Vince hid the look of disbelief as he stared at the twenty-something punk who had just asked him the ridiculous question. Worse, had done it with a smirk that told him right away what he already suspected from the beginning.
He didn’t have a chance at this job.
“Out, out!” roared the unfolding supernova, its end birthing one last litter of photons into the universe. Out these photons flew, alongside their elemental brethren, into every direction of this breathless third dimension. Out they flew, these fairies of light, into the stunning dark.
Crazy Ed Mahoney went out the back door on Monday to urinate in his garden. He believed, incorrectly, that he was saving on his water bill. His neighbors had given up on changing his ways. After seeing him in the act a few times, they learned not to look in the direction of his backyard at 7am, 1pm and 4pm when Ed would urinate like clockwork. Whatever else was wrong with Ed, he had an excellent prostate.
Craterville came up like the rock came down, in one helluva hurry. When the dust cleared, there was a town where the hole used to be, and a hundred or more shafts were slicing down into the earth. After six men were shot, five of them bushwhacked, one surprising a thief deep in his digs, the saloon owner, Harry Wilkes, called a meeting of town businessmen. Wilkes once was a conductor who got off his train one day outside Omaha and never got back on.
Continue reading “The Craterville Catastrophe by Tom Sheehan”
“My father, Franz Josef Schennach, was a gendarme, Hauptmann, in Tirol. After the Nazi took over, he had to prove that he was Arian. He could not prove this,” Anna Stenson said. She looked across the room from her chair.
“Brown eyes go to Africa… They taunted me. At school. Only the blue eyes would stay in Europe, if Hitler won. I was hoping he would not,” she said adjusting the hem of her skirt.
Continue reading “Swords Hanging on the Walls by Richard Mark Glover”
Even though nothing was said. Nothing was mentioned. I am still sure that my fellow editors were sniggering in the corner when I agreed to write this…Thanks guys!
I can be mature without a second thought! It’s not a problem! I can be serious and focused straight off the bat…So here is my 417th version of this posting.
The Land Rover is making an awful grinding sound because Dave took a bump on the beach too fast while staring at his reflection in the rearview mirror. I hear a splat and look behind to see we’ve run over another jellyfish and Dave’s back staring at his reflection again.
“I look good don’t I?”
His face is gaunt and hollow with bags under his eyes from a sleepless night in the tent; his hair is greasy, unkempt, and longer than I’ve ever seen it; he is unshaven with the patchiest beard I thought possible; but he is tanned, I’ll give him that.
We are quiet, motionless and sad faced at home. Sometimes I smile just to startle you. I wonder if you still love me or if I am a particle you depend on to avoid the throb of loneliness.
We once argued, both of us so angry murderous thoughts surrounded our minds. You smacked me until I stumbled backwards against the wall, my eyes malicious with hurt and resentment. When the shock was over, I giggled and staggered towards you. “Do that more often. I love the devilish feeling it provokes.”
They vanished. One by one. The first to disappear was Pedro Nogales. Jaime Morales said he couldn’t imagine why his cousin Pedro had taken off like that. Without a word to anyone. Even more puzzling, everything that mattered to Pedro, including his favorite wide-brimmed straw hat, a black leather-look jacket he’d saved months to purchase and a shiny red polyester shirt he wore to birthday parties and dances, had been left behind.
It was my wife, Esme, who suggested we get a pet for our children. “It will teach them responsibility,” she said.
“Sounds good,” I replied. However, I was not actually paying attention when she brought up the subject because I was going over my notes for a lecture on string theory. So, it came as a complete surprise when Esme and the twins arrived home from the pet store with a ferret.
Continue reading “Quantum Hamsters and Other Pet Anomalies by Hermine Robinson”
literally stories 