Taos is huddled between two states, New Mexico and Colorado, holding dear to its heart the Pueblo Indians and mountain filled streams of daring rainbow trout. The forest dots the landscape like an eco-green peace bonnet.
The Indians moving west had found a home. But, progress came and brought with it pioneers. And before much time had elapsed this hideaway became an urban tourist attraction for the wealthy and tradesperson alike.
Gerald Xavier Kilmer placed his cell phone on the corner of his walnut desk, breathed deeply, exhaled, looked down from his fourth story window, and saw for the second time that day, what he had experienced more than thirty-five years earlier. Kilmer turned, his eyes followed the long corridor connecting other executive offices, then he turned toward the window again. When he looked down, it was gone.
Continue reading “A Place for Those Without a Place by Thomas Elson”
One day I plan to dance on that asshole’s grave. The thought of twirling to music in celebration of his death soothes my soul. Sometimes you see men in movies peeing on graves of people they don’t like. I could pee on his grave, but it’s harder for a woman, and a little undignified. Dancing, having a party, celebrating life that still courses through my body while he is buried beneath me seems more of an affront. If I peed on his grave I would leave part of me with him.
First there was a smaller sail out on the water. And then there wasn’t any sail, as if it had been erased. Bartholomew Bagnalupus did not blink at the contradiction in his eyes. There were things like mist and eyespots and vacuums of sight. Been there, had that, he thought, as he swung his short-handled curled pitchfork into the earth of Mussel Flats. Another bucket of worms he’d have before the tide would drive him off the flats.
Continue reading “The Boy Who Dug Worms at Mussel Flats by Tom Sheehan”
Billy was upset that no-one spoke to him.
“Hi Billy, how’s your mum?”
“She’s fine, fine, she’s fine.”
“And how about you? Are you behaving yourself?”
“Yes. I’m doing fine, I’m fine, fine, I’m fine.”
“Tell your mum I was asking for her.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I’ll tell her, yes.”
Prod Herling believed he had been followed for weeks or months, never once seeing what he thought was there. But his history came with repeated sensations.
December 24. It began today. At the grocery store, I saw a man whose hands had disappeared seem to levitate a cantaloupe into his cart. Looked through a woman’s head in the bread aisle. Haven’t run out of SeeMe myself, so no invisibility infection yet. Going to write in my journal every day. Think it’ll help get me through this.
Jack Posner, licensed clinical psychologist, PhD. from Berkeley, serviced corporate lawyers and stock and bond traders from his private plant-filled smoke-free office on the fourth floor of the Paulsen Building downtown. He consoled guilty consciences with a phrase he muttered under his breath for his own benefit as well as his clientele’s: EVERYTHING’S O.K., GO BACK TO WORK, over and over, like a Vedic hymn, until even he was fooled by it.
It all began perhaps eight or nine years earlier, in a peaceful sleep, when a thin, shoelace-like string of pressure went around his chest for the third time in a week. Sixty-two year old Max Cargo paid attention to that string. It was three o’clock in the morning and his wife Pamela stirred casually at his touch. In less than an hour they were in the Emergency Room of the local hospital.
“We try to be flexible here at Literally Stories and when we have authors who send work outside our word count guidelines we are still willing to give them a fair shot. To get through in that case they have to be a bit different and stand out in some way. Adam sent us this and we were all really taken by it. It is way below our normal lower limit but being Adam he also sent in some art work to bring the thing even more to life. So, for one night only at a website near you we are proud to present Words and Images by Adam Kluger in “Are we Both Broken.”
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