Category: General Fiction

All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 573: An Elegy For a Friend and the A to Z of Adjectival Slight

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A friend from my youth died recently. His name was Kim. We were close through our twenties until he moved to Japan (due to marriage). The only contact we had for decades was the occasional Facebook “happy birthday like” (I fell out of using Facebook fairly quickly; too many ads and idiots, but the premise is a good one). I considered writing letters, which I (without modesty) am pretty good at writing. Maybe I should have–but to paraphrase James Taylor “I didn’t know where to send them to.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Fisheye by Jade Lacy

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The last time we stayed at Popo’s house, I was five years old, still in the cradle of memory when truth and story become mixed up in an inseparable mosaic. It’s hard to say what I remember and what has been spun to me as a family tale, more real than my own hazy recollection. Maybe if I had been older I would have more to tell. Or maybe it would be all the more clear how much of Popo’s life had slipped through the cracks of my young, distracted mind.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Nothing Else That I Would Ask by Antony Osgood

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‘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!’

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All Stories, General Fiction

Bananenbuigerij by Michael Smith

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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.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Hell’s Half Acre by Danyl A Doyle

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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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Trespassing by Liz deBeer

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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.”

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Asimov in the Operating Room by Barry Yedvobnick

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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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Chicken Sandwich by T.A. Young

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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.

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Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 571: Andy Fought the Law, and, Well, Andy Won

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Andy

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.

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