Category: General Fiction

All Stories, General Fiction

Mung Beans and Happiness by Emily Khym

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Sooner or later it’s going to happen to you. You forget the hand-me-down hanboks, blaring F-84s, stitched up sacks of half empty barley portions from a bustling market stocked with rows of mung beans and buchu. You weave through scenes of shirts drenched in sticky blood and machine guns shooting your neighbors down to become spine-chilling nightmares. You become another identity that hopes to forget the feeling of a complete family—a sort of silent-lipped desire that keeps you from proudly marching into Olympic Mart with your mother for a touch of authenticity you desperately want to forget. You force yourself to grow up to match the number of times you ate seaweed soup on your birthday, fourteen, to keep your ripped up photographs tightly shut in your safe.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Just Trying to Make a Living by Donna M. Williams

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Ethel Jordan holds her hands out in front of her. She never liked her hands. The fingers are stubby, too short to be mistaken for the fingers of a pianist which she had wanted to be in another life.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

Follow by R B Miner

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The morning is cold and dark and quiet. The roads are nearly empty, strange for a Monday, even at this early hour. Victor Fetter watches the clouds, purple against the leaden sky, while he listens to the familiar rattle inside his mail truck. He thinks the clouds look like rain, and he is pleased. Rain means fewer people, fewer eyes, fewer conversations. He can go about his business with his head down, without fear of interruption, the way he likes.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Smoke from the Chimney by Tom Sheehan

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Diagonally, out my back window, pal Buzz Chadsy’s house sits like a white peppermint on the side lane, one house between us. In winter’s Christmas snow, it celebrates life and color, at Easter the calm is newly evident, at night a single bulb lights the living edifice. Many late evenings, it is the last sign of life as I trod to bed, to a deep sleep, or a night full of dreams on the run.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Horror, Humour

A Typical Scottish AI Story by Hugh Cron – Warning – Adult Content.

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“You’re coming on fine Malcolm.”

“Malky, I want to be called Malky”

“Malky?”

“Aye”

“Aye?”

“Aye? Are you just repeating whit Ah’m saying or are you just being a fud in general?”

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All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 390: The Week That Is and Old L.S. Has a Robot Farm, A.I., A.I., Oh-One-One-Oh!

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“I compare ‘Intelligence’ to the dubious garment ‘chaps.’ All intelligence is artificial as all chaps are assless. I see thinking itself as something that creates items like chaps then almost always describes them as ‘assless’ even though that is a redundant observation. No where else in the natural universe does the non-extant difference between chaps and assless chaps exist other than between human ears. And if chaps had asses then they would be sewed on via artificial means–Ergo the concept of all things related to chaps is artificial, and any mind that ponders such must also be fabricated.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

An Invite for Kanji

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Kanji’s shop is easy to spot, the name board is big and backlit, and it stands out amongst shabby establishments with dull yellow-red lighting. I shoulder my way through the late evening bazaar crowd to reach the store.

It’s getting dark and I don’t like the look of this neighborhood. Yet I set out to see ‘my uncle’ thanks to my innate sense of duty.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Orange Fish and Cigarettes 

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I sit in the silence of the well-lit room. The lights hum above me in a constant gentle artificial song. A small squeak escapes from the guard’s shoes. The shoes, generic in form and cheap in manufacturing, hug the woman’s size ten feet. The guard, tall and muscled, must have terrible foot aches when she gets home at night. I wonder about her as my eyes drift over her imposing form. The straight line of her lips and knitted eyebrows add to the already impressive stature. Does she have a husband waiting? Kids? Do they see the angry straight line of her lips as she walks through the door? Or does her face lose the sharp edges when she is home? A soft mother who nestles her children to her large, albeit, hard breasts. 

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