Category: All Stories

All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

Black Bear on White Paper by Desmond White

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In the Archial, what some call the Little Light Library, it is always night. The distant ceiling is a night’s sky held by pillars, and connecting those pillars are shelves of books coated in leather and dust. The only light comes from lanterns. Inside steel cages, white fires flicker eternally, generated by a lost art. The lanterns are stars if anything. The lower one travels, the bluer those stars. Deep enough and there are no lights at all.

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All Stories, Horror, Short Fiction

Paper Skins by L’Erin Ogle

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I take the skins of the women my lover loved. I flesh them until they are paper thin. They are folded stacked in a box at the back of my closet. The box is cherry wood and the lock is made of gold. I know it should be silver, because silver contains powerful magic, and sometimes I hear the skins shifting and whispering to each other.

Think what you want.

He left me no choice.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Summoning the Toads by Matthew Roy Davey

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The Mooney woman taught him how to do it.  She was forbidden to be on the premises, but she called Alfie over one day when he was playing near the fence that bordered the lane.  The call was a high fluttering whistle, dancing like a mountain stream.  He had been building a den from old branches and bracken when he heard, and though he knew from whence came the sound, he was drawn there as though to a trove of sweets.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

December by T D Calvin

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A small bird lands at the roadside, scuffing the hot dust, and she asks the tour guide what it is.

“Zebra finch,” he says.  “They’re what you wanna see if you’re lost out here.”

Eilidh watches the bird dab at the earth with its orange beak.

“Must be water somewhere close,” the guide says.  “They never stray far from it.”

“I wouldn’t either,” she says.

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All Stories, Literally Reruns

Literally Reruns – November Moon by Sharon Frame Gay

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The wonderful Leila Allison is keeping us well supplied with Rerun suggestions and they are all superb choices. Thank you so much Leila. This is what she had to say about November Moon:

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All Stories, Writing

Week 209 – Teaching Welsh, Dejavu And A Wish That Men Should Suffer Horrendous Thrush From Using Bathing Products.

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Well it’s been a busy week here at Literally Stories. We worked our way through forty odd stories (And some good ones!)

We have reached the quarter of a million hits and all is well in our wee writing world.

Continue reading “Week 209 – Teaching Welsh, Dejavu And A Wish That Men Should Suffer Horrendous Thrush From Using Bathing Products.” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Sharpie Tattoos by Jacie Pridgeon

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For once, Audrey was glad Mason had worn that maroon knit cap his dad had given him. The wind swept low around them as they sat on the park bench, chilling Audrey while the bare tree tops remained still.

Her son did not look up from doodling on his hand as he asked, “What did the people at the garage tell you?”

“They think they know what’s wrong, but they can’t fix it until tomorrow.”

“How much?” Now he started on the other side, turning his hand before she could look at the ink splotches covering his palm.

“Enough to cut into our hotel money. No continental breakfast for us, kiddo.” One transmission leak leaves us scrambling, she thought.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Another One of His Punishments by Paul Beckman

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My son and I meet in the City, dinner and talk. And drink. More and more drink as time goes by. He is quite the drinker, my son is, Old Overholt Rye on the rocks–a drinkers drink. None of those blends that people call Rye. Who am I to talk? When I was his age, twenty-seven, I was out drinking every night and my poison of choice was Tequila.

But it’s not the same. Sometimes I think he needs his golden anesthesia to tolerate our time together. We hug hello and goodbye and he never acts embarrassed to kiss me when he sees me. We never have a bad time, not like the old days, which were rocky as all Hell. That’s okay. Fathers and sons should have a little conflict to make them stronger and bond as more than just parent and child when they get older. By now we should be bonded at the hip, but I worry that he’s getting the Irish disease which is even worse for a Jew than for a Mick. I should know.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Burden Burner by Gina Yates

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One horrifying glance at a sneaky security monitor and Marlene Brown’s psychic core is thrown completely out of whack. Could that garish orange blob on the screen – that grotesque display of neck fat approaching the check-in desk – really be her?

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Just a Moment by Daniel Paton

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And now little Charlie is banging on the door. He doesn’t understand why his dad has locked himself in there, and neither do I. All I know is that I started looking at myself in the mirror and now I can’t get out. And I’m sweating through my shirt, my tie hanging undone around my neck. And I’ve only just realised that my trousers are down around my ankles. I’m ridiculous. A grown man rooted to the floor with his trousers down. Imagine if Charlie was to see that? He’d be traumatised, confused, even more than I am.

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