Category: General Fiction

All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

The Enormous Pacifier by Alice Kinerk

literallystories2014

You’ve probably heard about this already, but one day some kids dug up an enormous pacifier, and in doing so pretty much brought chaos into the world. Apparently the kids were playing in the strip of woods by Route 42, just poking sticks in the embankment there, no thoughts of upsetting nesting bees, preventing future mudslides, or their moms having to pretreat their laundry stains afterward. Because where the dirt fell away, they uncovered something that shouldn’t have been there. A large, old, manmade hoop.

Continue reading “The Enormous Pacifier by Alice Kinerk” →
General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Margin of the River by Mitchell Toews

literallystories2014

I finished shaving. A $10 coffee shop gift card was in the car, and although I knew I should hit the weights and take my usual morning walk, I also felt like a lazy day was not a bad idea.

Janice nudged me aside on her way to the ensuite.

‘What’s up?’ she asked.

‘Dunno,’ I said while pawing through the underwear drawer for just the right pair—supportive but not too bossy.

Continue reading “The Margin of the River by Mitchell Toews” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Confessions 1:07 by Kendra Yvette

literallystories2014

This is my confessional right here. Instead of an old wooden box full of stale air, I sit on a rickety old concrete porch at a rusty metal table with a stained-glass top. I always stay in room 107. The seashell wallpaper makes me want to die, and the air stings with the putrid stench of vomit, but this room has a perfect view of Main Street. This motel is the only part of this hick town that’s worth a damn. I fill my glass ashtray, stained yellow with wear, with cigarette butts as I spill my sins and people watch.

Continue reading “Confessions 1:07 by Kendra Yvette” →
General Fiction, Short Fiction

Eighteen Ninety-Seven by Pauline Shen

literallystories2014

I run my finger along the marker at the edge of our farm. Its wood is parched from time and weather. A locomotive’s soprano voice carries across the prairie. I picture that engine puffing into a station where the platform swirls with a symphony of tongues. I think of families boarding with slumped shoulders and weary eyes. I recall how we, my parents, my brothers and I, stepped onto the colonist car with its sunlit windows and faintly sweet fragrance. Around us, men snored while mothers cooed at young ones latched to their breast. I witnessed my older brother, Wasyl, rub his teary eyes as the train pulled us westward.

Continue reading “Eighteen Ninety-Seven by Pauline Shen” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Have Your Say by Scott Taylor

literallystories2014

There were precious few ways of getting your point across in life and so Vern liked to shout at people.  He shouted at them in restaurants, he shouted at them in supermarkets, he screamed in their faces out on the street.  He would go in to get a sandwich and the woman would apply too little mayonnaise.

Continue reading “Have Your Say by Scott Taylor” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Killing Time by Michael Loyd Gray

literallystories2014

I once shared a cell with a con from Detroit named Marty Ballantine. He had a blazing shock of red hair and was tall and looked more like an ex-basketball player than the head of accounting until his firm realized he was skimming. He had a young girlfriend on the side, an expensive marriage and mortgage, and combined with greed, he got caught. Big surprise. I couldn’t really picture him in a blue suit and red tie, slaving away at debits and credits. But his orange jumpsuit went well with his red hair.

Continue reading “Killing Time by Michael Loyd Gray” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Dirty Screen by Christopher Ananias 

literallystories2014

The ice cream the night before was so hard I couldn’t scoop it. Today it was a cloudy tub of sweet milk. The Budweiser, I swore off, was piss warm. Even so—with all my new promises made to Denny—that was disappointing. I clicked my dry mouth. Denny watched me like how the sparrow watches the hawk circling in the sky. She looked down at her bandaged hands. 

Continue reading “Dirty Screen by Christopher Ananias “ →
All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 526- Humourisk

ireneallison12

Of all things considered entertainment, comedy is the hardest to explain. Whether you spell it humor or humour (being based in the UK we will go with the latter), to my satisfaction no one has ever defined what makes something funny in one sentence.

Continue reading “Week 526- Humourisk” →
All Stories, General Fiction, Historical

Warm Thoughts in the Drumochter Pass by Michael Bloor

literallystories2014

Back then, it wasn’t a fresh snowfall that blocked the Perth-Inverness train at the Drumochter Pass: rather, it was very, very strong winds that sprang up and blew lying snow off the mountains, quickly smothering the track. These days, the winter weather forecasting is so good that those Scottish train services thought to be at imminent risk of snow blockage are cancelled in advance. But it wasn’t the case twenty-odd years ago.

Continue reading “Warm Thoughts in the Drumochter Pass by Michael Bloor” →
All Stories, General Fiction

The Stork Delivers Such Joy by Simon Steven

literallystories2014

Only a month ago I was told how much I glowed. Glowed? Is the baby a thermonuclear device? Will my midwife melt from the radioactivity when the little angel is born and detonates? People say such silly things.

Continue reading “The Stork Delivers Such Joy by Simon Steven” →