Harvey looked out his front window, saw the real-estate lady pull into the driveway of the house across the street and get out of her car. She walked to the For Sale sign with Sale Pending pasted diagonally on it.
Another victim is moving in, he thought.
Continue reading “The House Across the Street by Robert P. Bishop”
Yo yo yo, I’m here to tell ya about a boy named Sue.
Every day, Sue went into school, in the little pigtails his Momma put him in and his little blue bonnet on his head, and all the children sang, “FUCKIN’ PUSSY!” They danced around him in tribal fashion, and spit bubble gum in his ears, and tried to make him eat dirt. Every day he would soil his pretty little yellow dress, skin his knees and run home crying to Momma.
Continue reading “A Boy Named Sue by Scott Taylor – Content Warning. A subject that some readers may find upsetting.”
Hung: It would be wrong to say it was her favourite expression. Her favourite expression, my Mam, was “Hell’s Bells!”, which was short for “Hell’s bells and buckets of blood”. That was her idea of swearing. A jingle: just enough to keep a real swear word at bay.
When the real ones came, they were Dar’s, and they were like my brother, Davie, you know – thick, short, and fast.
So, no, “Be hung for a sheep as a lamb” was not her favourite phrase, but Mam said it a lot. It was shortened, but we somehow knew what she meant. Maybe the long of it had been explained to us once, or maybe we explained it to each other.
The sentiment was that if you are going to be hanged for stealing a small lamb, then you may as well steal a whole sheep. A jingle of wisdom passed down, like a pair of shoes. It was what families did then. They’d pass old sayings down the line, the blood line. They would settle, acting like silt, determining your depth.
It was hard to picture though. Where we lived there were no sheep. A lamb chop from the butcher’s maybe, that could be stolen, but I’d not have the courage. The butcher was a big man. Blood and blades were nothing to him.
No one ever corrected Mam’s grammar, not that I can recall. Hung it was.
Continue reading “some words ending in a sentence by Phill Doran”
Harper Gillespie, newly fourteen, rode up to a place locals called Baby’s Bush to meet two of his friends: Dave Erich and Robinson Pike, both of whom were several years older. The bush stood in the middle of a field between two lines of pines. Almost as big as a house, they said every time someone tried to cut the bush down, they would have to stop because they heard a baby crying.
Continue reading “A Strange Way to say I Love You by Matthew Senn”
He was in the sparse land between shifting sands of the great desert and the last tree bearing green when he saw the vultures descending from their high flight. Breward Chandler, “Brew” to friends back in the mountains where breathing was much easier than here in the midst of little life, sat bareback on an Indian pony he had freed from a natural corral behind a blow-down. Chandler had learned that the horse would obey pulls on his mane and in this manner he had escaped from sure capture by heading into the desert, with his pistols loaded and a lariat and a canteen he had grabbed on the run. He was not sure who was after him, either renegade Indians or renegade whites out for the kill, looking for guns, clothes, saddles, anything for free. He was hoping that they’d measure the little he might have against the rigors of a chase in the desert. Perhaps, he also hoped, they were smarter than he thought they were.
Continue reading “A Saddle in the Desert by Tom Sheehan”
Oh, yeah, here he come. A handsome young, broad-face, dark skin, Black boy with curly hair. He walks with a swagger and a smile. A smile that would strip girls and women, boys and men, out of their underwear at the glint of those sparkling teeth. And he got moves. Athletic, strong, and fast. And he come up here to the log with a smile and style, not knowing he’s still a child.
Continue reading “Dauntless by Frederick K Foote”
I’m not saying society is unstable here, but Kidnapping is the third-leading sector of employment. When I flew in, I was shocked by the ubiquity of it, and the apparent randomness of who is selected. So different from back home. Six months later I’ve adapted and am making mind-blowing amounts of money driving a Kidnap Van on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I could ask for more assignments, but the quality of the work-life balance is so important. Two days a week pays all my bills and then some.
Continue reading “Van Damned by Todd Mercer”
Buddha hates us all. And he hates me the most.
The little statue of Buddha I keep in my pocket, the one I stole from the pagoda, stares through me into the next life.
Continue reading “Dengue Fever by Alex Sinclair”
The body was a small broken thing from a distance. Seen across the snow field there was little more than a coloured smudge against the white.
They couldn’t go for it now, it was too dangerous. There were fissures out there, hidden and lethal. If there had been any chance of life, there would be no option, but they couldn’t justify the risk. Witnesses said that he fell from the summit and there had been no movement since. No reason for him to fall they had said. He had made it to safety, removed the roping and then just fallen back. It was inexplicable, a tragic accident. Maybe a dizzy spell caused by the altitude. Jake had listened to all the radio communication. The panic and distress.
They had called his mobile of course and the helicopter had hovered overhead for a long time, powder swirling upwards in the wash but there was no visible sign of life and so he would stay out there. The dark would hide him and probably more snow would cover him as the season progressed. In a few weeks he would be invisible, nothing but a hump and a sad memory for his climbing mates.
Jake moved away. He wouldn’t come back. Not then, not in the spring. If the season was very cold the body would be well-preserved and if they got to it before the wolves and birds there would be something left for the family but Jake didn’t need to see it. The hullabaloo, if they found the bullet might reach where he was and he would smile at the fuss, but he’d be long gone.
He pulled up the warm fleece around his face and bent to retrieve his ski poles. He had already tucked the rifle into his backpack. As the sun slid away the summits turned pink, and Jake turned to the East and moved off. He loved the snow, the chill and the clear cold air but it would be nice to feel the sun warm on his bare skin and he smiled under his face mask. Life was good when the jobs came up this way. When he got back to the hotel, he needed to call his contacts in Hawaii and organise things ready for his arrival. Another few years working at this pace and he could retire. Maybe he’d come back then and ski with no interruptions.
Frankie is his least favorite nursing aide. She wears cheap perfume that smells like cherries and he hates cherries, the knotted pits inside them, the red juice that blooms across fingers and teeth, the bittersweet taste spread across the tongue. His mother loved cherries, left bowls of them half eaten sitting on dressers and counters and even stacked on the floor, the pits stinking and rotting with bits of the fleshy fruit still attached. The stain on her fingertips resembling the lipstick smeared around her mouth.
Continue reading “Cherries by L’Erin Ogle”
literally stories 