Short Fiction

Alexander Sawmill Legends, Steamboat Replace By What Was The Coolest Rock Pub And I Couldn’t Ignore A Huge Nod To Tom!!

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Week 409

Hope you all had a brilliant Christmas and whether or not you did or didn’t, I really do hope that you remember none of it!!

This is Limbo week, the week between Christmas and New Year. It is fucking dire working these days.

Only on three occasions over the past thirty-nine fucking years (Sore point – Really sore point!! And on the 14th November next year, I will warn everyone not to talk to me!!) have I ever had the whole of the holidays off. And the first one with my first job, I had an absolute ball!! On the 27th me and the guys that I worked with went for a game of squash, then snooker, then the rest of the day and night in the legendary pub called ‘Rabbies’. That pub is still there, but it has lost a lot of its panache! It’s now for the older, earlier drinkers. I think how sad it is every morning I’m there.

This year, I have to work in between and I will hate and resent every fucking minute of it! There was a sign-up stating what wacky events were coming up over the festivities and the heading was ‘Fun At Work’ – Well, that’s a fucking contradiction in terms!!

Work is work. If it wasn’t, it would be called ‘play’

Let’s just say that there will have been no Christmas Jumper on me! (Itchy bastarding things)

To be fair, I shouldn’t moan–I think in one of my previous jobs, I went five years working through The Bells. And again, I should be thankful as this is the first year that me and Gwen have been off for Christmas. (One day mind you. She has to work four thirteen hour shifts to get one day off. Here’s a bonus question – Guess who got five days off???

– The selfish bastard who did the rota!!!)

Now before I start typing even more pish, I have been asked to mention a new feature that we are playing around with. We have always had the Saturday Specials, which were maybe not necessarily stories but they were close. We have had on occasion the odd essay sent in and we have enjoyed them but because we didn’t accept them, they were refused. But we’ve decided to give them a try. We are actually going to underplay this a bit as for the love of whatever a god is, we don’t want inundated with ‘The Infuriated’ being furious about dog shit on their pavements or someone being pissed off with the state of their neighbours’ garden. (I want it on the record that I have told my neighbours that I will tidy mine if they are ever wanting to sell!!)

Ranting is fine as long as it is interesting / Funny or a wee tad sick.

Social Commentary is always something that we want to read but make sure that you are being Ironic / Funny (Again), Cutting, Seething but for fuck sake make it interesting.

None of:

‘I walk in our park and there are a lot of leaves lying.’

‘I was appalled to see a Tesco Trolley next to the pet shop when Tesco’s is half a mile away.’

‘My water pipes smell.’

‘I don’t think that having a Bookies in The High Street is a good idea.’

‘Would somebody please think of the children?’

‘Parking! Don’t get me started about Parking!’ (And then they fucking start!!!)

‘Brexit.’

‘Trump is a cunt’ (We know!!!)

‘Covid.’ (Nope!! Still too early.)

As always, it is very difficult for us to give examples on what we are looking for, it’s the same as with the stories, we will just know it when we see it.

I don’t think we can really state that this will be a regular feature, it will really just depend on what and when we get anything in.

But what the hell, it’s another challenge for you.

I’ve had a look back and on the Saturday Special feature, we only ever had nine writers in eight years. (Conor Barnes, Tom (With four – Another record!!), Jess N. McLean, Emily Dinova, Paloma Martinez-Cruz, Johnny R Beaver, Alex Ryan, Me and Jahunda) Please tell me if I’ve forgotten anyone!

Unfortunately, not many have continued to submit but at least we still have examples of their work that can be accessed.

Maybe the same will happen with this feature, but who knows???

Normally I’d move onto the reviews of the week’s stories but I will leave that, as, to be honest, I have totally run out of plaudits for Tom Sheehan. Between him and Leila, they probably hold every record on the site.

All I will say is that I hope you all enjoyed Tom’s countdown to his second century of stories. It is a mind-boggling feat!

We wish the great man all the happiness for next year and it is an absolute privilege working with him!

To finish off I suppose that I better mention The New Year. I don’t know what I’ll be doing as Gwen is working night shift from tonight until Monday morning. I may just get blitzed on Absinthe and wait until I wake up on Monday morning–We can celebrate then.

The New Year is actually like drugs or alcohol. It’s alright in moderation, but too much of it becomes a huge magnifying glass that you sit under. It exaggerates your mood. That is all well and good if you are happy but a bit of a pisser if you’re down. And if you are heading back to work over the next few days, there is a very good chance that you will be that way inclined!!

So with that in mind, I give you my New Year Toast:

Always be happy the days you’re not there, cause the days you are, work ruins everything.

I suppose I should also suggest a resolution–Promise yourself to punch the enthusiastic at least once this year.

