Category: Short Fiction

Short Fiction

Week 596 – Cattle-prod Your Child, We Do Have A ‘No Fucking Chance List’ And You Can’t Escape.

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Here we are at Week 596

Every now and then I try to give a few tips on what we’re looking for and our thought process in deciding.

Today I want to point out a huge NO! NO! This was inspired by a submission and my sister who is a proud grand-parent. (Aye-One of those!) You see, she had a video of her grand-child who is my Great Grand-Nephew (I’m not sure that deserves to be capitalised) dancing. The kid is two years old and his dancing is shite. All kids at that age dance shite. Maybe apart from Michael Jackson but he turned out to be a junky paedo.

Continue reading “Week 596 – Cattle-prod Your Child, We Do Have A ‘No Fucking Chance List’ And You Can’t Escape.” →
Short Fiction, Writers Reading

Writers Read – And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie an essay by Leila

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Agatha Christie 1939

Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None was my mother’s all time favorite book. If that isn’t true, well, she can come back from the other side and tell me about it (that statement causes me a bit more anxiety than you might think). She died fifteen years ago and lately I’ve been re-examining the crash and thud of our extremely difficult and often semi-violent relationship. Now, I never swung at Mom except once when I was nine, and she actually pulled a knife on me once when we were both considerably older. I believe “volatile” sums it up if I had only one word to choose from.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 595: Who’s On Your Wall and a New Feature

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I went to high school with a girl named Michelle “Mick” Kleinschmidt. Mick looked as far removed from Kleinschmidtiness as you can imagine. Her father was an American of German ancestry and her mother (whom Mick strongly resembled) was a Filipina. Mick’s parents met and were married in Manila. He was in the Navy and brought Mrs. K to live in the United States. Bremerton, Washington is a Navy town, and after Mick’s father was honorably discharged he landed a job at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. This is very common in this part of the world and continues to happen to this very day. (For the first time ever, while I worked on base, I met a female Ensign who brought her Filipino husband home to America.)

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auld author, Short Fiction

Auld Author – Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh by Leila.

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My Trainspotting experience was one of the few times that I saw the film before I read the book. And it is also one of the incredibly few times that I consider both items of equal high quality.

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Short Fiction

Week 594 – Riddle Induced Spinal Problems, Look Deep And I Loved The Ice-Cream Ones.

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Here we are at Week 594.

Before we start, I need to answer the question that I asked in my last posting –

Swims is the word that is the same upside down as it is right side up.

How many of you will write it and check??

Or how many of you have cricked your neck looking at that typed word on your computer screen??

Continue reading “Week 594 – Riddle Induced Spinal Problems, Look Deep And I Loved The Ice-Cream Ones.” →
Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Between Vern and Alex by Harrison Kim

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AUGUST 2021:

“My will is your authority,” says Vern, the bishop’s mitre wearing business dealer.  His blue veined cheeks turn red, then purple, as he laughs until the tears flow, rocking back and forth, holding his sides in front of red-bearded, yellow-toothed twenty-seven-year-old Alex as they sit making connections and trades in the rusted bus that is Vern’s hoarder home.   “Hold the mirror higher,” Vern commands, and Alex does.  He sees the red capillaries bulge under Vern’s eyes.  “Where did you get this holy hat?” the dealer asks.

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Short Fiction

Literally Reruns: The Assistant Town Drunk: From Zero to Hero in Seconds by Todd Mercer

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The dreadful ghoul has been beaten to death after death with cudgels, sticks, baseball bats and dirty old men, but the hardest thing in writing to do, I think, is setting out to be funny and actually succeeding. I do not know if Todd Mercer had that in mind when he set out to write The Assistant Town Drunk: From Zero to Hero in Seconds, but funny is what he delivered. There’s subtle wit and slapstick all the way through this one and we highly recommend it for those who might be feeling low.

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

593: Limping Mind Games

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The dumbest question to ask a kid must be “What do you want to be when you grow up?” (Often preceded by “So”). For me the best answers for that are “How the fuck should I know, I’m seven”; “Lizzie Borden” and “Anything that takes me away from you.” But I never used any because even at that young age I knew it was an insincere “points winning” question usually asked by some dweeb whose aim was to screw my mother.

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General Fiction, Short Fiction

Almost Cinderella by Claudine Mussuto

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In my mind, I walked in bare feet on a narrow, yellowed, dry-grass path, not stilettos or Merrell’s, Asic’s or glass slippers. Posturing and protection seemed incompatible with the advancing disclosures.

Left and right there were walls of water like the falls in certain hotel lobbies and shopping malls, but seemingly static, not flowing, like glacial ice, the same layered turquoise and white, and mirrored, warped, the way shame distorts what isn’t love into something recognizable and consequently accepted.  There was enough width for my shoulders plus an inch or two on either side.

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All Stories, Short Fiction, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever: Tweedy on Reed an essay from Dale Williams Barrigar.

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“The dead don’t die.” – Jeff Tweedy

Whoever believes that a 58-year-old man can’t rock out any more hasn’t heard (or has heard and hasn’t understood) Jeff Tweedy’s new song “Lou Reed Was My Babysitter” from his 2025 triple album Twilight Override.

The symbolic title of this song alone is worth volumes as it encapsulates an American way of life, for good and ill, in five words.

Anything with Lou in it has to be great, or near-great, to justify the use of his name and this song is.

Continue reading “Sunday Whatever: Tweedy on Reed an essay from Dale Williams Barrigar.” →