The Wheel Grinds Patiently
In 1968, at the age of nine, I allowed a classmate we will call “Louise Haas” (not her real name, but close) to get a lecture for something I did. The offense was cussing. It was recess and I had told someone to “eat shit” or something of that third-gradely nature, unaware that the playground monitor was in earshot.
Continue reading “Week 498: Not So Instant Karma; Two Special Announcements and the Week That Is”
The Bardess house was in Aboyne Court, a group of maisonettes on the semi-derelict edge of the Tanshall estate off Aboyne Drive, a half-mile of semis under schedule of demolition. You’d to go up a dozen broken concrete steps to get to the tarmac path to the front door. It was one of the areas of Glenrothes popularly reputed to be a dumping ground for Fife Council, houses to put problem families, or challenging clients, as we in the social work department would prefer to describe them. The iron railings still stood there in front of a square of unkempt grass but were no longer connected to anything. Some kindly soul had thrown a car tyre onto the scrubby grass which had accumulated all kinds of rubbish; used pampers and newspapers blown on the wind and worse, lots of plastic cider bottles, anchored to a thicket of weed by dried-out dog turds. The building had no outer door and a cold wind whipped through the hall especially if the backdoor leading to the back greens had been left open. The front door was on the ground floor on the left where some altruist had scrawled in a heavy felt pen all along the wall Slag in among the usual spraypainted graffiti tags. There was no sound in the close, a smell of urine and I saw a dried stain against the wall. The glass panel on the door on the right had been replaced with plywood, the name J. Quinn handwritten in biro on a small patch of space between obscene graffiti. There was a musty smell of dog but no sound, no barking.
Continue reading “Last Refuge Andrew Murray Scott”
Ashley Lefey had seven outfits, a different colour for each day of the week. She’d developed the system whilst interning at Facebook, inspired by Mark Zuckerberg’s famous elimination of small unnecessary decisions. Unlike Zuckerberg, her wardrobe routine didn’t condemn her to a life of monastic grey t-shirts.
Continue reading “Fortune’s Gambit by Ed Dearnley”
Ella wished she could sit here in her car, parked in the driveway of her parents’ house, for the rest of this slowly dissolving afternoon, into the lulling dusk, all through the gray owls echoing at midnight, to the quietly fading stars at dawn, and then just leave. Never entering the house at all. She would just sit here, letting the silence seep into her skin, sheltered by the insulated interior of her SUV.
Continue reading “Sky Lights by Melissa Dyrdahl”
Time wastes the paint on our faces and ornaments. It roughens the once-smooth stone we were carved from. Yet behind the crumbling stone, we shine.
Our voices blend as we step from the wall, magic infusing our limbs and lighting our smiles. We sing the songs of ancient apsaras before us.
Continue reading “Apsaras’ Dance by Kelly Matsuura”
The congregation came to him in the merest tendrils of the dawn’s earliest and sickest light, the sky’s face the same faded blue of an overdose.
They came to him like faces in a fever dream, seeking answers as they always did. The preacher didn’t have them. He was looking for answers of his own. He was dope-sick after all, the slow crawl of heroin fidgeting in his collapsing veins as it made its retreat, making the marrow of his bones ache. His body was already begging for more liquid forgiveness, and there was the other issue that he needed to attend to, the issue that made his need all the more desperate, the issue that had marooned the preacher in the sleepless raft of his stiff bed with nothing but his anxious thoughts to sustain him.
Continue reading “Spite by Alex Sinclair”
Ivan Mikhailovich Izbyakov stood statue still at the window overlooking the Motlawa River, his face a mask of benign tranquility. A ray of late afternoon sunshine cut through the parted blinds and bathed the small studio in a sultry golden light. He leaned against the windowsill and watched a flock of gulls hovering over the river, rising and falling in the wind as if on strings.
Continue reading “Swans of the Baltic by Conor Christofferson”
It’s dusk and Gail’s probably pitching a bitch by now anyway, so Carl stops down the street from their walk-up and takes a moment to examine his new sunburn in the lighted courtesy mirror. He can’t help smiling.
He’s poking his forehead with a finger after parking in the lot when Gail calls out through the bedroom window.
Continue reading “Did You Hear Me? By Mick Bennett”
I remember my niece best as a child: red hair, faded blue eyes, skinny arms and legs; her movements so fast and agile that I called her Rabbit. She was a rare soul. This became apparent when, at four years old, she entertained her parents by gently guiding their old cat, Charlie, towards their neighbor’s timid puppy. Her small hands coaxed them closer until they sniffed each other tentatively, her face brightening with a hopeful smile. But after that greeting, the cat lashed out with a paw, leaving behind a bloody cut and a whimpering dog.
Continue reading “Book of Condolences by Evan Parker”
The bubble gum is a large wad in my mouth. I chew it until it is soft and then produce a limp bubble between my lips. I suck it back in and start again, chewing and molding the gum between my teeth hoping for better results.
Continue reading “Good Girls and Goddesses by Rachel Sievers”
literally stories 