Cheers folks! All the very best to you all!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hugh

And lastly, here is some upbeat classical music to bring in The Bells!!

I give you ‘Lieutenant Pigeon’s’ ‘Mouldy Old Dough.’

Hugh

Image – Pixabay.com

All Stories, General Fiction

Jehrico and Chico and the Western Conservation Society, by Tom Sheehan

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They had found the secret cave, Jehrico Taxico and Chico Vestra, but they soon found out that they were not alone in the discovery.

Continue reading “Jehrico and Chico and the Western Conservation Society, by Tom Sheehan” →
Short Fiction

The Tom Sheehan Christmas Festival

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Merry Christmas!

Welcome to the Tom Sheehan Festival. Tom has reached the unprecedented plateau of 200 stories with us–fifty one this year alone. So, for those who do and do not feel a bit shorted by the tree this morning, Tom has brought six gifts. Today numbers 194-199 appear to bolster the holiday. And please return tomorrow for Tom’s historic 200th appearance, which should go down well with the leftovers.

If you come away as thankful as we are for somehow getting this immense post up and ready, you are indeed blessed.

Happy Holidays to All!

Diane, Hugh, Leila, Eds. at Literally Stories

Continue reading “The Tom Sheehan Christmas Festival” →
Short Fiction

Week 408: Ho, Ho, Hell No; Five Wise Writers; Additional Words of Wisdom and Tom Sheehan Eve

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I am writing my humble contribution to this post on 24 November, Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. I chose this point because Thanksgiving had at one time been a beautiful holiday until Christmas got so fat and greedy that it had to take everything.

Like a giant star preparing for detonation, puffing up to a size that swallows the planets that orbit it, the green/red Christmas star has done the same thing to the calendar. Save for the area between late January and the end of summer (We now have “Christmas in July”), this putrid star has swallowed the months of the year and will continue to do so until ugsome Black Friday begins at midnight 26 December.

Hurry up with opening those gifts, kids, I want to get in line early.

Sometimes I get the idea that humankind is a suicidal race bent on attracting the wraths of gods it really doesn’t believe in yet continues to invent for profit, regardless of all the healing messages. Although I’m not religious, I root for the spat-on, and there are times when I wouldn’t mind seeing the looming shadow of Jesus Christ approach Jeff Besos from behind–a quick glance at the Son in a BOY AM I PISSED Tee-shirt making his mood clear.

So today I stand here on the burnt out cinder that had once been planet Thanksgiving and shake a turkey leg at the fools already forming lines at various retailers throughout this nation. Unless God dispatches a well aimed asteroid I will be standing here still as this Christmas Eve unfolds, the long since devoured turkey leg replaced by a Scotch and soda. Still, if you must, Merry Christmas to you—but please, for the love of decency, do not post any more goddam YouTube videos of gifting French Bulldog puppies under the tree. People who do so richly deserve the sudden uptick of puppy shit in their lives.

I am going to soon depart and turn this post over to fine persons who are perhaps better at expressing their contempt for French Bulldog gifting clips. But first I invite all to come by tomorrow morning to read six stories by Tom Sheehan, which will mark appearances 194-199 by the master, with the unheard of number 200 following on Boxing Day (Not Boxer Day, YouTubers).

And I leave you with a presentation of The Week That Is. The five stories this week weren’t all about plumping up the bottom line and were human endeavors created from the non-grasping, even wise place in the human heart.

This holiday week was brought to you by a group of five authors who have a combined total of six site appearances. It makes sense in a twisted sort of way that with Tom coming by the next two days this week should feature a second timer and four writers new to the site. Although we dearly love our repeat performers, new voices infuse the lifeblood.

Shawn Eichman’s second LS story appeared on Monday. Hunger. Merry Hellworld Christmas! Yes! This piece is harrowing, tense, speaks volumes of the pointlessness of war and yet has an ironic sense of humor that is difficult to extract, but it shines nonetheless, like silver flecks in paint. As it goes with me, I worried more about the Wolf than the people.

Andrew Yim debuted Tuesday with The Locust Seller. The luck of the draw is how this fine story came to be this week. It is obviously a fitting piece for the season, yet one I’m certain reflects life at the time much more accurately than a Bible story and would be just as appropriate if it had been published in August..

Mark Burrow performed what could be interpreted as a parody of what happened to Lot’s Wife on Wednesday, with Alabaster Conjugal. This is such a sinister thing mainly due to its being told in a perfectly sane voice. The normalcy of all other events heighten the inner weirdness. So well done.

Our third debut author, Domonique, made Thursday a fun place to visit with Karaoke Cowboy. This is an odd situation in which the title tells you what the piece is about but in no way prepares you for the inspired and wildly amusing tale that follows.

