Category: General Fiction

All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

 Unlucky by Gareth Vieira

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 Johnny Smiles was the unluckiest person in Hope County.

How unlucky? So unlucky that the town council passed a bylaw restricting him to his home. A motion that passed unanimously. A sentence he accepted without protest.

Although Johnny was an older man, most folks considered him an overgrown child. He was brilliant, in the way all children in Hope County were brilliant—a lingering side effect of the Disaster, that tainted the drinking water and perfumed the air with long-forgotten toxins.

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General Fiction

Men without Women by Adam Kluger

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He heaved and cried uncontrollably.

Snot bubbles.

His mom told him not to be unhappy as he buried his face in the desk while lightly holding her wrist.

“Think of the good times you just had and will have in the future —and you can always write something about it”

He always got emotional when someone he loved left him.

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General Fiction, Short Fiction

Death on a Full Stomach by Christoper Ananias

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The two men sat in the dim kitchen. Drinking. Dark clouds hung low in the gray sky like they wanted to open their bellies. Cigarette smoke curled from a glass ashtray. Larry Miller got up from the yellow Formica table and pointed at a steak bone on a plate in the sink. The white plate was smeared dark with A-1 Steak Sauce. Larry said, “That was Jenny’s last supper. A T-bone steak, a baked potato, bread n’ butter, and a Coke.” He seemed proud to Thurman like he wanted Thurman to appreciate it.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Broken Piece of Me by Doyin Ajayi

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Adult Content

For Ann

That sound, sharp.

It slices through the air like a whip. It jolts me awake. I haven’t gotten used to it. The harmattan wind blows through the open windows. I rub my shoulders and try to warm my body up.  The huge searchlight in the yard casts a shadow of the cashew tree on the walls. The branches spook me. They’re wraiths reaching for me, their pointed tips looking like spears aimed at me, reaching for my soul. A woman’s scream. Sergeant Wasiu’s gun cocks again. He’s the chief of the guards – a cruel man with gallows humour. The creeping feeling rises up in me again. The night’s quietness is eerie. The woman’s screams are louder now, they’re bloodcurdling.

The gun roars. Her screams stop abruptly.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Retrieving Johanna by Evelyn Wall

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Gayle drove for two days expecting sirens before changing cars. She missed riding high in the brute rev of David’s truck, but the Corolla was less noticeable. The interior was damp and cloyingly chemical like its former owner with a spine like a question mark. But the keys had plucked easy from his pocket, not pulling a thread.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Helicopter by Marco Etheridge

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I am cursed with my very own personal psyops helicopter, a flying machine that takes me anywhere it wants to go, no matter how much I beg it to leave me be. Matte black, of course, updated constantly—the latest sensors, time travel, you name it. Highly sensitive to excruciating shame, humiliation, and social embarrassment. Fully automated, sentient, and merciless.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Seven Flowers for Lemonade by Daniel P. Douglas

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The Lemonade Stand materialized at the corner of Maple and Third like a memory made solid, and Cliff felt his foot ease off the accelerator. Through the windshield of his sedan, the sight struck him, not of this stand with its crooked cardboard sign and red plastic cups, but of something older and as familiar as his own reflection and twice as strange.

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All Stories, General Fiction

God’s Creatures by Jennifer Sinclair Roberts

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(Content that some readers may find upsetting – refer to the tags at the bottom of the page)

“Shut up the shutters, boy, and light up the pit.”

No more words were needed. The crowd in the parlour of the King’s Head heaved and jostled. Dogs were untied from table legs as their owners rushed towards a shabby staircase leading to a room below. Jimmy Brown, the proprietor, held his hand out for shillings as the cacophonous queue pushed past.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

One for the Road by Neil James

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Dean cradles the pint glass like it’s the only thing holding him together. I don’t know how he survived losing Sophie and the baby in the same night, but eight months later he’s made it to The Lantern on Christmas Eve.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Humour, Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 560: A New Year Begins

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A Kvetch

We have now officially opened the twelfth year of Literally Stories UK. And as it goes in life we have faced a recent challenge after we were listed (unbeknownst to us) by one of those publications that do such things. I do not know why such services still exist in the era of Google, nor do I grasp why people rely on such services, but the situation exists.

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