Gregory Self woke earlier than planned, disturbed by scurrying and scratching sounds up above. Squirrels on the roof again. He lay awake, waiting for the noises to stop, but they only grew worse.
Reluctantly, Gregory rolled out of his bed and lolloped down the stairs to the kitchen, where he put the coffee pot on the stove. Even from down here the noises on the roof were loud and clear. He grimaced at a Bang! up above, followed by more scratching. Big squirrels.
The two rather dishevelled men walked up the street. They weren’t very big, they weren’t very handsome. They certainly weren’t very clever. Normally fate would decide that due to these short-comings they would have been given very interesting characters or gracious manners. But no! Not these two, they were both arseholes.
Continue reading “Blood And Bigotry by Hugh Cron – Adult Content”
The local bus huffs and heaves its way into Way Stop, West Virginia. It halts with a shudder and a sigh in the mid-morning sun.
I collect my duffle bag and straighten my fatigue uniform jacket. On Main Street, there’s an honest to goodness general store, a diner, Bob’s Gas Station, a few empty store fronts and two small white churches almost directly across the street from each other. The June morning is moving toward hot. I move toward the diner for coffee and directions.
Continue reading “Mourning Becomes Her by Frederick K. Foote”
As an undergraduate at Bryn Mawr College, Clementine Hamilton had majored in psychology. For the department research requirement, she had pursued her studies in abnormal psychology, so she was aware there was no formal diagnosis for what she was. There were elements of obsessive-compulsive disorder in that her need for constant stimulation was recurrent and persistent, and the impulsivity aspect of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder characterized past behaviors. If she had been forced to ascribe a name to it, it would have been something like ‘stimulus deprivation disorder,’ and the symptoms that had manifested themselves over the years were readily measurable.
Ade stared at the ceiling and sighed. In a dim corner at the very edge of his field of vision, a spider was spinning its web. He shuddered. Shelley’s cleaning skills meant that too often he had inadvertently thrust his hand into barely visible cobwebs — nasty, sticky nests of what felt like old man’s hair. He hated spiders: the way they ran out of nowhere at speed, changed direction randomly without warning and fell out of unexpected places where they had no business being – bath towels, dressing gowns, slippers.
Continue reading “The Noble Shelley and Her Fat Belly by H.T. Garton”
The human body is undoubtedly the greatest work of art in the entire universe. This is my sincere conviction as I silently spring, hop and even moonwalk. Swirling with grace through the city street, I place the human form on nude display while keeping my mind expertly focused, eyes calm and and dispassionate.
At nine years of age I met Monsignor Karavich up close when he invited me onto the altar during benediction alongside Michael Dolanski, the heroic high school halfback. Until then, the priest had been an other-worldly figure, an unreal actor on stage, looming above and orating as I knelt silently at a pew, trapped in place by my mother’s piety.
I didn’t know, I had no idea, if I’d known I would never have opened the inbox.
I was just checking the emails, sorting out the junk, the ads and the spam, click, click, click. That was when I saw it, for the first time, the first message.
He come in like dat. A black man on a black mare, seventeen hands, with three white socks. No saddle, no blanket, no shoes, bald head, no hat. Dat mare dancing and turning, kicking up the dust in the bright sun light.
I saw dat. Dat is what I saw.
Shadrach A. Williams
Recorded March 3, 1868
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The door was unlocked and he was taken into the room.
“We’re right outside if you need us Doc!”
The two guards watched as he sat and then they left.
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