The pretty robot at the pharmacy drive-up window has captivating dark eyes and shiny black hair. She’s wearing a professional smile and a white Walgreens shirt with red lettering. I get the feeling we are in a television commercial. Your total is one-oh-two-oh-eight, she announces over the intercom. There is a sharp intake of breath from the older lady in the back seat of my cab.
It surprised no one when Bruce Feathers once again launched a torpedo into his own life. Ten years ago, the semi-retired auto mechanic earned a ticket to the slammer for diddling the brake lines on Nathan Polk’s pickup truck. Bruce insisted the disconnection was accidental, but everyone knew that Nathan, a semi-retired insurance agent, had been topping off Bruce’s future ex-wife’s fluids, so to speak.
Continue reading “The Knowing of Which Way to Turn by Michael Grant Smith”
When I heard the front door close I dashed to the window. From behind the lace curtain I watched Lilly-Anne skip down the steps onto the street. Palpitations fluttered in my chest, my arrhythmia raced like a motor-cross Kawasaki skidding sideways across sand. She walked along the street in black low-heeled shoes, light blue stockings and her coat flapped with each step exposing her knees, her handbag hung over a shoulder. Those lips glistened with gloss; no colour, such a pale face. She looked ill. I groaned, perhaps her boss will give her the day off; I wished. She made her way along the road out of my view.
I sat down and began my breathing mantra; in for five seconds and out for five until I calmed myself sufficiently to let the pulsating surge in my groin subside. My hands no longer shook and I could pick up my coffee.
All I need is one star to guide me. Doesn’t matter where it swims in the sky. It’s enough if it pokes through the clouds and keeps me company.
I’ve been on this raft for days now. Lost count a while back when I fell into such a deep sleep that I may have been unconscious for hours, bobbing along in the middle of the sea like a sad little cork that forgot to stay in the bottle.
They had teased about it often, but Sophia chickened out. Alone, I stand on a dirt road that hasn’t seen traffic for miles. I curse myself for not sticking around long enough to learn how to drive.
It’s always a good idea to examine the condition of a dangerous handmade-thing that scoffs at gravity before you trust your life to it. When was the last inspection? Does it always make that sound? Dangerous handmade-things that place a fatal distance between you and the hard, unforgiving ground require the greatest scrutiny.
Young Trace Gregson, thin and curly at eleven and generally happy-faced, cringed whenever he saw Dirty Molly Sadow. If there was such a thing as a bad witch about in the world, she was it. People said her toes were black with earth rich as The Hollow, and that she smelled foul as chicken leavings.
People don’t give much thought to disappearing land. I know what you’re thinking. But no, they don’t care. Take it from me.
When that sinkhole appeared in Louisiana. People gaped and talked and then a week later they forgot. That very same sinkhole that grew to twenty-six acres in the matter of days that less than half of the U.S. knew or even cared about, but I digress. No one batted an eye.
My Mum didn’t die a peaceful death. She got bitten on her toe by a rattlesnake whilst walking through the big park at night in her flip flops. She didn’t have the cell phone with her because my Dad had it that night. The poison got into her veins and stopped her heart. The next time when we saw her, she was all stiff and puffy. But her face was angry, most likely about the cell phone, I think. My Dad says she comes back in the form of a hurricane every few years or so and it’s our goddammed duty to weather the storm. He says they can call ‘em whatever they want – Irma, Katrina, Harvey, but they all Hurricane Josephine to him.
Continue reading “The Many Sad Fates of the Family Jones by Lucy Caird”
Carly’s hair is falling out. She leaves gold strands everywhere, Gretel’s nightmare version of bread crumbs. We don’t talk about it.
literally stories 