We reach the housing estate by mid-morning.
The site office is closed for business and surrounded by construction vehicles long since abandoned. Buildings hide behind frameworks of scaffold with empty windows and hollow interiors. Here the recession has spoken with confidence. Construction work has ceased and the estate is destined to stand empty and unfinished.
Continue reading “The Islands of Bluebell Meadow by Paul Thompson”
I was at a loss on what to write this week. The sun was shinning and everything was bright and cheerful. I was miserable. I don’t like the sun. I used to suffer from migraines and light annoyed me, so I am left with a lasting hatred of it. Where I stay, if the weather is nice(?) the sun always shines. Well that isn’t true, the sun always shines in my eyes. No matter whether I sit at the front or the back of the house, the light either bounces its way around three parked cars, through the window and straight into my retinas or it just illuminates the back window. To be truthful this is normally only an issue three days a year but it is still annoying. There’s something soothing about the dark. It doesn’t violate your eyes. Life just likes to annoy me at times, that is why I am forced to work with the public.
So, with these thoughts in mind, I began thinking about personal preference. There are so many things that can be good for some and bad for others – The old saying of one man’s poison and all that. So for me, when the sun comes out, it doesn’t just have me squinting like a Shar Pei sooking a lemon, it makes me too damn warm. I can sweat for Scotland in August (The winter) not one of my most attractive traits I might add, but in warm weather I am my own paddling pool. I am never dry. It is disgusting and I actually judge my wife for staying with me. She would have been as well marrying a bloody puddle. So we now have a problem of moisture to add to the light issue. This is nothing, my biggest gripe with the sunshine is all the cheery folk that smell of coconut. They smile too much, laugh too much, enjoy themselves too much and are around me too much. I have a problem with enthusiasm, but enthusiasm when I am blind and wet doesn’t fill me with much joy.
So my wish when it’s sunny and warm, is hatred and hoping that the rain returns. Sure, I would still be wet but at least I could see the misery in everyone else’s eyes!
This segment is becoming quite structured. I don’t normally like structure, it is the sensible parents of boredom but there is no other way for me to do this and sometimes we need to use it!! So as usual, to this weeks cornucopia of topics. We have thoughts of infatuation, greed and need. We not only have deceit, this is tied in with being easily led. Rivalry instigates a bad decision and lastly, something that can be through most stories, acceptance.
As usual, initial comments are attached.
John Henry is a new writer who was published on Monday with his story, ‘Connecting The Dots’. We welcome you John.
‘The MC was a simple soul who was a sucker for a pretty face’
‘The sparse delivery made this convincing.
Tuesday, we were so happy to publish an old friend of ours, Anthony Wobbe gave us ‘Daniel’s Day’. Hopefully he will send us in many more.
‘I was really impressed.’
‘I enjoyed the patois.’
‘The suddenness of the ending worked well.’
We had been recommended to Ed Barkin and we are very pleased that he took us up with his wonderfully titled ‘Guy And The Baby Doll’ which was Wednesday’s posting.
‘This was quite menacing’
‘It was pithy’
‘I loved the lines about the wheels of destiny’
Thursday cometh and we had the absolute pleasure of another of Mr Tom Sheehan’s beautifully worded tales, ‘Catch Of The Day’
‘He really transports you into a story.’
‘A lesson so gently taught that you can only appreciate it afterwards.
The end of the week and we had something so different. Oh I am not talking about Friday, it was still the day in question. I am sure Diane who is editing this will change this bit of fact if it’s wrong. We welcome the youngest member to our site. Luna Moore has sent us something that makes you smile all the way through with ‘Gestalt Girl’.
What a fun, silly, intelligent piece this is.’
‘Layer upon layer of meaning’
‘I believe this girl can write.’
If you couldn’t find something within those wonderful stories to make you laugh or cry or ponder, you have even less emotion than me!!
Now talking about getting emotional, all the editors at Literally Stories become very emotional when we receive a submission as per our guidelines. It is as rare as a phoenix rising from the ashes of a unicorn who has strolled into the fires of the millennium in Brigadoon. We have therefore reviewed our submissions page and tried to make things a little clearer:
We need the word count as we have a limit.
We need the genre as we have restrictions.
We need notification if the story has been submitted elsewhere or if it is a simultaneous submission, this is courtesy to all sites involved.
A few sentences of introduction is also nice.
And structure as requested, that is how we set up.
Have a read of the page.
Please, please when submitting ANYWHERE, do yourself a favour and follow the guidelines, there is a reason for them all.