Orchids in the Sun by Dorothy Rice closed out the run of stories. With just a few hundred perfectly chosen words Dorothy is able to accurately describe the points of view of “Sadie” and her narrow-minded children, and you can sympathize with both. Although most likely not Mom of the Year timber, you find yourself glad that Sadie went away dreaming of possibilities to come.

Leila

***

Great stuff Leila. I hope that turkey leg was all that you could have hoped. I have to say that I look back fondly on Christmases past when my children were little and trifle was a thing.

It’s been another tricksy sort of a year for so many people that it seems somehow wrong to be forcing through this celebration of all things commercial. I did write a longer post bemoaning the greed and the misery and then I kicked myself in the behind (not easy at my stage of life – or ever actually) and deleted that and decided to simply say – wherever you are and whatever you are doing I hope that your day is peaceful, your people are well and the coming year will be kind to you.

Keep sending us your stories, keep on reading the wonderful prose we are able to publish and may you have all that you need and most of what you want.

Merry end of the year celebration with lights and stuff.

dd

Brilliant ladies!

I was also going to be all doom and gloom but decided against it. I will add one observation following on from Leila’s mentioning of Black Friday.

I noticed one stores dismal display for this so-called ‘Event’. Their wares included a few candles, toasters, shredders and kettles. I thought on this and came to a conclusion – Folks have realised that this is all a huge fucking con. BUT, the retailers have realised that the customers have realised that it is a huge fucking con!! Hopefully in a year or so all this nonsense will die off with whatever greedy bastard thought it up in the first place.

No matter what has happened in my life, I have always started Christmas off in the same way – Half a pint of Advocaat and a bacon sandwich. That makes the rest of the day more sufferable.

To all our readers, writers and those who comment or get involved in any way, have a wonderful time and I hope that you and your families are all happy and healthy. I will now steal a line from the legend that was Dave Allen…May your god go with you.

…And that includes the gods of scepticism, lethargy, pessimism, realism, cynicism and addiction!!!

To Diane, Leila and Nik – Thanks so much for this year, I wouldn’t have got through it without you all. I’ll be on The Absinthe on Christmas night and the first half bottle will be toasted to you all. The second half will have me toasting oblivion!!!!

Hugh

The art work is from Angela at Studio Anjou who has quite a number of pieces scattered about the place.

All Stories, General Fiction

Orchids in the Sun by Dorothy Rice

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Sadie Blankenspiel was raised without faith, which she’d always been stubbornly proud of. Pricing caskets at her brother-in-law Peter’s deathatorium, she wasn’t so sure she’d hadn’t been too hasty in giving short shrift to all that spirituality and after-life mumbo jumbo.

In her eightieth year aboard the mothership, with achy hips, estranged from her two narrow-minded children, she wondered if daughter Maribel hadn’t been right after all. What had the ungrateful girl screamed out the car window before tearing away from the house that last time? Always so dramatic. Something about her mother likely running out of time to make things right before the Grim Reaper plucked her number.

Continue reading “Orchids in the Sun by Dorothy Rice“ →
All Stories, General Fiction

Karaoke Cowboy by Domonique

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Seated at a table in a karaoke bar was a blend of characters, men who had all worn a couple hats, in a couple colors.

Seated naturally in a thinking man’s posture, a man with a countenance expressing he owned masculine intellect, and, to be fair, a man well-liked for his intelligent conversation, was Think Too Much Tony.

Continue reading “Karaoke Cowboy by Domonique” →
All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

The Locust Seller by Andrew Yim

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Don’t believe a word I say.  I am just the bastard daughter of a Persian courtesan, a lower city locust seller who says little but hears everything.  Like these ancient walls of Jerusalem that surround me like a skin, I don’t believe in Gods or prophets.  I’m just a cast-off, half breed who spends her days cooking locusts for your pleasure.  I am nothing. 

***

He appeared in the market just before the Spring equinox.   My mother called it Nowruz, the Persian New Year.  But besides the honey cake with candied quince we ate for breakfast, the day was like any other in the brothel that was my home.  The Hebrews called it Passover and the Romans, like most every day, called it an opportunity to drink and whore.

From my perch, between the Egyptian weaver’s tapestries and rows of Galilean fish mongers, I observed the market preachers, with their grand  prophecies and revelations.  But they were only a distraction from my sore hands and back, the toil of locusts and boiling water.

The first day he spoke, the market was abuzz with stories of his miracles; water into wine,  the dead brought back to life.  Bastet, the Egyptian weaver who sat next to me, laughed as he took a locust from my pile.

“Nothing new in this world, Qimiya, My gods are seldom forgiving or loving.”  Few knew me by my given, Persian name. Qimiya, the alchemist.

