Still half asleep, I look to see if I need to fill the bird feeders before going to work and am shocked at the sight of a huge hot air balloon in the backyard. I get dressed, hurry outside and find a man, woman, boy, and girl in the basket.
Continue reading “The Family in the Hot Air Balloon by Dave Henson”
Pa decided to join the Bonus Expeditionary Force. After dropping Ma and the youngsters off at Uncle Vernon’s, he let me ride the rails with him from our home in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, all the way to the Washington Freight Yard.
Human Alarm Clock
‘Could you just leave me alone for an hour please? I need some sleep before school.’ I say and I close the bolt on my door. I jump into bed fully clothed. Know I won’t get any sleep and she won’t leave but I pull the blanket over my face regardless.
Continue reading “Buying My Mam Some Smack by Reynard Laverna. “
Behold Awesomenicity to the Nth: Miss Renfield Stoker-Belle
An awesomemost author should enter the page after she’s been introduced by a statement similar in purpose to the music heralding a professional wrestler. Instead of approaching the page accompanied by a noise in the key of Lowest Common Denominator, however, the awesomemost author should materialize beneath a hella descriptive bold font header, like that shown above. From here on out please consider what stands atop this opening paragraph as my calling card. I put a lot of energy into the creation of my identifying verbal riff, which shall ever more precede whatever addle-minded gibberish Ms. Allison has to offer under the Feeble Fable flag. Although I have forbidden Allison to feed me any more lines in which peculiar twists of “awesome” are featured, the ban does not extend to the awesomenistic literature I produce.
Hans returned home from the pub.
He stomped up and down on the bare floorboards of his living room. He grinned as he thought about the neighbours moaning at the noise but never complaining.
Hans turned on the radio, it was more static than station. He settled down on his white painted kitchen chair that sat in the middle of the living room. It was cold. The wind whistled up through the floorboards. He pulled the collar of his donkey jacket higher and pulled his cap lower and then put his hands into his pockets. He shut his eyes to sleep.
Something woke him.
Continue reading “Hans By Hugh Cron – Warning – Strong Language.”
Stefan Slater has been down in the dungeons, probably something to do with social distancing – but he has come up with this little gem. This is what he said:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – The Drinking Hour by John Conaway.”
Well here we are at Week 279.
Whenever I see the number seventy nine it makes me think of my first address that I remember as a kid. From there I realise that I can also remember our first phone number.
Firsts are good to bring to the forefront every now and again and I’m sure that many a first has inspired a story. (Or maybe an arrest.)
Why do Southerners romanticize dreck? They positively gush over everything in sight, including the weeds covering the telephone poles along the highway. Kudzu, an invasive weed, is treated like gorse. Southerners are proud of it, like everything else. Kudzu is nothing to be proud of, but Peter Taylor is. Light in August is something to get excited about. Tennessee Williams knew a thing or two, but is he invited to the Liberty Bowl? What of Eudora Welty?
Guess again.
The end of the world wasn’t so bad. It began with an argument between some self-important people who had a bit too much responsibility. It escalated. The end of the world was loud and hot and bright. Most people dried almost instantly to a pink Himilyan salt, their crystals scattered to the wind. Some took longer, their skin blackened like the crust of a wood fired pizza. Still, some survived, parts of their limbs and flesh melted like a mild gruyere cheese. No, all this was not so bad. It was the lack of good food.
Continue reading “Phillip’s Recipe for Lamb Stew by Max T. Beckman”
When Kurt Cobain died, Susan didn’t leave her bedroom for four days straight. She closed her door on that Saturday morning and stayed put until I went over and saw her on the Tuesday afternoon. She never joined the groups that gathered at our college when the following week broke; the circles of teenagers who grimly shuffled in the canteen and classrooms, who shrugged and sighed and slowly shook their heads. It was, I suppose, our defining moment. Naturally, none of us realised it at the time. As a generation we had no Great War or Woodstock, social media was science fiction and everyone’s parents had jobs. We were fortunate enough to be insulated from existence. It took a dead rock star to communalise our experience, to sharpen our senses, to force us to cower as the world fired its first warning shot. A snatched photograph of an outstretched leg with a limp Converse training shoe was the image that blew our adolescent minds. This was when the penny dropped that shit had finally got real.
Continue reading “A Freakout with the Long Hairs by Mark Colbourne”
literally stories 