That’s another week in folks, so please go out in the rain and smile, that will make me miserable! And submit a story following the guidelines, that will make us happy!
Hugh
Banner Image: By charles (Own work (Screenshot)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Three of us for dozens of years were tight as a fist. No one could break us up, and a few had tried that on a few futile occasions, even when we gentlemen were fly fishing on one or more of the local streams, dawn afloat, May alive after a harsh winter and a tough early spring. Patterns were set betwixt us, like specialties of the house or garage or personal workshop, toil and turn at obstacles and unfinished tasks were before us who by each one’s choice in life’s work had brought the gifts of ideas and applicable and talented hands to extend those gifts. For each one of us possessed odd and different talents in electrical, mechanical and brute strength applications and peculiar other interests like coin and stamp collecting, scrap book organization and minimal, but touching artwork by a loving touch, family interest passed down from a parent or an older sibling.
He had lost all interest in the newspaper, even though it was the Sunday edition and contained fourteen sections in all. When he had bought the paper late that night, he had assumed he would read it from cover to cover; but in actuality he had read only two articles — one about how the stock market had dropped 350 points the previous day and another about how the CIA was pushing for a looser interpretation of the law which prohibited it from engaging in political assassinations. If he had been either heavily invested or a liberal, one of these articles might have stimulated productive thought in his mind. As it was, however, the only thoughts which he entertained were homicidal or otherwise insane. Continue reading “Guy and The Baby Doll by Edward S Barkin”
Daniel was covered in tattoos and facial piercings; to me he looked clownish, like a painted up fishing lure. He sat in my office, fidgety and nervous, waiting for the lunch meeting to be over; someone told him I was the person with the authority to approve his lease. When I got there the receptionist whispered that he’d waited the entire two hours.
I came of age in a time of no heroes. Or, rather, in a time when, because seemingly everyone was a hero, no one was. At least that was how Mariska explained it to me. She said that we Americans were so desperate to be saved from terrors both real and imagined that we’d pin a medal on just about anything that moved.
This week I mentioned to my twenty-two year old gaffer something about Irvine Welsh’s book ‘Trainspotting’. She hadn’t a Scooby. I thought about it and realised that I wasn’t mentioning something ‘Hip and Happening’. There was no ‘Respect’ or ‘Bringing It On’. The only thing that was there, was me, an old git mentioning a book that I thought was ‘Street’ and bang up to date, when the actual fact was that it’s twenty-three years old! This got me thinking on the books that I have read, when I read them and the difference between them and short stories.
Dressed in mourning suits, they listened to the minister as he read out the eulogy. My name is Benjamin Carmichael and at fifty-two years old this was my funeral. To me, it seemed surreal as if floating around in a euphoric haze viewing my coffin draped in the clan tartan shawl and adorned with white lilies. Peeping through a small gap I could see the faces of the congregation and by their demure I sensed an impatient acceptance. Were they saddened by the tale of a tragic loss as imposed on them by the monotonous voice of the minister or were they merely bored by the ritual? Surely, this was the day they had been expecting for years and eventually their long suffering would be over. Soon, the body would be cremated to ash and the soul free to flutter heavenly in a plume of white smoke, and they will be able to continue their lives free from guilty retributions.
The grapes of wrath were just grapes, or so I think. I never read the book. The forbidden fruit was merely an apple. And, the pizza margarita Julia Roberts passionately lauded in the movie Eat, Pray, Love was but a simple symmetry of bread and cheese. So, I had to ask myself, were the onions under the edge of Mauricio’s knife really the onions of lost, undying love? Or just onions?
Stiff waves of oniony scent circulated around the kitchen, so harsh that I double-checked the window. It was doing the job I’d assigned, blinds drawn up, half-open, sifting the light in while letting the place breathe, yet my eyes watered. Mo’s too were spouting onto his tanned cheeks as he chopped away, however those tears weren’t aroma-induced. Only a week had passed since the lovely split, after all.
Mo put the knife down and lifted the cutting board, carrying it toward the hollowed out heads of iceberg lettuce on the counter. “Onions in first,” he said, voice frail. “Just how she did it.” He tapped the edge of the wooden board to let chunks of onion fall into each of the two lettuce heads. “Isn’t that right, Nick?”
