I didn’t know, I had no idea, if I’d known I would never have opened the inbox.
I was just checking the emails, sorting out the junk, the ads and the spam, click, click, click. That was when I saw it, for the first time, the first message.
Category: All Stories
Purgare by Phillip E. Temples
“At the end, all that’s left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never been able to throw anything away…” –Nicole Krauss.
~
“Don, you have to help me. I’m desperate. Isn’t there some drug I can take, or a therapy?”
Don’s longtime friend, a successful accountant named Avraham “Avi” Goldstein, asked the question of Donald E. Cashdollar, M.D., Ph.D., an eminent physician and researcher at the Brookline Center for Neurological Research. Cashdollar put his hand to his chin as though to reinforce his thinking in response to the question. As he did so, Cashdollar shifted ever so slightly, sinking deeper into Goldstein’s living room easy chair. “Careful, Don—“
Anniversary by Nik Eveleigh
“…and when I asked him if he had any banking experience do you know what he said?”
Toby grins. Waits for the punchline.
“He said… and I quote…” Alan straightens his tie, leans back for effect. “He said… I’ve had a savings account since I was fifteen.”
Alan Ward is not the kind of boss who waits for subordinate approval. He’s a table thumping, bellowing roar kind of a guy and stays true to form. “A savings account? If the little shit had managed a current account I might have employed him for the hell of it.”
Toby shakes his head. Rueful smile, thinks about what to say. Settles for an agreeable but flimsy “Savings account!” and another head shake.
Before We Started Worrying by Martyn Clayton
This was before we all started worrying about skin cancer. If you got burnt early doors the rest of the holiday you’d slowly turn brown. It was a holiday rite of passage, something to anticipate and dread.
There’d been talk of a bloom of jellyfish what with the warmer waters. Colin was standing in the sea up to his knees poking at them with the sharp end of his metal spade. It’s easy to say with hindsight that there was something vindictive about the boy. You read people backwards, fill in the gaps, squeeze the facts to fit what the present throws up. I can’t help recalling what I saw in the boy, seeing him with a magnifying glass burning ants in the sunshine. He’d capture crane flies in a jam jar, seal the lid and watch them flap frantically against the glass before collapsing still and exhausted. Only then would he lift the lid and slowly pull off their wings and legs before rolling the body into a ball between his thumb and forefinger. Jim says that lots of kids did that sort of thing but you still wonder.
Continue reading “Before We Started Worrying by Martyn Clayton”
A Special Sort of Day by Diane M Dickson
Tommy let his head rest back against the sand. It was hard, cold and wet. He knew that in the dunes further up it was softer but he couldn’t be bothered with the climb for the moment. The others seemed to have gone on without him, never mind, he could catch them later. He’d take a couple of minutes to rest here, nobody would mind surely and then he’d get back on the job.
Papi by Christopher Dehon
My parents probably spoke Spanish to each other when they lived together. I don’t remember. Dad never learned English, and Mom stopped speaking Spanish after they separated. On the weekends with my dad, I only needed two words. Sí, Papi. I know he said terrible things about my mother. I couldn’t understand him, but I was sure that they were “bitch,” “whore,” and, when my future stepfather came along “gold digger.” When he would pause and look my way. I’d say the only Spanish I knew, Sí, Papi. When I was a kid, I said this to appease him. When I was a teenager, it was because I agreed.
Good Night, Good Luck and Good Love by Nik Eveleigh
OK everyone, attention please. Find the table that matches your number, sit yourselves down and get chatting! When I ring the bell, ladies remain where you are, gentlemen move to the table to your left. Good luck and good love!
“Did she really just say good love? Sorry, I mean hello my name’s Darren and did she really just say good love?”
“Your badge gave you away and yes she did. Sorry, I mean hello my name’s Lucy which you probably already know now that I’ve given away my secret powers of name tag identification, your badge gave you away and yes she…you’re actually wearing a wedding ring. Of all the…”
“Hold on, I can explain.”
“This should be good.”
“I’m married.”
Continue reading “Good Night, Good Luck and Good Love by Nik Eveleigh”
Fire and Ice by Kevin Bray
“Did you remember to leave water for Samson?”
My wife is like a teacher in the movies, the ones who make important announcements right when the bell has gone and kids are already mentally unplugged from the class and pushing through the doorway. She will tell me to turn right after we have passed the exit, or ask about the dog’s water when we are a mile from home.
“Yes, a giant bowl beside his little round bed.”
Killing Time by GJ Hart
He understood how people could disappear, people had legs, people could run! But the house, the swimming pool, the Vergogna Phryne in marble and bronze…
He closed his eyes and was back.
He strolled out, past the variegated beds, past the vast sycamore and on down to the wooden jetty cut between river birch.
He stood at the water’s edge, breathing in breeze scented like warm skin. From the kitchen he could hear Sharon singing and mixing Long Island teas.
When he opened his eyes what he saw seemed less real.
John and Andrew, Philanthropists by Tom Sheehan
John Burns, teacher of English for more than half a century at Saugus High School, close to a dozen miles north of Boston, stood in the near silence of a splendid morning beside his home atop the high ledge, looking down on the pond he had helped save. That other morning from early in his career came back as crisp as a knock at the door. He could hear the door opening. Into yesteryear he stepped:
“How many ways can you say it?”
John Burns pointed out the words he had printed in block letters on the blackboard for his sophomore English class. Central and Winter Street traffic was light at the edge of hearing, the sun did a mote dance on the windowsill. Outside, Saugus breathed the deep breaths of spring.
Continue reading “John and Andrew, Philanthropists by Tom Sheehan”
literally stories 