Welcome to 2025
In the technical sense, last week, at the conclusion of the Hellworld Hellweek run (by our six lovely writers), was Week 513. So, as we open this brave year of 2025, we will keep pace with ever fleet time the best we can. Thus, here we are at the end of week 514. A Happy New Year to All–and now on with the usual show.
Continue reading “Week 514: Happy New Year; Honesty; Six Honest Writers and Confessions”
Ed was at a conference in Bakersfield and told me there was a problem with the pet sitter tonight and could I stop by the house and feed the dog her dinner. I’d done it a few times before. Ed was my brother-in-law.
Continue reading “Alumni by Ted Gross”
James, an assistant editor of a small online literary magazine in Brooklyn, moved to
Alaska. He was recently divorced, and his novel, which had taken him ten years to write, got rejected by every major New York City publisher.
Today will be like any other day. You’ll softly snooze the alarm clock as it sounds, just over an hour before your train pulls into the station. You will feel the groggy effects of sleeping fitfully, as has become the norm. Pressing snooze, you tell yourself you’ll get up on the first alarm tomorrow, already knowing you won’t.
Continue reading “A Day Like Any Other by Danielle Rhodes”
Annie awoke to the feel and smell of soft, clean linen against her skin. Yesterday’s flight had exhausted her, but she’d slept well, and felt rested. She lay on her back wriggling her toes, deriving a childlike pleasure.
Continue reading “Are You Ready Annie? by Martin McNeil.”
“It’s a lovely day,” my friend, a small sweet person, said to me as we stood on the lawn next to the sidewalk on a warm morning, “and I want to take you to my favourite place, a place I frequent for peace and calm and gentle thinking.” I had never heard of this penchant of hers before, even though we had known each other for a long time. She began walking, meditation-like, with soft quiet steps, and I followed more clumsily. The sidewalk was dust-swept and the grass on each side was manicured meticulously like it had been treated with scissors, like a hair stylist had trimmed it instead of a landscaper. We walked silently for a minute or two.
Continue reading “Notion by Chris Klassen”
Act One
Nora Lynn Manning was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on 6 December 1941. Her parents, Arlene and Jay, were high school sweethearts who realized too late that they did not like each other all that much. Still, they chose to marry before Arlene began to show. Like so many hideously bad ideas, it was considered the “right thing” to do.
Continue reading “Nora in Five Acts by Leila Allison”
Sammy was often mistaken for being younger than he actually was. He was short for his age, and skinny, and wore black-rimmed glasses and white shirts buttoned up to the very top. He had a high, broad forehead and his face narrowed down to a pointed chin; his big, dark eyes were set very far apart, halfway between the brow line and his chin, and his mouth often appeared little more than a dot beneath a small, sharp nose. His hair was black, long, and unstyled; it just hung from his crown like a toupee that had been put on wrong. With a pair of pointy ears, he would have made the perfect cartoon space alien.
Continue reading “War Games by Alan Rice”
Reader Alert – Please refer to tabs
So I’m yankin’ this thing out the drainpipe, getting’ blood up me cuffs, while those little twats are creasin’ up in the car park. They’ve proper mashed it up, n’all: it’s comin’ out in handfuls; I can feel its guts through me rubber gloves.
Continue reading “Jesu-Vape by Robin Dennis”
(Meet Boo, picture provided by Tressa Bella Barrigar)
Snow Daze
The fine fellow in this image is Boo the Husky Artist as a Young Dog–who to this very instant remains a close associate and housemate of our friend, Dale Williams Barrigar. I think Boo exemplifies the Spirit of Snow Day as well as any living creature. Huskies can handle the chill. They will smile and play and chat gleefully at the Antarctic, and raise a quizzical brow as your blood freezes faster than the face of a strip club bouncer when you get all hands with his girl. (For what I hope are obvious reasons, I have never been inside a strip club, but my brother saw a guy get jacked-up something awful for engaging in the described stupid activity: “Dude gotta face full of fist…lost some teeth.”)
Continue reading “Week 510: Snow Daze Enthusiasm; Everyday Enthusiasms; More From the Pantry and a Long Distance Dedication From David McCallum”
literally stories 