She bought it at the annual Presbyterian rummage sale. The small handwritten tag said 75 cents. The little girl who was watching the money box smiled at the 25 cent tip. In the end, they both got what they wanted. The little girl was a dollar closer to going to college, and the old woman got a small part of her childhood back.
Continue reading “The Vase by Dennis Kohler”
John works in the vampire processing room. A beep sounds and an open box rolls in on a conveyor belt. He grabs a stake with his left hand. Holds his mallet with the right, and drives the stake through the vampire’s chest. Then he hits the large red button, signaling he’s ready for the next. Mallet, stake, button. It’s how he survives. Mallet, stake, button.
It’s morning now, and he’s waiting for the battered old Ford truck that picks up factory workers.
Continue reading “Mallet, Stake, Button by Ed Kratz”
The maiden waits for the unicorn on a mossy stump.
She’s naked – that part was important, they said, but she thinks it was probably just important to them. She refuses to cover her small breasts, because she thinks it would give the hunters some pleasure to see her try to protect her modesty.
Continue reading “Unicorn Hunt by Brooksie C. Fontaine”
I took long walks into the insomniac’s night. Wild music thumped on the deserted sidewalk. I peered into the smeary barroom window. A man in coveralls slept with his head on his arms at a table. Pool balls cracked next to his ear. Angry hairy faces, full of booze were engaged in the battle of the green felt, and blood may spill. I walked onward before I drew some menace from the watering hole. Then I met the traveler on a starless street corner.
Continue reading “A Starless Street Corner by Christopher J Ananias.”
A neighbour two down from us was the only person we directly knew who lost someone. A family member that is. Even though just a distant cousin of theirs, it tore their family apart. Just like it did many families, and how it changed the whole fabric of how we live. Looking back on it now you wouldn’t think such an innocuous job could matter so much, that it could change everything about how we live, but it did. Of course, the tragedy of so many going like that is the main thing, the sheer lack of explanation to this day and how we do things now is borderline unfathomable. Most of all though, I think about our neighbour’s second cousin, just one of thousands, an estimated sixteen thousand, but knowing someone who knew one of them, who left us on that day, just makes it so close.
Continue reading “The Trolley Workers by Paul Kimm”
Before data can be captured, it must be desired
Steve F. Anderson
He came out of the tunnel and there she was, perched at one of the patio tables of the Greenleaf Café. Even from that distance her long, jointed legs and oversized sunglasses recalled the grasshopper he’d met that very morning on the bike path.
Continue reading “Pulse by Gregory Golley”
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I heard toenails slipping on linoleum in the kitchenette off my office. Only Dogs create that sound; and sure enough, upon inspection, I discovered the “Baw Brothers,” Beezer and Barkevious, teaming to raid the refrigerator. I am guilty of leaving the fridge door ajar, so this situation happens almost constantly.
Continue reading “The Adventures of Beezer and Barkevious by Leila Allison”
“There’s a toll for everything…the toll for happiness is often sorrow.” — James Carr
Would you opt for a different life if you had the choice? This is the question I asked myself, a question so burning that it dampened my palms; it’s also the question I needed to ask my best friend, Charlie, because we both hated our lives—just as much as the guy who pulled up to my booth on that icy evening. Under the amber lights, his red Jaguar gleamed like a ruby. Decked out in a fancy camel-hair overcoat, he told me he was gonna jump off the bridge.
Continue reading “The Toll Collector by Jack Kamm”
Growing up as a Nigerian meant that your parents filled your head with all sorts of supernatural phenomena. When we were children, my mother would tell us these euphoric stories, a lot of which kept us up all night, like they kept a lot of other kids around us up at night as they too were being told these stories in their own homes.
Continue reading “The Monster at the end of this Tale by Mohammed Babajide Mohammed”
William Wendron balanced on a wooden stool, wedged into the corner of the old pub, leaning upon the slate bar top. A crooked half smile fixed upon his face; old hands deformed with arthritis by years of toil in the damp with pick and axe. He grappled with his mug, draining the last of the sour gin down his throat. He welcomed the warmth spreading out from his gut, encompassing his wizened body; worn before its time, the pain of years of hard labour dulled under the gin’s spell. He knew he should not have another; he had promised the mine captain he would stop turning up in the morning stinking of gin with glazed eyes. Despite the ember of guilt in his conscience he shouted for the barmaid.
Continue reading “Knockers by Amy Tryphena”
literally stories 