Category: All Stories

All Stories, General Fiction

In Through the Wow-Signal Emoji By Leila Allison

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Renfield and Ethan Stoker-Belle are the proud owners of a “Spirit-enhanced house.” This used to mean “haunted house,” and the bump-in-the-night types within were known as “ghosts.” Whether you think it political correctness run amok, or simply a verbal showing of respect for the departed, a plurality of the individuals on the Otherside have a strong antipathy for the word “ghost.” You must call them Spirits. Nearly all Spirits find the G-word offensive, for it implies a state of existence inferior to that of the original item. This hoary old stereotype is going to be hard to dislodge from the human psyche; and not helping matters that much is the haughty attitude of some Spirits, who seem to deny that the only thing they had to do to become what they are is die. Still, the dead outnumber the quick by a ratio of nearly thirty to one. Nowadays this vast once silent majority refuses to rest in peace.

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All Stories, Science Fiction

The Spectacularly Unspectacular Life of Alton J. Sputnitter by Jonathan DeCoteau

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1st Leap Year

“Happy 10th birthday, Alton,” Aloise Sputnitter said as she sat at Alton’s kitchen table.   “It must be fun to be born on Leap Year.”

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All Stories, Short Fiction

Week 121 – Right…Wrong…Or Fred

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A wee change. Review first, then explanation…Then a treat…A Saturday story!!

Let us first consider our stories of the week.

We only had one new author, that is a bit sparse of late but we never squelch on quality as our repeated writers continue to ooze talent.

We have the usual eclectic mix including clowns, a repetition, ghosts, a common fear and a musical machine that we all want to see!

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All Stories, General Fiction

Syncopated Destiny by Bruce Levine

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Charles Warren had been working on his invention for two years, but a key component continued to elude him.     It was simply a machine that played a simple melody, but it wasn’t a traditional music producing machine like a music box or hurdy-gurdy, but rather a giant set of complex elements, more like a huge mechanical sculpture.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Still Here by Melanie Haws

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Wipe off my chin. Please. There is a handkerchief in my pocket. That’s the way I was raised. Get it out and wipe the drool off. Now. And look at me when you talk to me, the way you used to, when we were first married. I’m still here, you know, I’m still here. The older the violin, the sweeter the music. My mother fiddled. I remember the feel of her gloved hand in mine one afternoon, walking me down Market Street, when she stopped and gasped, There’s your daddy. I looked across the street at the man watching us, and he didn’t seem at all a father to me. Only another guy on the street. I squeezed my mother’s hand and we walked quickly in the other direction. I did not look back. I was eight then. I cannot remember the sound of my mother’s voice, or when she passed, but I know that she is gone.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Slap Happy by Fred Vogel

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By the time Slap Happy was born, his parents, Jacob and Evelyn Happerson, had abandoned the circus life and were running a successful dry cleaning business in Canton, Ohio. Gone was the excitement of The Big Top, replaced by hard work and the strong desire to provide their only child with nothing but the best. Jacob held out hope that maybe one day he and Evelyn would return to the circus so his son could follow in his old man’s clown shoes, but Evelyn was quick to put the kibosh on any such idea.

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All Stories, General Fiction

It Varies From Fool to Fool by JC Freeman

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At sixteen, Thommy Lemolo broke her leg while playing high school softball. She’d been tracking a pop-up in the outfield and had stepped in a small hole, which did big damage to both her right tibia and fibula. “Never break a bone before, kid? By the look of that leg I’d say you got two for the price of one,” said the vaguely cute X-ray tech as he prepared to take images of her injury at the hospital. A good thick shot of morphine had knocked back her pain, and it also made people funnier and vaguely cuter than they were prior to the drug’s administration.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Punxsutawney Elegy by Patrick Winters

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His black containment suit stood out stark against the all-encompassing white and gray of the forest about him. Specks of white swirled through the chilly air, both whipping and wafting against the thick outer padding of the Level A gear; still, he could feel the cold seeping through the protective layers and across his skin. He shivered as he huffed his way through shin-thick drifts of white, his thick boots awkward to trek in, his breather working overtime in the closed hood about his head, and his gloved hands grasping his rifle with determination.

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All Stories, Latest News

Week 120 – Insecurities, Placebos And Goosing Lamp Posts.

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I’ve been thinking on insecurities and what fun they are to write about. You can have a laugh and rip the pish out of other folks and you can do the same with your own but that isn’t funny.

I would rather use it as a self-help exercise, ’cause lets be honest, if you can write about them and put them out there, you will never need to pay a therapist.

Now paying a therapist seems to be something people in other countries do. We don’t. Us Scottish people would never dream of doing this and that has sod all to do with the very false stereotype of us being mean.

We wear our madness as a badge of honour. To be sectioned is the top accolade but it very seldom happens. The only way this can happen is if you sexually assault a lamp-post and it complains to the authorities.

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