lost grandeur, countless rooms, and long corridors leading to an airy parlour. A crumbling gilded ceiling glittered in the light seeping through tall windows. A polished table with a deep, glassy sheen, where I sat my laptop, stood on the elegant curve of Queen Anne’s legs. Georgian bookcases were crowded with dusty oil lamps, their glass chimneys catching the cold, sterile shine of fairy LED lights. A heavy marble fireplace, its mantle cluttered with birthday cards, roared into the night.
Continue reading “Timeless Sympathy by Hana Carolina”
Tuesday. It was as dead as a doornail Tuesday night in my bar, The Rusty Spur. No games, fights, or anything else worth watching on the TV. No controversy or shenanigans in our town or county worth the spit needed to talk of them. It was as if this part of West Texas was caught in a kind of dull-as-dust malaise.
Continue reading “Eight-Ball Blues by Frederick K Foote”
We went to a local theater production of Little Shop of Horrors. The talking plant looked like a guy in a beanbag, and the singing was off-key. I didn’t mind because I was with you. After the show, you mistook shasta daisies vs. ox-eye daisies at the restaurant. I chuckled and suggested you should learn your flowers — a modest proposal.
Continue reading “Say It With Flowers by David Henson”
Once more I see myself, 11 years old, standing at the corner of the lane, and gazing through the wire-mesh fence. My three companions stand beside me. It’s late summer, early evening, the sky a bold and ever-deepening blue, the day seeming to go on without end. But gathering in the alleys and in the eaves of the houses, around the doorsteps and the feet of the lampposts, shadows are thickening, and already a scent of autumn sharpens the air. And before us, harbouring its own shadows, stands the witch house.
Continue reading “The Witch House by David Calcutt”
Man, in my neck of the woods, color still rules; White, you all right, Brown, stick around, Black, get back. And sometimes we be so black we be blue. And the rules flip on you. Sometimes they do a back flip when you blue-black.
Continue reading “Blue-Black by Frederick K Foote”
For Extremely Intelligent Children at Any Age
“Everything is poetic that confesses.” – Jorge Luis Borges
“Delia, oh Delia / I can’t believe / you wanted all them
rounders / never had time for me. / All the friends
I ever had / are gone.” – Dylan, “Delia,” World Gone Wrong
“Let us go then, you and I…” – T.S. Eliot
An old Zen saying rightly opines, “Do not seek comfort from others. Light the lantern within yourself.”
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever – Seven Dogs or A Dog is My Walden – An essay by Dale Williams Barrigar”
The feeling had been growing inside of Henrik Hammersmith for quite a while now.
Damn construction noise.
Start again.
Continue reading “I do this by Adam Kluger”
literally stories 