Category: All Stories

All Stories, General Fiction

A Better Mousetrap by syndie allen

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Chairs splintered. Egg yolk dripping off the ceiling. A gash here, a bruise there and he was tired. He was more than tired. The lumps and blame he had taken over the years finally put him over his line and as he sat nursing the latest wound, carefully devising another excuse to avoid punishment, a little place in his feline brain began expanding. Instead of the inevitable excuse, instead of the blood dripping down his paw, the brain space began to grow. It began to focus on his blood.

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All Stories, Literally Reruns

Literally Reruns – Overpowered by Diane M Dickson

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Leila has brought a big grin to my face by choosing this piece for a Rerun. I read it over again, it’s a while since I wrote it and – though I freely admit it has glitches it did make me smile. This is what she said:-

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All Stories, General Fiction

Out of the Universe Endlessly Calling by Tom Sheehan

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Far ahead of him Knock Craften could see the last of the lead-pack bike riders sprinting around a slow bend in the road. The Pan Mass Challenge 200-mile bike ride across the state to raise funds for cancer was in full bore; 3600 riders on the move for two days, Sturbridge to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod. Then the yellow shirt of that rider disappeared, roadside greenery swallowing it up.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Last on the List by Robert P. Bishop

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Olin Bahr sat on the end of the exam table, his feet on the footrest and waited for the doctor. The exam room in which he sat, typical of all exam rooms in any medical facility, he thought, felt impersonal, devoid of anything suggesting human warmth, compassion or comfort. The only decoration in the room, an articulated human skeleton with a hook protruding from the top of its skull, hung on a metal pole in one corner and stared at Olin with empty eye sockets.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Last Light of the Library by Jennie Boyes

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In silence, we drew back the curtains and watched the bombs explode. Josef leaned his head against the wall, cigarette limp in his mouth, his round glasses askew. He didn’t look afraid, and he wasn’t curious like me, not any more.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Picture Frame by Tim Frank

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Carlton was a diminutive man with a rotund belly and a shock of tawny hair that swished from side to side as he shifted his head like a curious sparrow. He would drift through the working days in our publishing company brushing past his colleagues wordlessly in perfumed high-rise elevators, impossibly tight hallways and the tearoom where everyone gathered at mid-morning for an extra caffeine fix. He designed book covers for manuscripts that wove magical realist tales of invisible animals and children lost in ethereal kingdoms – fantasy worlds that seemed to give him sustenance, something maybe his surrounding environment couldn’t.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Worm Cheeks and the Search for Lunar Secrets by Brandon McWeeney

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Under the light of a punchy, yellow moon, Pops jammed a cigarette in my mouth and put his thumb to work on our flip-top lighter. After a while, the flint wheel peeled up his scab and showed me his insides, which were bright and clean (and A-negative, Pops says). He sucked the blood like barbecue sauce, then flick, flick, flick, nothing, flick, flick—

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All Stories, Literally Reruns

Literally Rerun – Through the Curtain by Diane M. Dickson

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Okay – I’ll hold my hands up and admit that I’ve screwed up and missed out today when setting up the reruns. So, because I do like to give rerunners the chance to consider and answer the questions I will – if you will indulge me use one that Leila chose and I set up for some way down the line. I’m not so much jumping the queue as plugging the gap.

***

Leila has very kindly chosen one of my older pieces to be Rerun – It does give one a warm glow to know that a reader has enjoyed a piece. Thank you Ms Allison:

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Scary Lady by Jeffrey Penn May

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Not long after Mike and Katherine moved into their spacious St. Louis county house with pillars and brick facade, its value plummeted. But it was a nice house, woods in the back, nice deck.

“What will we do when they’re gone?” Katherine asked, brushing a tangle of brown thinning hair.

“Who?” he responded. She was talking about their kids. Two more years and both would be in college.

“All this space,” she said. “Empty.”

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