‘Above the spume!’ Dr Gerasimos Evangelatos chants as he presses his disputed sandal to the pedal. Cephalus, his family’s latest ‘stray’—though what is a stray cat but an unmet friend?—gingerly stares from the front basket. ‘Above the foam of the sea!’
Continue reading “Nothing Else That I Would Ask by Antony Osgood”
What an induction day that was!
Unemployment had been high for years, and so the surprise arrival of Dutch company ‘Bananenbuigerij’ had been greeted with much enthusiasm in town. Like most of my friends, I’d sent in my application, and was one of those fortunate enough to be offered an interview.
Continue reading “Bananenbuigerij by Michael Smith”
In the morning, the sun had long since risen above the horizon, casting stark, foreboding shadows over the Yampa River. We stood at the edge of the water, my wooden boat bobbing gently on the surface. The wind whispered secrets through the cottonwoods and I felt the weight of my history bearing down upon us. We had married, and this handsome kind man had promised to spend the rest of his life with me, knowing I was doomed to run this river every two weeks for all time.
We pushed off from the shore.
Continue reading “Hell’s Half Acre by Danyl A Doyle”
AJ slows his pace, hesitant to interrupt Lu as she tosses crusts to a pair of pigeons. When he crunches gravel, she doesn’t look up, just asks, “Why you back?”
Wanted to see this hellhole one more time.” He takes a few steps toward her. “And you, Lu.”
She stiffens. “Been a long time.”
Continue reading “Trespassing by Liz deBeer”
I love the smell of antiseptic in the O.R. as the cool, dry air penetrates my mask. Even the acrid odor of cauterized flesh is tolerable after thirty years of incisions and excisions. However, this morning the room is foreboding.
Continue reading “Asimov in the Operating Room by Barry Yedvobnick”
Klib placed the bag on the counter and took out a sandwich. And now you have read the most boring sentence to begin a story ever. The bag, the counter, the sandwich, even Klib: nothing even remotely interesting.
Continue reading “The Chicken Sandwich by T.A. Young”
Since late 2017 I have been feeding a Feral Cat named Andy Hisster (his image above, circa 2019). Simple math tells me that Andy, full-sized upon my meeting him, must be close to ten years old, which is a good age for a housecat and flat out Methuselah for a wild boy. And make no mistake, Andy is a wild wild wild one.
Continue reading “Week 571: Andy Fought the Law, and, Well, Andy Won”
After Jennifer died, our daughter encouraged me to sell the house and move to a condo. I told her, in gentler words, to go to hell.
Continue reading “The House Across the Street by Edward Ahern”
It’s like sitting in a cozy lamplit living room. A couch. A loveseat. Two cushioned chairs facing a mounted screen. Instead of a coffee table, though, a desk stands in the center, and instead of our favorite sitcom, we scroll through an electronic contract.
Funeral Agreement with Authorization to Prepare a Decedent for Burial
Continue reading “The Cost of Dying by Kayla Cain”
“If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing
Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.“
Pascal’s Wager
Brother Kyron’s junior year religion class, The Mystery and Meaning of The Holy Bible, was his latest dodge in the God Game—an odyssey through time, through chaos and order, from Genesis to Revelations, to the dismissal bell.
Continue reading “The God Game by Gerald Coleman”
literally stories 