Here we are at Week 182.
Our process was my inspiration this week, well sort of, I did go off on a few tangents so no change there.
When we read all the submissions, it makes us realise what we like, enjoy, what we dislike and what annoys us. And I am not talking about the writing, (…Well!) I’m talking about the subjects and what they make us consider.
Continue reading “Week 182 – Hated Things, Freedom Of Speech And Mixed Emotions”
I know you grew up on the streets, that you feel the streets made you, that you are now the streets, maybe just a human version. I know that when you were younger, death led your parents along and your relatives rejected you saying you were bad omen, that whenever you passed something gets missing. But you knew you were not a thief, that you could do nothing with your skinny limbs, so you told everyone you met on the streets that your relatives were wicked. But those strangers never understood you because you spoke Igbo in a city dominated by pidgin speaking strangers. The few who understood you called you a liar, ajo nwa, a bad child. You must have been six then.
Continue reading “A Frog’s Home is Called a Pond by Bryan Okwesili”
She hated her job. All day she read and reworked words that didn’t satisfy, words dry, tasteless, and underripe — words like rectifier and microprocessor and power semiconductor. Their heaviness left paste in her mouth.
Continue reading “The Literal Gourmand — A Fable by Daun Daemon”
I saw it all, from the very beginning, heard it all, too, every word rising on the air … in our first classroom, in church, everywhere it happened, you name the place and I was there. Unannounced it came. From the heavens it must have come, taking over his soul, his body, his mind for a few bare minutes of magic. Once, and once only, every five year like clockwork, it came on him, as if grabbed by the heavenly spheres or ignition itself lighting up his lungs from the inside. My pal Victor, classmate for 16 years of schooling, teammate for 8 years, inseparable companion, fifth year custodian of miracles that made him, for the nonce, an extraordinary singer without explanation, an indescribable tenor so gifted I have to place the cause on an element beyond us mere men.
V for Victor, dit dit dit dah, dit dit dit dah, dit dit dit dah.
Robert got up as he did every school day morning to his six-fifty alarm. Liz, his wife, was still asleep. She didn’t get up until seven. He woke his son Jonathan to begin the process of supervising him for getting ready for school. As the boy reluctantly dressed, Robert went to the kitchen and took his blood sugar. It was high, so he cursed under his breath and thought about all the bad things he’d eaten the night before.
When she was wheeled into the day room, attended by her IV drip, Jack thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She seemed absolutely pure, evacuated of all evil, honed to perfection. Her head was an imported melon covered by the finest filo pastry, stretched and rolled thin. Her cheeks were eggshells. Concave. The hair on her head was shredded coconut. The hair on her body was dark and fuzzy, like the mold on Gorgonzola. Her skin was the color of Dijon mustard – that wonderful brownish tinge that comes from lost vitamins and minerals. She was everything gourmet Jack had denied himself.
I met Libby through an online dating site after I graduated college. Our “In Tune” rating was exceptionally high. I tended to get nervous and tongue-tied around women, but it was different with Libby. We had so much in common we finished each other’s sentences half the time. I was so taken with Libby, I found myself growing more and more concerned about her spending time with anyone else.
Continue reading “The Drag Queen and The Dozen Dicks by David Henson”
The piranha grinned at Riley through the window of the thrift store. Yellow green, shiny, about six inches long, teeth projecting forward from the jaw bones, a personification of evil mounted on a simple rectangular wooden stand.
I work for the federal government.
Federal.
Government.
I don’t know what that means.
Yes I do. It means pushing this broom from one end of the hall to the other ─ this end to that end ─ when it’s dark outside. Like now. I don’t like the dark, but these humming lights always work. If they don’t, I must report them to my boss. Mr. Shapiro.
Report them.
Does that make me a reporter? No one likes reporters.
Jackals. Hounds.
I hope the humming lights never burn out.
Sally didn’t think much of the Lyft driver. He wore his hat at a sideways slant. When he turned the wheel of the hybrid, he made fight noises like Sally used hear in those Shaw brother’s movies she watched with her dad.
literally stories 