Well folks, here we are at week 126.
This number is pish and is no inspiration what-so-ever. Even saying that number bores, unless you have that weird wee whistle when you pronounce the letter ‘s’.
So I had to look elsewhere for inspiration.
Continue reading “Week 126 – Penny Dreadful, Bambi And Vera McBastard.”
‘Turn off the light, Susan.’ It is early morning and the cold has crept into the room through an open window. Susan doesn’t reply and I watch the plumes of her breath as she sighs gently and turns the page of her book. I put my hand lightly on her arm, ‘You must be exhausted, you’ve been reading all night.’ She glances in my direction, a hint of a smile flickers across her face which then twists in confusion. Her mouth gapes and her eyes begin to well with tears that drip on to the book’s white pages.
She cries a lot because her teeth are gone. I hold her, though I am furious she is so diseased. I imagine one day she’ll be pretty like before. Maybe she’ll let me make her all over again.
“You expect me to speak to the Archbishop? Your ideas are somewhat radical Father. For you to get on in your career you need to know how to play the game.”
“Radical? I don’t see it that way Your Grace. I think we could do a lot of good. We would build bridges. We could now bring together two sides once and for all. We need to do this, not just with our religions but with them all! But we can start with what we know.”
Continue reading “The Perfect Personification Of Religion by Hugh Cron”
A match flares. A moment later, an empty cigarette pack lands at Janey’s feet in the back seat. She stretches her arms and yawns. Her mother drums her fingers on the steering wheel and beeps the car horn. “Hurry up, Jack.” The Joe’s Blue Lounge sign creates an eerie glow inside the car, a rusted Ford sedan idling by the curb on Main Street about a block south of the square.
I still can’t believe how long it took me. To realise. Between the time she left – slammed the front door – and me making the connection. Incredible!
And all the time, the facts were staring me in the face.
I’ve began far too many of these posts with this type of comment:
All of us at Literally Stories send our thoughts to those affected by the atrocity in Manchester.
Our football season is coming to an end and that is normally a sign of summer finally turning up. Only in our country does it make sense to play sport in the rain and snow.
Anyhow back to the summer, we don’t handle those three days in June very well. As soon as it’s bright we put on our Speedos and head to the beach. The men don’t dress much better.
Unfortunately a bright day doesn’t necessarily constitute heat here in Scotland but our NHS services are wonderful and on that bright day they are well geared up with survival blankets and hot soup.
Continue reading “Week 125 – Speedos, Trifles And Rooting Rhubarb.”
I always find her this one way, it seems: sitting on her bed, high on her knees yet hunched at the shoulders as she bends into her project of the day and fixes it with her hard, Catholic glare. She has been known to work up a sweat, just hunching and glaring. Peeking at her through the door-crack, I try to imagine what kind of exertion roasts her so from the inside out, but apparently, it is something not I nor the world can see.
Freddie Pepperlyn got the idea looking at a travelogue on TV, three men and one woman in an oversized dugout canoe on a small river aiming for the Amazon, the water around them burgeoning with flesh eaters of all kinds. All kinds. Crocks or ‘gators or caiman, or whatever they had down there that grew tails long as houses, and then the piranha like an army of friggin’ fire ants. Bet they could get her to screw all day, he thought, if they threatened to throw her over the side, and her big enough, proud enough, all woman right down to her goddamn toes. In a pair of beat-up and ragged denim shorts she had hips that caught onto his eyes like his own personal clamps, as if they had his name on them: Freddie’s stuff, they said. Her secrets were fingers away. Oh, he could smell her, the bends in her, the dips, the fade-a-ways to you-know-what.
Continue reading “The Innocence of a Lakeside Interruption by Tom Sheehan Tom Sheehan”
Karl’s hand landed solidly onto Lola’s cheek.
She woke up abruptly.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. There was a fly on you. I wanted to get it before it bit you.” Lola sat up in her chair and rubbed her face.
“There aren’t any bugs in space, Karl. They can’t survive out here. Nothing can survive out here.”
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