“For sure,” I said, thumb in the air, dripping in sarcasm. “Got to go in first.” The dents in the carpeting from Penny Triano’s now-removed sofa hadn’t even risen before Mo wanted to wallow in her dirty bergs. A head of iceberg lettuce stuffed with onions, ground sausage, peppers, and grated cheese, cheddar jack preferably. Really it was mediocre cuisine, at least now without the snarky comments.
“Penny always burrowed right down to the bottom for these,” Mo whispered. He ran his finger around the rim of a berg, peering inside. “Like her fork was a drill. She couldn’t leave the onions alone.”
And Eve couldn’t leave that damned apple alone, I thought, which is cause for this sobfest of human imperfection to begin with, if we’re to listen to my Grandma Jean. I was actually content with Penny’s departure. When one’s best friend since college is returned from two years in a plastic wench’s purse and wiped off her to-do calendar, gratitude trumps sympathy.
“I miss her so much already.” His quivering hands opened the oven, offering a meaty twist to the onion smell.
“Yeah, sucks man,” I dully said. Eyes dried, I stepped forward and enjoyed a whiff of the sausage pan. The eyes across from me, of course, remained damp.
The sausage found refuge in the bergs, and Mo plucked from the fridge a pre-sliced bag full of red peppers and made way for the microwave. “She would’ve never cooked like this,” he said with a wounded chuckle. “She’d be ashamed.” A high, whiny-type noise was now seeping from his mouth that fell beyond recognition. A laugh? A sob? A precursor to a bowel movement? The final straw was losing hold.
“Who cares what that bitch thinks?” A tinge of hurtful profanity was worth a shot to snap him out of it.
He faced me. “What’d you say?”
“You heard. You’re better off without Penny. Mo, you’re a thirty-year-old man, not some lapdog for a prima donna with too much bronzer. This is your chance to move on, now take it.” The bite marks lined on my tongue were healing, freeing it to let rip.
“I can’t belief you,” he said. The Latino in his voice spiked, a flash of Venezuelan in his oft-American pan. “You know I still love her. And saying that while making the recipe we wouldn’t have if not for her!”
“Do you see me helping? I wanted pizza.”
Mo gasped dramatically, mouth open, some gelled hair and stubble away from a soap opera cameo.
Then came delicate knocks on the front door.
“Stay here,” he said, storming past me. “We’re not done.” The draft of outside air tickled the back of my neck once the door creaked open. “Penny?”
I whipped my head around, praying Mo had been mistaken, but no dice. Bleached blonde extensions, push-up bra, makeup fit for late October, all in the doorway.
“Hello, Mauricio,” she said. “May I come in?”
Mo stumbled, shot, though not by a gun. “Of, of course,” he said, wiping his eyes. “C’mon in.”
The humanity. Like the last week never freakin’ happened.
The click-clack of those cheap heels followed Mo inside. I quickly turned to avoid the displeasure of locking eyes with the hyena.
“Nicholas,” she said sharply. Her enormous black purse collided with my arm on her way past.
“Penny,” I grumbled, eyes glued to the floor as per usual.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Mo said. “Look at what I was making.”
“Awe!” exclaimed the dirtiest of bergs. “Baby, my dish! You’re so sweet!” Her extensions rustled as she hugged him.
“Just for you, baby. Want some?” I peered up to see Mo toss some peppers and cheese into my lettuce head before putting it all on a plate. “Here you go.”
Penny snatched the plate with a “thanks sweetie,” grabbed a fork, and dug it so deeply into my dinner. “Onions first,” she screeched, wilting my eyebrows. “You should start cleaning up in here, though, Mauricio. It’s a mess.”
“Okay, honey.”
The fork had its haul and was about to deliver an onion-filled bite. The fading sunlight through the window turned a fiery red, or perhaps that was just my vision. Akin to an involuntary twitch, my arm leapt into action without warning and drove through the fork and plate, knocking both downward. The plate shattered while the lettuce head erupted in a flurry of meaty chunks that coated our lower halves. Mo and Penny were speechless, slack-jawed, like they’d seen a ghost. Not a ghost, just a friend who’d finally had enough.
I cracked a smile. “So…who wants pizza?”
Nathan Driscoll
Header Image: CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1417092
“Good Morning Mr. Schmertz. This is Dawn with Orlando Marketing and Tourism to let you know you’ve just won an all-expenses paid discount opportunity to visit one of our luxury resorts in the Greater Orlando Area…let me axe you …would you be interested in speaking with one of our senior sales agents…”
“What time is it?”
“It’s 6:15am Eastern on this beautiful Tuesday morning…how are you doing today sir?”
“Go fuck yourself and never call here again.”
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