Well this is a sad week for many a British person. Half of Glasgow is in tears. But I’ll come back to that.
Continue reading “Week 445 – Beware Of New Taxi Drivers, Over-Acting And Personal Hygiene Products.”
Royal visit by Deborah Thwaites
The noise was like a loud noise but much louder. I jolted in my seat, sending a blur of cat scattering from my lap. Big Jemmy stayed put. His ears closed over after the great Stomp riots of ’97. He only hears blue now. His eyes remained fixed on the latest episode of Celebrity Death Camp Warden as the players moved in a grotesque mime.
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Penny Loafers by Connor Beck
Crammed like rats, I drove our home, laden with trash, through much of the Midwest. While Mariane dreamt in the passenger seat, scrunching her half-asleep body into the shape of a ‘G.’ I could tell by the subtle way her breath swayed upon each crack in the road, she was dreaming of her.
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A Bad Day for Death by Thurman Hart
When I walked into Helen Arbuckle’s room, I knew something was wrong. Her eyes were bright. She was watching television and smiling. She was alive. And I mean that in a way that the nearly-departed are not supposed to be alive. She was dying, for Hell’s sake. The least she could do is have the decency to look the part.
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Always by Karen Uttien
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” the priest recited – as he did every Sunday – but today wasn’t Sunday.
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The Many Deaths of Neptune Gilderoy by Alex Sinclair
I was seven years old when I first tasted death.
My father Nehemiah had sent me down the pit so he would have some drinking money, and I cut my leg on a jagged sail of rusted metal as I made my way down a tunnel.
It sang its way through my undernourished leg meat and by the time I had finished the day’s work,(my father would not have tolerated me shirking from an honest day’s graft, regardless of severe wounds. He had Guinness to drink) my peeling dealer boot was filled to its sloshing brim with a hot soup of blood.
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Literally Reruns – Saint Frances Everlasting by Leila Allison.
Our lovely editor Leila has worked incredibly hard at Reruns ever since we introduced the feature. In all that time she has chosen dozens of stories, written the blurb for them and produced interesting and amusing questions. I reckon it is Leila’s turn. Her cannon on the site is huge, and it’s impossible to pick one out as ‘better’ than the rest because they are all excellent. There is a vast range of genre and every one has something unique so this was not an easy task. The stories also come in little groups, each one a comment on a relationship, a gang or group of characters, fictionally fictional or just fictional 😊 (with a nod to Daisy Cloverleaf). As I was trying to choose one, I opened dozens, so I think my best advice would be for anyone reading this to just go to Leila’s pages and stroll through the treasures.
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WEEK 444: Bug-Bird And Dreams
DREAMING
Many writers are influenced by their dreams and nightmares–or at least that is the claim. I don’t dispute the possibility but if I had to lean on my dreams for material my stuff would be sparse and even stranger. A fine example of such happened just the other night when I experienced a dream I call “Bug-Bird.” My mind was in a white page and just ahead skulked Bug-Bird. Half Moth, half Pigeon and clad in a flasher’s raincoat and wearing a fedora, I could only see Bug-Bird from behind. But I spied antennae through holes in his hat, tail feathers and Pigeon feet. Bug-Bird staggered forward and I was gaining on him (only a guy would dare be Bug-Bird). I recall wanting to tap him on the shoulder and have a look at Bug-Bird but that is when I woke, with the words Bug-Bird, Bug-Bird, Bug-Bird chanting in my mind by what might be called a “sulfurous chorus” of demon voices. Hardly bestseller material there–and perhaps the only way Bug-Bird can get into print is through something like this.
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Jerry’s Last Problem by Jennifer Maloney
The Doctor is cleaning up Jerry’s mess, as usual. With a grunt, he bends, grabs the dead boy beneath the armpits and drags him toward the stairs. While the Doctor works, Jerry hides in an attic bedroom of their mind, eyes closed, fingers in his ears.
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Scans by Edward Lee
Contains references some readers may find distressing, please refer to the tabs at the bottom of the page.
In the library I see a woman photocopying ultrasound scans. At first, I am sure not sure what she is doing, though I can clearly see her take the scan out of a purple folder and place it on the screen of the photocopier, before closing it and moving across to the screen to input her instructions. It is obvious that she is photocopying the scan – after my eyes recognise the black and white image, they then pass over the slight swell of her stomach, the glance more instinct than choice – and yet, it takes a few seconds for the obviousness of it to make sense in my thoughts; there is also a suggestion that I am not thinking of them correctly, that ‘ultrasound scans’ is not the correct terminology, but as to what it might be I do not know right at that moment, and this misnaming is, I believe, contributing to the delay of the realisation.
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