Category: All Stories

All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 396: Stumbling Leaves; Another Week That Is; Autumnal Vexations

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I like fall, but I avoid saying “I like autumn.” I went to school with a girl with that name and hated her. I wouldn’t want the little god whose job it is to check up on the likes and dislikes of people like me to get confused. So, to be clear, I like autumn, but not the Autumn I knew in seventh grade.

But there are things about fall I can do without; for instance, grownups who wear “onesies,” and those who get as excited as a three-year-old seeing Santa for the first time when the subject is “pumpkin spice.” Usually these people are one and the same. I will hear no defense for normal adults who wear onesies with little fire trucks and/or race cars, Bunnies, Unicorns, Cows, Green Aliens and Sea “Horseys” on them and must tell me about it. What you do at home is your own business, but unless you want me to wonder if you wear a “dype-dype” and rubber panties to bed, don’t bring it up, especially if I am eating.

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All Stories, Fantasy

The Rabbit Man of Munyaka by Harrison Kim

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Rabbit man is belted into the traction machine at the physiotherapist’s clinic.  His giant Easter Bunny costume head is hooked on the coat rack with the rest of the suit.  He’s been hired by Mall Supervisor Frats to greet the Great Wizard and her children here in Munyayka.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It by Leila Allison

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I entered my building’s courtyard at dawn on a clear, cold November morning. I brought a bowl of tuna and a cat trap. I placed the bowl at a specific spot under one of the two box hedges that lined the walk and laid the trap nearby. Every morning I brought food to the same place; it was the trap’s only appearance.

I’d come for the benefit of a feline warlord in winter named Lemmy. I’d been feeding Lemmy on the sly ever since I first met him in the courtyard at least three years ago. Obviously feral, I appreciated the defiance in his attitude that wouldn’t allow him to beg. Oh, he certainly gobbled down what I gave him and shamelessly came back for more–but not once had he ever sought pity.

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All Stories, General Fiction

From the Other Side of the Saloon Bar by Tom Sheehan

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I pour and they drink, and I am always mesmerized by their desires, their needs, their dry heaves between drunks so calamitous they’ll never know the impact till they get to the great beyond. I’m a bartender, barman, pourer, scoop setter, sudsman, but I will say at the same time that this menial job, though one with a great overview of the human soul, has saved my own soul for the long ride into the hereafter, though my travels don’t go beyond the 25 feet of the bar.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Citizen Wyckam-Smith by Michael Bloor

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Have you ever ordered a DVD of an old film that, once upon a time, you thought was wonderful (back when you were at an impressionable age, say, between the ages of 15 and 25)? And when you settled down to watch it, accompanied by a wee whisky and some cheese and onion crisps, did you then discover that it was utter crap?

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All Stories, Fantasy

Fashioned at Last Into an Arrowy Shape by Travis and Lucas Flatt

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I watch the Mayor dash about the rooftop, clutching his toupee against the wind. “My building!” he says,  “Grey–what have you done to my building?”

I get it. They gave him the city in decent shape; he doesn’t want it broken.

Over on the balcony, rock-megastar Alex Grey is not empathetic, mumbling: “Just hang on, brother,” his voice a rumble beneath the shrieking wind. Grey tweaks his low-E peg, plucks his tortoiseshell plectrum across the string, holds the guitar up to his ear, and nods, satisfied that he’s in tune. We’re standing on the world’s biggest amp. During the morning bustle to blockade the New York Harbor, Grey sent a battalion of roadies to lash, strap, and solder hundreds of amp cabinets to the Empire State Building.

 

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All Stories, General Fiction

Aussie Girls by Kirk Alex

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(story excerpt from Blood, Sweat & Chump Change ––
Taxi Tales & Vignettes by the author)

I’m first up on the taxi stand at the Beverly Center, after waiting for close to an hour and a half. Two Aussie girls climb in the backseat. One is blond, the other a particularly thin brunette with pocked cheeks. They want to go to Melrose.

“The Bank of America on the corner,” they tell me.

Melrose is a long street, goes for miles. I need a cross street. They can’t think of it, but explain the bank is “by the shops on Melrose.” Not much help really, but feel we’ll be able to find it.

I get the meter going and pull off the stand. Turning left on La Cienega, I take them north. When we reach Melrose Avenue I make a right. I find out that the blond has lost her wallet at the B of A “by the bus stop,” and this is why they are having me take them there. They wonder what the fare will be. I quote them between five and six dollars.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Our Harbour by Paul Kimm

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Until the first ‘magical’ incident our harbour was like most others around the country. One side with its fishing industry and the other for the summer tourists. The South Pier reeking of fish guts and the north side either boarded up or packed with visitors stuffing seafood and sugar into their mouths depending on whether it was summer or not. That was until a few years back.

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All Stories, Science Fiction

Ray Guns of the Invaders 1202 by Tom Sheehan

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The cloud came in low over the horizon as if it was holding hands with sky and Earth, and shadows fell from its silhouette forming strange figures of shade across the landscape. Gurley Kindreck, at the lookout post on Foster Creek, grabbed the phone and twisted the crank on an old army land phone. Behind him, wires snaked all the way back to headquarters in the heart of Burrell, Kansas, much of its corn crop already pulled, the rest of it dying in the after-lights of the enemy’s rays.

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