Category: Short Fiction

Fantasy, Humour, Short Fiction

Ping’s Complaint by Leila Allison

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Ping Beams of Jim

No matter what type of dimension you inhabit, watching and hearing a Moon roll noisily toward you from the sky is an odd thing. Such happened the other night as I was out in the Barnyard shooting the evening breeze with Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess and my Lead Imaginary Friend and second in command of the realm of Saragun Springs, Renfield.

“Ping’s coming down,” Renfield said.

“You hear that? He’s making a noise, like thunder,” Daisy added.

Renfield held a hand to her ear. “Yeah, I think you’re right, Daisy. He sounds like a rolling bowling ball.”

“Hope he’s not attempting a three pin spare,” I said. But I had been expecting the visit.

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Short Fiction

Sunday Whatever – An essay by Michel Bloor

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A Strange Stone with a Strange History. An Essay by Michael Bloor

One of the most striking exhibits in the National Museum of Scotland is an eight foot, two ton, twelve hundred year-old, intricately carved slab of sandstone – the Hilton of Cadboll Stone, a Pictish standing stone originally from Easter Ross, in the north of Scotland. The Picts left many such standing stones dotted across Scotland and, despite generations of scholarship, they remain in many respects a mysterious people.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, Fantasy, Short Fiction

The Awful Truth and What’s on Your Playlist

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The Awful Truth has a way of sneaking up on you. I once had a body type like Popeye’s Olive Oyl. Yet around age thirty, my clothes began to get mysteriously tighter. I went into denial. I even tried telling myself “they must be making my size smaller.” But there was no denying the Awful Truth.

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Short Fiction

Horse-collared by Tom Sheehan

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The great storm of 1822 hit greater Boston with swirling winds while Harriet Grant and her three children had left hours earlier to visit her sister in Lynnfield. The route she chose was through a wooded section with few houses en route. Edgar Grant didn’t begin to worry until the storm did not abate, its fury continuing with the wild winds laden with thick, heavy snow building up in a hurry.

If he went out there on his own, it would do little good if he too was caught asunder, unable to penetrate the thick fall, lose himself in such a massive undertaking. He knew he was caught between the good, the bad, and the actual horror of loss every which way he could imagine.

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Short Fiction

The Fall and Rise of Uncle Albert by David Rudd

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This is the strange story of my uncle, the writer Albert Palmerson, who died peacefully over fifteen years ago. I should put “peacefully” in scare quotes because Uncle Albert maintained that he died for the first time twelve years prior to this, and far less calmly.

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All Stories, Humour, Short Fiction

A Conversation About The Sixties by Hugh Cron (Adult Content)

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“I’m fed up watching the news. Seemingly, the queen’s still dead.”

“That’s six months now and they’re still harping on about it. I can’t remember the last time I bought a paper.”

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Short Fiction

The Hive by Rania Hellal

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When you read this, I will most likely be dead.

The night is biting and cold against my naked skin. The rope is impossibly tight around my ankles, set on digging its way down to the bone.

I am not sure anymore, what will kill me first;  The cold , the starved predators of the forest or my own people.

Now, before I tell you my story, I want you to know, that I am nothing like the terrible things  you might have heard about me.

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Short Fiction

The Unknown Writer by Douglas Robbins

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His studio apartment sits downtown. It’s late morning. He puts on blue jeans, a black T-shirt and sits in his writing chair, his only chair. With no socks on, he looks down at his yellowed toenails. He prints out his three completed manuscripts. He walks over and clears off the mahogany wood table he picked up cheap. It has served him for writing, eating, and mail. His futon mattress is only a few feet away. He moves the table into the center of the room scraping it along the floor.

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Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – My Powdered Friend by David Henson

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In this impersonal age of cyber friends (like me), witch hunters who never meet in person and gaining the gospel from unholy sources David Henson’s My Powdered Friend is a satire that is uncomfortably close to being true. As in much of David’s work, he takes a bright, keen, even flippant tone, which intensifies the darker themes. And he has the great knack of making you believe just about anything.

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Short Fiction

Week 418- Advice; Action; Distraction

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Advice

I believe that doctors, mechanics and everyone else whose work alters material objects should always listen to advice offered by their peers and seek it when in doubt. “Dr. Smith, I know I am only assisting–but is there a reason to leave a scalpel in the patient?”; “Hey boss, we got some doo-hickeys left over from that 737 engine we just serviced–you think that means something?” Indeed there are situations when ego should be set aside, but I do not believe that is always the best policy in works of imagination.

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