Category: Short Fiction

Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – Johnny Igoe, Spellbinder Remembered by Tom Sheehan.

ireneallison12

I view Tom Sheehan’s Johnny Igoe, Spellbinder Remembered as more of a link to rather than an item lost to the enveloping past. This tale is full of remembrance, Ireland, poetry and a melancholy for those little things lost. There are certain persons in our lives (sadly, too few) who make you sad to think about what it will be like when they are gone, even as they live.

***

Q: From what I observe, good oral storytellers, those who make you lean forward as they weave a yarn, are an endangered species. Yet there is nothing out of date about that ability. It is still desired, but has fallen off. In your estimation is there anything besides our reliance on devices (for communication and entertainment) that has contributed to our lack of good speakers?

Q: I keep casting about my mind for a better way to phrase this question, but have come up empty. Simply, is this a true story? Seems so to me. Even if it is fictionalized, it has great truth to it.

Leila Allison

Tom’s response:

Too much attention elsewhere for many folks, Leila, and Johnny Igoe hangs in my mind as if it is his memorial, every word like an echo I grab on the run through his life again and again., so lucky to have known him so close for a long time, though I am a poor mechanic at this machine and often can’t remember what I want to look up, which is a stumbling block, there is so much work captured here someplace.

***

Johnny Igoe, Spellbinder Remembered

Short Fiction

Week 345: Mister Hisster, Star Turns and Things That Need Inventing

ireneallison12

Mister Hisster

For the past three years I’ve been feeding a “neighborhood cat” I call Mister Hisster (yes, that is him in the header). I figured that by giving him a name I’d eliminate the “stray” stigma. Mister Hisster is a smallish long haired gray tabby, and leads with his right. There is nothing overly tragic about Mister Hisster because he is feral and has no use for the human race, but tolerates me–to a quickly arrived at point. Whenever I place his food at his spot under the boxhedge, I’d better get my hand out of the way awfully damn quick or the next thing I will do with it is open a tube of neosporin.

“Good morning, Mister Hisster. How’s my favorite little son of a bitch today?”

Continue reading “Week 345: Mister Hisster, Star Turns and Things That Need Inventing” →
Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – Jim’s Aunts by Hugh Cron.

ireneallison12

There’s always something that is both hidden and in plain sight at the same time in Hugh Cron’s stories, and Jim’s Aunts definitely has that quality in abundance. Although it is a short piece, all the words tell and the thing that it causes to form early on in the back of your head comes to light with the final sentence–even though it is also open ended.

Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Jim’s Aunts by Hugh Cron.” →
Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 344 – ‘Do You Want Super Sex? If It’s Aw The Same To You, A’ll Huv The Soup’, ‘No! No! Don’t Open The Door, Snake Hips Cotter Will Slither On Underneath’, And ‘For Everything In Life There Is Always A Beginning And An End. This Is The Tough Part, The Most Difficult Thing Is When You See The End Coming.’

gwencron

First off I need to apologise to Diane for having to set up a posting with the longest title ever! (Are you taking that as a challenge Leila??) They’re all quotes, the first two are difficult to find but the third one, the one that really does get to me is there and can be found.

12
Short Fiction

The Wishingwellwraith and the Trade Rats: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical By Leila Allison

ireneallison12

Flo and Andy were a Trade Rat couple who lived at the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico. Flo had dug their den (aka “midden”) on an abandoned ranch, close to an old well that had dried up ages ago. Although they weren’t exactly in the desert, the land was thick with mesquite, chaparral, agave cactus and peyote.

Little did the couple know that the ranch had been a hideout for famous bandits and desperados in the nineteenth century. Or so the new owner, who’d recently moved in, claimed. And if Flo and Andy had been cynical Trade Rats attuned to human affairs then they might have made the connection between the advent of the new highway that passed less than a mile from the ranch and its heretofore unknown history as an outlaw hideout. And if Flo and Andy knew how to read read, they would have understood the sign that the new owner had erected at the ranch’s entrance:

Continue reading “The Wishingwellwraith and the Trade Rats: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical By Leila Allison” →
All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 343–Some Good Things Lost, Gained and A Celebration of Hairspray

ireneallison12

Some Good Things Lost

-1-

Wisdom

I asked my grandmother if everything was wonderful in the good old days. She told me that “wonderful” can exist at any time as long as you are young and have enough money. She also said it’s better to be young than anything else, but since nobody stays that way, sources of money should always be cultivated.

-2-

THRIFT

My Grandpa Henry was a custodian at a community college for forty-three years. And although he made a decent “working man’s wage,” and in all other ways was a generous man, not once in his life did he pay more than two-hundred dollars for a car.

He had a thing for extremely tuckered government vehicles at state auctions. One year he landed a 1970-something Plymouth Fury for twenty bucks because he was the only one to bid on it. Grandpa Henry was proud of that car even though the only way to start it was to wrap your left arm behind the wheel and pull hard on the shift while cranking the starter with your other hand and pumping the accelerator, hoping it fired before the battery croaked.

Continue reading “Week 343–Some Good Things Lost, Gained and A Celebration of Hairspray” →
Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – Goodbye by Frederick K Foote

ireneallison12

I believe that knowing we will die causes art and kindness. I mean if you knew you were going to live forever, why invest your soul in that sculpture? Why not be a jerk? I also believe if there are immortals out there, they are uncultured assholes.

Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Goodbye by Frederick K Foote” →
Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – Cat Eyes by Yashar Seyedbagheri

ireneallison12

You never know which new writer will hit the site in a big way until a little time goes by. Often we get one timers whose contributions are appreciated, yet leave us pining for more. And there are the occasionals who submit every season or so, and we always welcome their return. Then you get prolific persons such as Mir Yashar Seyedbagheri. He hit the Literally Stories ground running and hasn’t looked back since. Although there will be a definitive count in a few months, Yash has already surpassed twenty posts alone this year of 2021, and today we invite you to look back at his first LS story from 2020.

Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Cat Eyes by Yashar Seyedbagheri” →