All Stories, General Fiction

The Hedge by Penny Faircloth

The town fidgets on a rock outcrop spouting with springs. Only a few decades ago its salient features were a few old-time stringband musicians busking on the pavement, a minor moviehouse, a tractor showroom, the teaching college and the big Baptist church that owned the majority. Some of those old boys and girls are Grammy winners since, but the theater awaits refurbishment and the tractor palace is a coffee shop, the university is open to everyone and the Baptist Church is at most number two on the scene. The university has become the largest landholder in town. It owns almost everything. Another two thousand students and it can advance to a higher football division. Football has cleaned up the town.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Beneath Your Skin by Rose Banks

You weren’t yourself, that night.

Usually, when you got back late, you went straight to bed. I’d wait for ten minutes or so, until you’d finished clattering about up there, then creep up the stairs and slip into bed beside you. And then lie awake, staring at the ceiling. Listening to the clock. Tick. Tock. Trying not to wonder where you’d been, and with whom, and what you might’ve got up to.

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All Stories, Latest News

Week 230 – So Many Songs, So Many Shit Musicals And Friends Who Are Good People, Gagging For It.

These postings come up quicker every week and here we are at Week 230.

I’ve given up trying to find any interesting facts about numbers as they are mostly pish. If we reach Week 667, that could be entitled ‘The Neighbour Of The Beast’. T-Shirts give me some ideas! I’m looking for a way to work in either, ‘I poke badgers with spoons’ or ‘I’m not mad, ask my invisible camel, Stephen.’

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All Stories, General Fiction

Distraction by Sharon Hajj

Distraction by Sharon HajjIn the morning, I like to bury my dreams under the pillow so I can immediately check my to-do list:

  1. Go to store for soy milk, oatmeal, and dog food
  2. Buy paint and stencils for bookshelf
  3. Make an appointment for a mammogram
  4. Call and wish Mom happy birthday
  5. Dump your belongings in the trash

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All Stories, General Fiction

Winter Solstice by Jon Beight

I sit in silence amid the scattered, worthless rubble of what were the symbols of your life’s bright flashes and triumphs that you hold so dear. These shattered remains lay in tribute to unbridled, hate-filled rage, spawned from the union of betrayal and deceit.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Stripped by Hugh Cron

Jane couldn’t keep her clothes on.

She’d been arrested a few times on public decency charges but when the authorities witnessed her prison togs repelling themselves from her, the charges were dropped.

She was referred to experts on everything but there were no experts on spontaneous clothing removal by the clothing itself.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Lost Notes of a Carpenter’s Song by Tom Sheehan

His name was Amos Clark, 75 years old if a day, and on one of those days at the little decrepit house where the dowser used to live, this kind-looking man with a beard came carrying all he owned on an A-frame on his back. He set his A-frame on the ground and looked at the small house needing much work on the outside and quickly imagined what the inside of the house looked like. Old muscles, in a twist of memory, began to move under his shirt.

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