Category: General Fiction

All Stories, General Fiction

Swordfish by Graham Mort

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Swordfish laid out in the supermarket, next to tuna steaks and mackerel. Marlin, the guy behind the counter offers, wiping bloody hands on his white jacket. Mussels laid on a bed of samphire. You can almost taste the salt. Call me Ishmael. A wide Sargasso Sea. Wind over waves. Barnacles on the hulls of schooners, where a man could be keelhauled. As it happens, I’m shopping for other things. Breakfast cereal, yoghurt, pineapple, white wine. The list written out on a scrap of cardboard torn from a tissue box. So, yes, move on.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Love Handles by Susan DeFelice

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After his anxiety attack in the barely cold sea water, Barry walked to the outside European-style tiki bar where a woman with a roiling accent was singing Sinatra, with just a stand-up bass and conga player accompanying her.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

Everyone Dies by Danni Meek

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There’s a man in my home.

He’s staring out of the large windows, the ones that I sit by and read my books because they’re the only source of natural light on this side of the apartment. The light from the moon almost gives him a glow, making him look vaguely angelic. It’s almost comedic how ironic that is, considering the fact that he’s broken into my home.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Night They Brought Him Home by Jake Bristow

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When they brought him home that night, the lid was strewn canted off the wooden lip and jacks and queens ornamented astray around the box like a ring of fire. Someone- I do not remember who- had loaded coal into the fireplace and after some poking it begun to lick its flame at the iron grate. Ma was cold and Paul and Jane huddled around the hearth for they were cold but I suppose not as cold as him. Still, it only felt right to keep him warm.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Gordo by Ashley Earls Davis

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His eyes are fixed to the street, staring blankly at the late sunlit cars queuing over the cross. Like he’s thinking. Or perhaps he’s pissed. He lifts a full ten of stout to his pouted lips and takes two long gulps, spine arched tautly at the dust-strewn pane. Is it Rod? Or that bloke we called Doggo? I scratch my neck and try to remember his name. He lowers his glass and digs out some chips from a bowl in front of him. Dips them in tomato sauce and shoves them in his gob. Reaches for his cold one again. I grin at him. His hand movements are overly cautious. Like those of an old codger’s. Well I suppose we are both over the hill now aren’t we? Poor us bastards.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

520: Don’t Touch that Dial, More Words From the TV Generation

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In Stephen King’s On Writing he mentions that he is among the last generation of writers who learned to read and write before television became a staple of American life (as I’m sure was the same in other developed nations as well).

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All Stories, General Fiction

Blood Lovers by Gerald Coleman

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At the haggard edges of New York City, the Fourth Avenue Local of the RR Line started or ended, depending upon your intentions, at Ninety-Fifth Street on the far ass-end of Brooklyn, where the city skyline was but an aspiration. You could barely see the Statue of Liberty if you were on a rooftop and knew where to look.

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