Category: General Fiction

All Stories, General Fiction

Senior Faculty Act on Roselle Bixby’s Tenure by Michael C. Keith

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In [Academia] the only homage they pay to virtue is hypocrisy.

–– Lord Byron

Full Professor Seymour Wilkes had planned to vote against the tenure of assistant professor Bixby in any case. While he admitted to himself that she was amply qualified for the distinction based on her excellent record of publications and teaching evaluations, he simply didn’t like her––mainly he disapproved of her appearance. To him, her short skirts and modestly tattooed forearm were the deal breakers. She just doesn’t look respectable. Looks too much like some of our students, and she acts like she prefers their company to ours.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Marina by Bill Runyan

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Old Jefferson John Williams never really done nothin’ to deserve his story told, but Doc Elroy and the Preacher prodded me to write a little piece on him. I, myself, never done nothin’ to deserve to write about nobody, but Doc helped me with spelling and smoothed out some of the grammar a bit, without changing much of the words. Anyhow, what I wrote was printed up in some out-of-town paper and I have a copy of it. I still don’t understand why I was asked to write about Jeff John, or why it was printed. But I don’t care, ‘cause what I did was right.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Story of the Week

Chipped Trivets by Elizabeth Swann Lewis

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A greeter stood in the driveway wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, a set of Halloween cat ears atop his head, and had pulled a ladies negligee over his clothing. “A smile, that’s what I like to see. That’s why I do this. What a weirdo you say. But you’re smiling. Everything priced over a dollar today half off.”

Roy clutched the handles of the dog-eared backpack slung over his shoulder. “This is my father’s house.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Drafted by Jaclyn Adomeit

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So here I sit, awaiting the judge’s decision. Draft dodging’s a major crime for anyone, but these days, the court seems hell-bent on punishing the women. Equality – right? It’s a real titty-twister that the sexual revolution came full circle. How can you argue?

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction, Story of the Week

Why Can’t She See The Difference by Hugh Cron – Adult Content

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He picked up the phone and dialled. He thought that there would be no answers, no advice, just someone to listen. He wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted.

“Samaritans, you are talking to Sarah….”

He took a breath. He lifted the whisky and sipped.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Running by Des Kelly

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Down the street the girl with bright hair ran. She’s running still, in her own way. Trying to avoid the thing she was made to do.

It’s been years, and nobody knows. Except for her.

Hair streaming in the sun.

It reminds her of blood. She’d like to wash it away.

Slowly scrub the stain.

‘Salt.’ Granny would insist. ‘Use salt.’

There’s salt in her tears. It’s not the same.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Under the Hunters Moon by JB Mulligan

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Yeah, it’s a new blind, built it last week. Saturday. Out all day. Phyl made me a sandwich for dinner. Ham and swiss. Said she was tired. She gets tired a lot lately.

Yeah. I heard you stopped by.

You could have kept that longer, if you needed it. But thanks for bringing it back.

Yeah, you take something of somebody’s, you return it the way it was when you took it. I know, sometimes you can’t, but still…

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All Stories, General Fiction

Joey Schaff (AKA Genes and Seafood) by Dave Louden

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I met Joey Schaffalinski at an alcohol treatment centre in Fresno, though that’s not important. Not yet, anyway. He had one of those put-upon faces. Like life had beaten him with a sack of hammers for his first few years and when you got to know him, you understood why. You’d have the same face if you were playing his hand.

In any other time, in any other place Joey would have been one of those “one in a million” babies that Fox News like to close on after injecting Mid-America with its nightly dose of fear, if it wasn’t for the fact that there was another… right beside him in fact. Rather than see the odds of two children born at the same time both with Adenosine Deaminase deficiency SCID, as a one in a million X a million, the news outlets ignored it.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Only Rock And Roll by Nik Eveleigh

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I was baaaawwwwn. In a one way cul DE saaaaaac.

“Is that actually possible?”

“Is what possible?”

“A cul-de-sac being one way. How would you ever leave?”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what?”

I set my beer on the bar and give Frank the look.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Story of the Week

Flanders Fields by Tobias Haglund

Tobias Haglund

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Jack drives and I give direction. He stops at a smaller war grave cemetery in the countryside around Ypres. Large trees grow here and there, two by the entrance. He puts his hand on one of them and looks up along the trunk. He caresses the bark and repeats it on the other tree. Once in a while a car drives by, bird song comes from the tree tops and if you listen carefully you can hear the canal behind the bunker. We pass a few graves on the way to the bunker. Despite the daylight the inside darkens quickly, after only a few meters. Four small rooms, too small for Jack to stand up. He strokes the smooth mold. I also do. He closes his eyes towards the inner wall and breathes in and out. In and out. I step outside. A small brook flows below, not deep at all and it probably risks freezing every winter. Jack still kneels in the darkness. I call for him and he gets to his feet. He stops by the bulletin board outside. In Flanders Fields. Jack reads the poem by John McCrae and stands silent in front of it for a minute. He looks out over the thousands of poppies and says:

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