Leila has chosen a dark and disturbing piece this time. Get yourself a whisky, make sure all the doors are locked and have a look at this one:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – The Violin He Played Downstairs by Ashlie Allen”
Category: All Stories
Departure by Callum Rowland
One night, five days before departure:
“I’m not staying for you,” Andrew says.
He lies next to me in bed, his eyes aflame, half-hidden by a lock of hair fallen across his brow. A bead of sweat carves a shimmering trail down his chest.
I prop myself up on one elbow.
“Then why? Soon there will be nothing to stay for.”
“The people, Sarah. Are they not worth staying for?”
I roll my eyes.
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Did You See the Tasmanian Devil? By James Hanna
When I mention that I once spent a year in the island state of Tasmania, people look at me with interest and ask me the same question. A question as patented as Coca-Cola and as reflexive as a burp. “Did you see the Tasmanian Devil?” they say. They are probably thinking of that Looney Tunes critter that talks in growls and grunts—not that poor diseased marsupial that is practically extinct.
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The Conscience Test by Harrison Kim
On his morning walk along a secluded trail in Brunette River park, Jackson noticed a pair of fluffy blue slippered feet attached to bare legs sticking halfway out into the path. He stepped closer and there lay an old man on his side, dressed in a white nightgown and holding two crutches.
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Iceberg Theory by Yash Seyedbagheri
I slink across January ice. The sun shimmers over clear, cold icy sheen.
I look ahead, but still slip.
I flail, feeling the world tumbling. The sky leers, pale blue, puffed-up clouds surveying me. Frame houses line the street, staring with cheerful yellows and greens. Oak trees stare with naked arms.
I right myself, arms flailing. It’s a miracle, but relief evaporates, replaced by shadows of shame.
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Literally Reruns – Canned Ravioli by Patricia Pocopi
Leila’s introduction to this needs nothing from me:
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Just Let Go by Anthony Billinghurst
The 11th of November was a Monday. We were patrolling in dense fog near Mons when at 11 am, Lieutenant Harrison ordered us to halt then glanced at his watch.
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Whiplash by Bryn Ledlie
This is it. I have nothing left to say. I have no new thoughts. The words “Stop, Stop it, Please Stop Please Stop” ring out in my brain blaring again and again every time something new enters my mind. An alarm I cannot silence, a desperate prayer I cry out endlessly. I don’t think I’m talking to him; I think I’m talking to me. Violently begging my brain to stop firing, misfiring the way that it does.
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History in a Trash Heap by Mark Fellin
The odor is an eye-gouging, throat-punching combination of sour milk served over steamed shit, with a dab of honey. Like the killing fields of Gettysburg in 1863, scorched into an indelible stench.
“This is atrocious, Leo,” I bellow through the deafening grind of the gigantic truck’s engine. “Can’t you smell it?” I’m kneeling in a puddle of something brown and viscous, trying and failing to latch a chain onto a brimming green dumpster.
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Bottled by Yash Seyedbagheri
As an infant, I sought nourishment in bottles, draining milk with frightening speed.
Thirty-four years later, I still need my bottle, except this time they hold Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the weight of credit card debts. They hold things I shouldn’t have bought to feel like a bourgeois dandy, antique bookshelves. Old lamps that glow and create illusions of home and communion. The bottles hold awards I pursued and barely missed, than missed big time, numbers, tempers lost over teaching philosophies and politics. Apologies I can’t speak. A life of could-haves, all laid out before me, scattered puzzle pieces whose counterparts are long missing.
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