Category: All Stories

All Stories, General Fiction

The Funeral by Kevin Counterman

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Sonny’s hand shook as he took a drag from his cigarette. Rain drops from the eaves above bruised onto Sonny’s faded grey scaly cap. He watched on as his lifelong friend Daniel reached the walkway to the funeral home. With his head down, and hands in his rain slicker’s pockets, Daniel walked down the cobbled path. “Sonny,” he said with a nod, as he reached the tall, twin hinged doors. The two men shared a moment of a silence, backs toward the funeral home, long faces towards the rain, as Sonny’s cigarette began to fade.

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All Stories, General Fiction

What Follows (The Chair) by R. Harlan Smith

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On the night Frank Pearls died, he gathered his little congregation around his chair and gave each of them a little snack like a priest giving Holy Communion. They received their snacks gleefully and smacked their lips to show their appreciation. Then he settled back in his chair, swallowed another glass of whiskey, filled the glass again, and in his calm, pleasant voice,  proceeded – sometimes he would read to them from Joyce, or Kierkegaard, or Al Capp, or sometimes he would just talk to them about philosophy, but he would never tell them it was philosophy. Tonight he would talk.

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All Stories, Humour

The Black and White of it by Peter Caffrey

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Melvin sat on the garden wall, deep in thought. Chip pan fires were the stuff of 1970s public information films and soap operas. He didn’t know a single person who had suffered a chip pan fire but out of the blue, it happened to him.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Talk Part Three – Driving While Black by Frederick K Foote

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“Hey, Beth, you got a minute? I need your advice.”

“Greg, not really, however, I’ll always make time for a call from my ex-husband and the father of our children. First of all, you should move out of that horribly dangerous Oak Park place where you have domiciled my children. Apparently, the law enforcement thugs have a year-round open season on black people in Sacramento.”

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All Stories

Week 174 – Avoidance, Rat-Motherfuckers And Ideas You Wished You Had Thought Of.

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Here we are at Week 174 and if there was anyway I could eradicate a Saturday, I would!

I honestly wish I was anywhere in the planet other than here in Scotland for the next week. In fact I wish I was on another fecking planet.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Woodpecker Telegraph System by Leila Allison

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Elmer Fudd’s laugh speeded up ten-thousand times comes close to describing the sound of a woodpecker beaking the holy hell out of a metal chimney cap. A pneumatic “uh-huh-huh-huh-huh,” with a little “phu-bub-buh-tuth,” thrown in for variety, gives you the soul of the thing. Wikipedia calls this behaviour drumming.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Table 6 by Monica Strina

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We live in Gino’s Café, Beaufort South Carolina, Minerva and I. Here’s the reason why I called her that, before you start a-wondering too: the moment she came out of me, she already had this face like she’s thinking about something all the time, so Gino said to call her Minerva – ‘Like the goddess of Wisdom,’ he says – and I did. It’s not like there was anyone else around to offer me a different name.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Short Fiction

Progress, Not Perfection by Fernando Meisenhalter

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I rob banks, and I always get away clean, except this one time when my old lady ratted me out to the cops.  She wanted part of the money to pay for her smack addiction, and I didn’t give her any, so she went to the cops, told them about the heist, and I did time.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Taps by DC Diamondopolous

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Peter crouched in front of the attic window and gazed down on old man Mueller’s cornfield. The plow, unhitched beyond the stalks, turned north like he meant to continue but got interrupted. Peter looked toward the barn, no sign of Mueller’s horse and buggy. The Amish and Mennonite neighbors, with their peculiar ways kept to themselves. Mueller only talked to his pa when he accused Rufus of killing his chickens, or a year ago, the day his brother’s mind broke when Gabe went screaming from the veranda twisting his ears as he ran into Muller’s cornfield. That day Mueller shot out of the house, the top of his unsnapped overalls flapping as he sprinted after Gabe, Mueller’s wife and five children dashed onto the porch, the boys still in their pajamas.

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