In the quirky Aramaic of the Nazareans, he promised victory of good over evil, life over death.  The same as the Zoroastrian prayers my mother whispered after a day whoring for the high priests and senators.  Empty promises to trick the meek and gullible. 

The next morning I saw him wandering alone through the market. As he approached, I noticed sleepless shadows around his eyes and a tremor in his right hand. I offered him a locust. He refused.  He was fasting, he said in apology.

“You wear the amulet of the Faravahar, the Zoroastrian god of fire. Tell me of your god.”

“It is only a memory of my mother.  I know no gods or faith.” I noticed fresh scars on his forearms, as if lashed by palm, then asked him about his miracles. He looked up from examination of my locusts.

“My friends fear the people will not understand. Won’t feel the spirit in my words. So they tell these tales.”

When he preached that day the crowd was large and unsettled. His tremor stopped as he spoke of justice, peace, and mercy. I saw Quintus, the Roman agent who visited the brothel where I still slept. In search of sedition or rebellion, Quintus cast his restless, baleful eyes round the crowd. The courtesans despised Quintus and his repulsive arrogance.

“The crowd will turn, the Romans will destroy him,” Bastet commented. His cynicism annoyed me. I thought to comment on his illicit trade. Denied by commandment the death masks of the Romans, the high priests came to him in grief after death of wife or mistress. With gold in hand, they beseeched him to make taboo images of the dead with his flax linen. It was an ancient Egyptian art his grandfather had taught Bastet, before his exile to Judea.

The Nazarean came to talk each morning, our words like ripples in calm but rising sea.  Each hesitation seemed a sorrow, each pause a yearning.

Yearning and sorrow became desire, desire like desert flower in morning dew, fearful of midday sun.

When he left to preach, I heard my mother warn, as she cried herself to sleep. “Trust no one, Qimiya. We are alone.”

The fifth night of that week I dreamt of my mother, leading me across Babylonian plains to her village in eastern Persia, near the base of the great Pamirs. I woke to the groans and cries of the brothel and heard Quintus talking with his harlot.

“The crowds are too large.  Pilate is in bad temper at mention his name. He must be silenced. We’ll arrest him tomorrow.”

I ran to the parlor where the courtesans gathered to rest and gossip. I asked where the Nazarean might be.
“Gesthemane,” one replied. “They say he goes to the garden to pray at night.”

I walked past three disciples, sleeping at the gate, and found him pacing as he prayed. He turned to me as I approached.

“I know Qimiya, I know it all.  I am terrified.”

“You know nothing,” I cried.

I had a vision of a simple life we might lead, far away from this corrupt city.  As I described the vision a tear ran down his cheek. We sat in silence on a wooden bench beneath an olive tree and watched Jerusalem turn its dusky walls to dawn.

Don’t believe their tales. When they nailed him to the cross, his disciples fled from Golgotha in fear of Quintus and his agents. His mother could not bear the sight of his agony. Only I stood at the cross, assuring him he was not alone as his blood soaked the cypress wood. His cries reached Herod’s castle. Then suddenly there was only the sound of rain on mud and stone.

After they took him from the cross I knelt by his body, as if to nurse him back to life, then followed the gentle merchant and his servants as they took him to the tomb. I could not bear the thought that someday memory of him would fade and disappear. I ran to the market and begged Bastet to preserve his image. Just before they rolled the boulder back to close the tomb, Bastet threw the linen across his body.

On the eve of each spring equinox, I take the shroud from my mother’s silver box.  I look into his eyes as I caress his linen cheeks. I allow myself to cry and gasp in grief as I place it back and lock the box. My heart again is stone, crumbling slowly into dust.

Andrew Yim

Image – Wikicommons – public domain. Shroud of Turin

All Stories, General Fiction

Hunger by Shawn Eichman

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The old woman would still be alive if she had just stayed inside.

Stefan clawed at his sweat-soaked blanket. She haunted him every night. Damned locals. It was their own fault.  If they didn’t sabotage the supply lines, the soldiers wouldn’t need to requisition food from the villagers. Requisition. Steal. Stefan didn’t care. He was hungry. Her farm looked abandoned. The doors on the dilapidated barn came off the hinges with little more than a pull. Inside there were an emaciated cow, two goats and a few chickens. Pathetic. Stefan balked when Ivan ordered him to search the attic—he was sure to break his neck if the stairs collapsed. But orders were orders. One bag of wormy grain. Wasted effort.

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Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Final Literally Rerun – The Swans by Hugh Cron

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We conclude the weekly version of the Sunday Reruns with the only rerun of a rerun I’ve ever brought back. It’s a high class story by Hugh Cron called The Swans. (The Reruns will return in January as a monthly feature.)

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