Category: General Fiction

All Stories, General Fiction, Science Fiction

Epistemology by Frederick K. Foote

literallystories2014

typewriter

Knowledge is useful information to a particular being at a particular place and a particular time. GSM, (age fourteen) UC Berkeley Thesis Outline.

My sister sits across from me in the coffee shop, legs akimbo, hands flying like spasmodic birds, face full of light, glowing as if she is in the throes of post-coital bliss. She is wired, high, buzzing, on the edge of space, about to break the bounds of gravity.

“Sis, where is my nephew? You just disappear, and I’m used to that, but his cousins miss him, and so do Fidelity and I.”

Continue reading “Epistemology by Frederick K. Foote” →

All Stories, General Fiction

A Boy Called If by James Smith

literallystories2014

typewriter

My father once told me that to be a man you must protect your family. The Reverend told me that you can only be called a man once you have taken another man’s life. They are both wrong. There are no such thing as men, only animals, living in the wild and fighting and killing each other until there is no one left to fight and kill. Here in the jungle we are wild things, fighting a war that started long before any of us were born and will continue long after we are gone.

Continue reading “A Boy Called If by James Smith” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Humour

The Rise and Fall of Johnny Thunders by Adam Kluger

literallystories2014

typewriter

David Burstein was not quite sure how it started exactly.

You ride the subway for years and after a while, weird shit just happens, right?

David was with a couple of his new publicists or interns or whatever attractive young women who work for free in a shit economy want to be called — when it happened.

The old woman looked a little bit off.

Continue reading “The Rise and Fall of Johnny Thunders by Adam Kluger” →

All Stories, General Fiction

Kyle and David by Logan Fuller

literallystories2014

typewriter

His heartbeat thunders beneath flesh, muscle and bone. He’s sleeping now, I can tell by the steady rise and fall of his chest. He doesn’t snore, but I can hear a quiet whistle blow from one of his nostrils.

The windows of the car are fogged over, our body heat battling with the cold of autumn meeting winter. It hasn’t snowed yet, but it’s getting closer. I enjoy the first snow of the season. It’s a fresh start, a blank page.

Continue reading “Kyle and David by Logan Fuller” →

All Stories, General Fiction

The Man Who Lost Everything by Erica Verillo

literallystories2014

typewriter

Zayde died last Saturday. This afternoon we gathered to attend a service over a plain pine coffin and to remember him over cold cuts on rye. I remembered my grandfather chiefly as a madman.

“He died happy,” said my mother. “That’s all that matters.”

Continue reading “The Man Who Lost Everything by Erica Verillo” →

All Stories, General Fiction

Category 5 by Emily Tiedtke

literallystories2014

typewriter

He hadn’t meant to do it. As his muscles strained against their tendons, sweat pouring from his brow, reality blurred like the trees standing behind rain-covered windows. Adrenaline coursed though his veins, filled his mouth with a metallic taste- He wondered if she’d tasted it too, in those few brief moments of chaos.

He hadn’t meant to do it. Really. But, in the moment, it was the only choice he had.

~

Jason Mattis was old. Not in the physical sense — though a few gray hairs had begun to work their way into his shadow of a beard — but in what he’d experienced over his 26 years of life. Growing up, Jason had watched his mother deteriorate in a mess of tubes and needles and medication, the whirring machines sucking the life from her as fuel for their colorful blinking lights. Sunken eyes, sagging skin, and the shadowy shapes of bones resting just beneath the surface. Smaller and smaller upon that white bed, until one day, she simply wasn’t there anymore.

Continue reading “Category 5 by Emily Tiedtke” →

All Stories, General Fiction

Bibliophilia by Martyn Clayton

literallystories2014

typewriter

In a large detached house surrounded by high privet hedges at the foot of a low hill range there is a room filled with books. Some of them date from the 19th century. There are books about geology and Greek mythology, there are books about the flora and fauna of far off lands. There are books about subjects that no longer exist. Phrenology, mediumship, gruesome racial theories. There are books whose pages have crumbled to dust. There are books that have not been looked at since the day they were pushed into place on the high shelves that surround the walls.

Continue reading “Bibliophilia by Martyn Clayton” →

General Fiction, Romance

Notes Pinned on a Returnable Container by Tom Sheehan

literallystories2014

typewriter

No shit, there I was watering my flowers. Orchestration or habit bent on outcomes, I do it daily, making sure I can get back from all my Elsewheres in time to do so before the day is gone with the moon. I am faithful to that compulsion, and when this chick comes along, made nice in a certain way, yet points out dismal little failures in the front garden or the narrow plot beside the driveway to an occasional walking companion, it pisses me off no end. I’ve heard her through an open window say things like, “Wouldn’t you think someone would know better than to plant the short ones in the back.” Or, “Don’t you agree that his color scheme is a bit off base? Needs a little more imagination?” Or, like one totally elliptical occasion when she said, “Who does he thinks likes so much orange?”

Continue reading “Notes Pinned on a Returnable Container by Tom Sheehan” →

All Stories, General Fiction

United Forever by Hugh Cron – Adult Content

gwencron

typewriter

…It was the beginning of a new term. There was a volatile mix of the noisy, frantic new starts, in amongst the typical surly teenagers. A man stood staring at his new charges. If you didn’t know otherwise you‘d never have taken him for a teacher, he looked like a yeti. He eyed them up and down and tried to spot the ‘Wee fudds.’ He had tolerance and intolerance in compassion with sarcasm. There was also a mix of shyness with confidence but this would never be shown to the kids. His intelligence was well-known amongst his work-mates and friends. He kept it hidden though, his brains were covert. He was a person of opposites. He was by no means atypical, more unique.

Continue reading “United Forever by Hugh Cron – Adult Content” →

All Stories, General Fiction

Evan Stalworth’s Wealth of Words by Tom Sheehan

literallystories2014

typewriter

I’ll have to tell the story because I’m the one most at fault here. I should have known better, I’m the new generation type. Even on the way home from the cemetery, going back to the house with my mother, my two younger brothers and my sister, it was me who should have known better. Lots of things should have tipped me off; instead of being bigger, having more room with a body gone from it, the house appeared smaller, at least to me. It felt smaller, smelled smaller, corners were tighter, the air cooler. I swore, after spending my first twenty-two years in it, it didn’t have its hand out for me, “Not a touch in the tally,” as my father used to say about things found useless, unproductive, too much emptiness to expend much-courted energy on.

Continue reading “Evan Stalworth’s Wealth of Words by Tom Sheehan” →