Category: General Fiction

All Stories, General Fiction

Willie the Postie and the Humpbacked Bridge by Michael Bloor

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I’d dropped into the Gordon Arms the other night, expecting to watch my team in a death-or-glory relegation struggle on the pub’s sports channel. Instead, they were screening some jaw-cracking yawn of a European game (how could you ever get excited about a team called ‘Borussia Mönchengladbach’?). I was just about to drain my pint and head home, when I recognised a familiar big red face grinning at me from a table in the corner. It was Willie the Postie, now retired, who I hadn’t seen for a couple of years. So I bought us a couple of pints and we settled down for a catch-up.

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Editor Picks, General Fiction, Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 557: Magick and Fare Thee Well Sybil Fawlty

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As I get deeper into my cronehood, this time of existence in which people either do not see me or pretend they have business elsewhere when the cowl slips, November has become my friend. The mocking young forms who strode about oh so hot to trot last summer are now buried under layers of linen and lycra and are having a hell of a hard time using their phones in the rain.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Florian Is Totally Fine With This by Courtney Jean Day

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*Adult content*

‘Where did you say Mum is this weekend?’

Florian is stretched out on the sitting room sofa, feet up on the coffee table, laptop in its customary position. Affecting nonchalance, he keeps his eyes on the screen.

‘She’s off for a spa retreat, sweetheart.’

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All Stories, General Fiction

Days Off by Dylan Ng

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Do you ever feel stuck? Asleep at the wheel of your own life? Each day a motion, repeated to the point of mental RSI, a means to an end? You must surely know the feeling. The same papers passed over your desk. The same documents read on a dusty laptop screen. The same dull drum playing on the surface of your temples. And you think to yourself: surely this ends soon?

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All Stories, General Fiction

Like Lightning by Evangeline Golden

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It’s a fine day for a game. Though the sky is dreary– columns of smoke rise from the building above– the weather is just chilly enough to motivate us to stay moving, focused. We arrived at Mauthausen earlier this afternoon. One of the men had been waiting for us at the station. Our walk to the field was short, the town small but warm– comfortable. The people are nice here. The fuẞballfield is conveniently placed at the end of the main street– the bottom of the hill.

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Sister’s Promise by Grace Lee

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The night before, my sister sobbed a waterfall into the sleeve of my silk pajamas. My own eyes are bone dry like the wooden roof we lay under. Rain hasn’t come in weeks and the tomato plants outside are decaying like autumn leaves crumbling to dust underfoot. The market was shut down weeks ago by Japanese men with eyes painted with malice.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Just Tired by Wayne Exton

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The port had the kind of heat that clung. It didn’t shine so much as settle — in the pavement cracks, the seams of café terraces, the folds of collars, behind the knees.

The air quivered above the cobbles like it was trying to rise but couldn’t find the strength.

From inside the arcade, David watched the light outside bleach everything to the same soft-edged white. Sunhats. Pigeons. The bone-pale wall of the farmacia.

The smell was a mix of sugar, oil, and the sea — sweet one second, briny the next. Somewhere nearby, a slushie machine whirred like it was dying slowly.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Restless Souls by Alice Baburek

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No one really knows why restoration stopped on the abandoned St. Julian hotel, where commoners and kings once came to relax in luxury.But Bernie Yocum and her brother George Winton had their suspicions. The renovation/construction company they shared had been in their family for decades.

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