All Stories, General Fiction

The Smiling Face of Darkness Glows Green By Leila Allison

 

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Walking Boss Cooper (from here, WBC) attempted to lure me and Renfield from the company bowels to her palatial office on Tuesday, for a “little chat.” She did so by email. As anyone with more than ten minutes’ life experience knows, an email come on is just that–an email come on. Like the confession of true love the magical soul of an email come on usually exists only in the heart of the sender, whereas the recipient may choose to reply or (as we had) blow the damn thing off until something better comes along.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Writing

Twelve Weeks by Hugh Cron

Week 1.

You are here now and it is you who calls the shots.

If there is anything you want to talk about, you can.

I see you’re doing very well in English. Miss Patterson is impressed by your story telling. You express yourself very well.

But that’s writing, it’s not real is it?

And even if there is some of you in there, nothing is as powerful as hearing your own voice.

When you are ready…

…Talking is what you need to do

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All Stories, General Fiction

Hey Girl by Frederick K Foote

Mary & the Player

Hey, girl, I got to ask you something. Why was you just with that no account, broke ass, nappy headed, scrawny, low life, little Nigger?

Look at me now. I got money in the bank. I got a brand-new Escalade. I’m pressed and dressed and a Nigger with whom nobody in their right mind will mess. So, why ain’t you over here by my side drinking my liquor and setting in my new ride?

No offense brother man, but you a Nigger with a grasping look of ownership in his eyes.  You got that, “I possess you,” bad breath.  You got that property-possession funk under your arms and between your legs. You got them, “I’m going to hold you till I break you because I own you,” hands. You look like you want to wear me on your sleeve and wipe your ass with me when you’re through.  And you through when you find something new. You just the kind of Nigger I can do without.

Fuck you, ho. I don’t need or want your skank black ass.

You lie. You want me, and your mother and your brother do too. Now, just a word to the wise. One more spiteful word to me from your sassy fat lips and only one of us will walk out this place.  Look at me, now. Look at me hard. I’m the Nigger that’s not in her right mind. Try me or deny me. It’s on you.

Continue reading “Hey Girl by Frederick K Foote”

All Stories, General Fiction

End of the Road by Richard Ferri

I sit up in bed when I see the headlights of a car arc at the end of the driveway, pause for a second over the mailbox, and then stop in front of my house. I reach across the bed to wake Susan before I remember she’s not there.  Mine is the last house on a rural cul-de-sac in upstate New York. Sometimes in the summer, late at night, I get kids making out or drinking beer at the end of the road and if they make too much racket I walk up with a flashlight and ask them to move along. But it’s early morning, the week before Christmas, the kind of dry cold air that pinches your nose shut in the time it takes to check the mailbox. No one is drinking a 40-ouncer this morning. The newspaper guy used to drive by at this time of morning and slide a paper into the box, but I cut that off six months ago, when Dylan deployed. Some things you don’t want to know about. The headlights extinguish, and I can see the glint of the car chrome in the early morning moonlight. I slip my feet over the side of the bed, find my LL Bean moccasins, wrestle into a flannel robe, and turn on the light to go downstairs.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Everybody Drinks at Bemelmans by Adam Kluger

Nothing can come when it’s forced.

Or when distractions pile up too high.

Or when the font is too thick.

That’s what aspiring writer Fin Palworth thought to himself as he looked at his computer screen and pondered over the stubborn foolishness driving his futile attempts to become an author.

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All Stories, General Fiction

All the Way Home by Fred Vogel

“I ran all the way home, just to say I’m sorry.” The Impalas (1959)

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 It was his wife, Amylyn, who had initiated the separation. She was hoping to light a spark under his lazy butt. But instead of grasping the importance of what his wife was trying to say to him, Sean motored down to Portland and met Charlene at a vegan strip club. Continue reading “All the Way Home by Fred Vogel”

All Stories, General Fiction

Old Folks Home by Wim Hylen

The new arrival, Tony, insisted on being the center of attention at all times.  He was like an actor on stage playing to a rapt audience.  Some of the residents found him to be a breath of fresh air.  But I thought the air he brought into the place stunk.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Wild Heart Rose of Alaska By Leila Allison

Only the dead know how to live;
Only the poor know what to give

Only lovers pray for rain;
Only dreamers strive for pain.

Jean More committed suicide on 21 May 1977. She exited life via a dozen Quaaludes and a pint of hobo wine. Jean was thirty-seven; her final action made an orphan of her seventeen-year-old son, Holliday.

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