Category: Short Fiction

Short Fiction

Confessions of a Failed Weekly World News Reporter by Jonathan DeCoteau

literallystories2014

 Aliens Invade Florida! You May Be Next!

 There are weird spots all around this country—like Plano, Texas, home of the Cockroach Hall of Fame and Museum—and then there’s Hell Country, a patch of the Everglades so remote, it stands apart from time altogether.  As a crack reporter for the Weekly World News, I’d visited a number of strange and eerie sites, but Hell County was a whole different animal.  No one goes to Hell Country unless they’re running drugs or fleeing the law.  It’s a network of badlands full of lightning-struck sawgrass marshes and impenetrable cypress and mangrove forests lost to the brackish reserves of time.  Hell Country’s marshes are so vast, so immeasurable, that their topography changes over the hundreds of miles this river of grass consumes, from stale pine forests to coastal prairies whose more colorful denizens include stone crabs, alligators, and Burmese pythons.  Oddly enough, though, it isn’t the pythons—which I’ve photographed—that haunt me to this day.  It’s my friend from fifty years ago, Dalton Trummel, the last of a strange breed of tabloid reporters who never let well enough alone and vanished because of it.

Continue reading “Confessions of a Failed Weekly World News Reporter by Jonathan DeCoteau” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

No Past, No Future, Just Now by Michelle Ann King

literallystories2014

Front door shut and locked. Push it again, jiggle the handle a few more times, to be sure. I left it open once — maybe more than once?—and next-door’s cat got in the house. Henry wasn’t pleased with me. He’s been so good, so patient, but he was very upset about the door. I’ve been much more careful since.

Continue reading “No Past, No Future, Just Now by Michelle Ann King” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Humour, Romance, Short Fiction, Writing

If… by Hugh Cron – Warning Strong Adult Content

gwencron

“Mum, mum, I’m just going to come right out with it…I’m straight.”

“My God!”

Janice crossed herself and burst into tears.

Continue reading “If… by Hugh Cron – Warning Strong Adult Content” →

All Stories, Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 163 – Fun With Answers And Fudfucks With Perfect Rolled Up Sleeves

gwencron

Thanks for the questions folks, they are posted at the end of the reviews. We all had a lot of fun answering them.

So not too much wittering from me.

Continue reading “Week 163 – Fun With Answers And Fudfucks With Perfect Rolled Up Sleeves” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Lamentation by A.E. Herting

literallystories2014

Even the sky grieved. Gray and bleak, the wind cried out in lamentation, sending leftover pockets of old snow onto stark marble gravestones. Mourners passed by, eyes forward, each lost in their own world of respectful sadness. They walked along in silent groups, no one engaging in small talk or forced levity. Their task was much too grave for such normal pleasantries.

Continue reading “Lamentation by A.E. Herting” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Humour, Short Fiction

Blessed are the Little Things by Leila Allison

literallystories2014

There were only four tables in the cafe, and I saw that my date was already seated at one of them. I had figured this out by the process of elimination (there was nobody else in the cafe except her and the young woman behind the counter), and the stretched possibility that my date bore a slight resemblance to the younger, fitter, and brighter-looking person in her profile gallery. A “helpful hint” on the lonely hearts’ site says that you can judge your match’s interest level by the amount of preparation she has invested in meeting you. Interestingly, the lady had gussied herself up to a point which lay between rushing to the convenience store at five in the morning for coffee filters and awakening in a dumpster. And she seemed oblivious to every atom in the universe that wasn’t displayed on her iphone.

Continue reading “Blessed are the Little Things by Leila Allison” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Family Traditions by L’Erin Ogle

literallystories2014

“I have a headache,” I told Clark, and came upstairs.

It was nine o clock and the kids were asleep, and I didn’t have a headache.  But I didn’t want to sit downstairs and watch Clark get drunk on screwdrivers while watching old Seinfeld episodes, and then have to come upstairs and try to have sex while his penis stands at half mast no matter what I do.
It isn’t me.  I have no doubts about that.  It’s the booze.  We aren’t as young as we used to be and after the kids are out, Clark can’t put the glass in his hand down.  I guess I don’t care much anyway, anymore.  I just don’t want to spend twenty minutes flogging and sucking a soft penis then trying to stuff it in while it wilts and bends.  Then the excuses and the pity party. Having to make him feel good about himself while my vagina crawls up into my uterus.  Might as well skip the whole shebang, and head upstairs with a book, and escape.

Continue reading “Family Traditions by L’Erin Ogle” →

All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

Three Girls in a Hut by Joe Giordano

literallystories2014

Silvia said that from some angles I looked handsome; she left me when another man convinced her that she was beautiful. I tore her picture and put on a kettle of tea. I munched a corn muffin and contemplated my fate. I’d exposed my heart like a puppy’s underbelly. Emotional involvement was the problem. I’d begin a no-female diet. I’d tone down all my relationships and avoid acquaintances whose neck veins bulged in discussions over gay marriage, climate change, or how to cultivate tomatoes. I’d develop a Solomon’s coolness in the face of thorny disputes. My wisdom was often ignored, so I’d stop giving advice. I’d be cheerful because likeability was the most important quality. My superiors would dote on me. Even better, I’d enter politics. Why sweat when I could earn money for flattery and smiles? I’d inflate others’ self-importance. Praise would be the opiate I dispersed; I’d seek people for whom no complement was too grandiose to swallow as truth. My face would be a smiling mask; no one would see behind the image. Insult and injury would be swirled and swallowed. Like a jagged rock plunged into the belly of life’s giant mixer, I’d smooth myself into an indistinguishable shape.

Continue reading “Three Girls in a Hut by Joe Giordano” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Soul Radio by Frederick K Foote

literallystories2014

Night Train

Hey, this is for The Sake of Soul, minus rock and roll. I got news for you. I got blues for you. I got things for you to do. Dig what I say. Hear what I play. We gonna fill the hole in your soul, with the best of the blues.

Continue reading “Soul Radio by Frederick K Foote” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Pusher by Simon McHardy

literallystories2014

When I was twelve years old my grade six class went on a camping trip to the Coromandel, a rugged peninsula on New Zealand’s North Island. Three teachers came to supervise the boys-only class.  After a two-hour bus trip we pitched our tents at a campsite off a dirt road, thirty minutes from the small mining town of Thames. The site was surrounded by bush and mountain ranges, one mountain caught everyone’s eye, it had a long flat top, a teacher, Mr Larson, informed us it was aptly named Tabletop Mountain.

Continue reading “Pusher by Simon McHardy” →