A farmer had two Volkswagen Beetles, both of them white with spreading rust trim and not a running board between them. He’d interchanged their parts so many times in his efforts to keep at least one of them running, now, neither one would start. Their driving days were over. Hoping to find some cheap replacement parts, the farmer clomped out to get the morning paper, but found only a pamphlet someone had left beneath a stone on his porch:
LIFE IS AN ECHO: YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW
Author’s Note
The Dreamtime, a series of Aboriginal legends, celebrates shapeshifting giants that once roamed Australia. The giants forged paths—songlines—which marked the mountains, the rivers, the stars. Their spirits still linger today. Continue reading “The Outback (a novel excerpt) by James Hanna”
Reed watched as Orla moved closer to his wife, as if intent on convincing him just how much prettier she was. He didn’t need convincing.
Continue reading “Rust is Rust, Is a Petal, Is Love by Adam Lock”
We paint smiley faces on the balloons so he knows we love him and everything’s okay. We tie the strings in bowline knots so they won’t get loose and mess everything up. We wheel him out of the room, and we think he smiles when the morning light falls on his face, and that makes us all smile, too.
Continue reading “The Last Time I Saw Grampaw By Matthew Lyons”
The mountains were sunlit, like glory loose of heaven, dark as old souls at their valley roots, in the clutch of earth trembling from a sky-high battle with its last aerial shot not yet fired, its last echo of death riding the sweep of air, when the screeching, not identified, began on high. The sounds of death had breath to spare, and the U.S Air Force’s F86 Sabre pursuit fighter plane from the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing, out of Suwon Air Base or Kimpo Air Base, both in South Korea, tumbled from the sky, the roar, the screech, the scream of air being sliced nearly by its atoms or other miniscule thinness not measureable by any of the troops facing each other on the ground.
Continue reading “Comes a Prisoner Bound in Rags by Tom Sheehan”
I write this as the events in London unfold.
Our world has many sicknesses and all of them are man induced, no matter what their ideals or beliefs. For our world and the innocents I do grieve and all of us at Literally Stories pass on our thoughts to those involved.
This has brought me to the topic of madness. But not the narrow minded madness from a bunch of insignificant bastards who can’t comprehend the common theme of being human first, followed, with no significance, of sex or religion.
Continue reading “Week 116 Short Paragraphs, Alien Slime And Type-Writer Ribbon”
Today, quicksilver March clouds hug Torqwamni Hill in a multilayered embrace composed of soft kisses and the murmured promise of a twisted-shank thrust below the sternum and into the heart. Both may be interpreted as acts of affection. And it is Tennyson who claims that spring is when young men think of love; yet nothing the Lord says expands well on what the young ladies make of the situation. Perhaps this is because it is less poetic, and concerns what passes from mothers to daughters on the subjects of cows and the price of milk.
Continue reading “A Whistle for the Goatfooted Balloonman by Leila Allison”
It’s strange how a summer’s day can be unsettling. Especially amongst the shadows of the trees. The bird song is sweet but I don’t like it. The breeze is warm but it chills me and even though I am cold, I’m covered in sweat.
To prepare for the trial ahead, the boy must fast for three days.
On the third day, there is a ceremonial feast that begins the quest. It marks the beginning of the boy’s ascent to manhood and it marks the beginning of the Suburban Vision Quest.
In the lands of suburbia, in the whitest and most complacent of Canadian suburbs, the Suburban Vision Quest has arisen to bring isolated families together so that they can celebrate a child’s elevation to adulthood. It also doubles as a harsh lesson that spoiled suburban kids shouldn’t complain that their house is so big that it needs two Wi-Fi routers. The young men and women of the suburbs fulfill this quest to prove their worth and to prove to their overbearing parents that they are ready to move out.
The riot starts over a juice box or some other stupid shit and then the nasty little dogfuckers are everywhere with their teeth and shitty little hands, so Mr Procter has to run to the art room to get something to defend himself with. The big blade is missing off the paper cutter, so he has to settle for an old metal T-square that he swings like an ax. From in here, he can hear grownups dying and little voices screaming that God is dead, a maniac anthem chorused with shrill, cruel laughter.
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