Category: All Stories

All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever–M an essay by Dale Williams Barrigar

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“One of the most unappreciated people in the world.”

– Joshua Logan on Marilyn Monroe

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be
absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” – Marilyn Monroe

“Will the wind ever remember / the names it has blown in the past?”

– Jimi Hendrix, “The Wind Cries Mary”

There’s something about Marilyn that can bring tears to the eyes like no other actress can do, and that fact does not arise from any one movie she made, whether good or bad, unless it’s The Misfits, her last, in which she is truly brilliant as a performer; she flowers and blooms into a new “her” in that film, especially in a few scenes.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, Short Fiction

562- Remembering a Wonderful Friend and Some Goofiness Regarding Genre

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A Friend

Dear Readers

Before we start this week’s silliness, I must relate the news of the passing of Tom Sheehan, who died 16 October, at age 97. Tom holds the site record of 228 stories. He and I coincidentally debuted on LS in August 2015, and Tom nearly doubled my output in less time, even though he was thirty-one years my senior. I doubt anyone will catch him.

But more importantly, Tom was a fine human being: A husband, father, grandfather, historian of Saugus, Massachusetts and a veteran of the Korean War. It is not my object to create sadness because 97 is a damn good run and Tom was still writing till the end. His final submission, an acceptance, of course, The Decoration occurred this past spring.

We will be running a far more fitting tribute to our friend in times ahead, so please keep an eye open. 

Leila, Diane, Hugh

Genre

I am not powerfully educated nor will my pride allow me to google every little mystery, but I feel that I have a fairly clear-minded grasp of genre.

I hear the word and Western, Science Fiction, Fantasy (not just impossible S.F.), Crime (or CMT), Mystery and so on pop into mind. In that regard “genre” is a useful list of things, and I highly approve of lists.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

 Unlucky by Gareth Vieira

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 Johnny Smiles was the unluckiest person in Hope County.

How unlucky? So unlucky that the town council passed a bylaw restricting him to his home. A motion that passed unanimously. A sentence he accepted without protest.

Although Johnny was an older man, most folks considered him an overgrown child. He was brilliant, in the way all children in Hope County were brilliant—a lingering side effect of the Disaster, that tainted the drinking water and perfumed the air with long-forgotten toxins.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Broken Piece of Me by Doyin Ajayi

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Adult Content

For Ann

That sound, sharp.

It slices through the air like a whip. It jolts me awake. I haven’t gotten used to it. The harmattan wind blows through the open windows. I rub my shoulders and try to warm my body up.  The huge searchlight in the yard casts a shadow of the cashew tree on the walls. The branches spook me. They’re wraiths reaching for me, their pointed tips looking like spears aimed at me, reaching for my soul. A woman’s scream. Sergeant Wasiu’s gun cocks again. He’s the chief of the guards – a cruel man with gallows humour. The creeping feeling rises up in me again. The night’s quietness is eerie. The woman’s screams are louder now, they’re bloodcurdling.

The gun roars. Her screams stop abruptly.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Retrieving Johanna by Evelyn Wall

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Gayle drove for two days expecting sirens before changing cars. She missed riding high in the brute rev of David’s truck, but the Corolla was less noticeable. The interior was damp and cloyingly chemical like its former owner with a spine like a question mark. But the keys had plucked easy from his pocket, not pulling a thread.

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All Stories, sunday whatever

The Shakespeareance of a Lifetime (Or Two) by Geraint Jonathan

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There’s a quality peculiarly magnificent to certain enthusiasts, particularly those whose enthusiasm tipped over into outright crankery, or what was perceived to be such. It depends, I suppose, on what it is has gripped the enthusiast’s imagination; a person’s overriding obsession with, say, the history of mirrors may induce a groan or a shake of the head in those utterly uninterested in the history of mirrors;  similarly, an obsession with Shakespeare will send to sleep persons not given to worrying about Shakespeare. And Shakespeare, of all writers, has worried the minds of many. In the words of scholar Ivor Brown, “Shakespeare stands alone in his spawning of cranks and bores as well as of erudite scholars and devotees of genius.”  To which one might add a note of gratitude on considering the former. Certainly the byways of Shakespeare-lore would be marginally the poorer without its tales of the grandiose and/or driven amateur.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Helicopter by Marco Etheridge

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I am cursed with my very own personal psyops helicopter, a flying machine that takes me anywhere it wants to go, no matter how much I beg it to leave me be. Matte black, of course, updated constantly—the latest sensors, time travel, you name it. Highly sensitive to excruciating shame, humiliation, and social embarrassment. Fully automated, sentient, and merciless.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Seven Flowers for Lemonade by Daniel P. Douglas

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The Lemonade Stand materialized at the corner of Maple and Third like a memory made solid, and Cliff felt his foot ease off the accelerator. Through the windshield of his sedan, the sight struck him, not of this stand with its crooked cardboard sign and red plastic cups, but of something older and as familiar as his own reflection and twice as strange.

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All Stories, General Fiction

God’s Creatures by Jennifer Sinclair Roberts

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(Content that some readers may find upsetting – refer to the tags at the bottom of the page)

“Shut up the shutters, boy, and light up the pit.”

No more words were needed. The crowd in the parlour of the King’s Head heaved and jostled. Dogs were untied from table legs as their owners rushed towards a shabby staircase leading to a room below. Jimmy Brown, the proprietor, held his hand out for shillings as the cacophonous queue pushed past.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

One for the Road by Neil James

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Dean cradles the pint glass like it’s the only thing holding him together. I don’t know how he survived losing Sophie and the baby in the same night, but eight months later he’s made it to The Lantern on Christmas Eve.

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