The Busker is the first story, but certainly not the last, written by Marco Etheridge to appear on the site. It is a simple piece that changes keys and time signatures and passes from Vienna to New Orleans and back. There’s something lost and forlorn about it and it has the magic to transport me to two places I have yet to visit, in person.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – The Busker by Marco Etheridge”
An Antisocial Experiment
There are endless social movements dedicated to improving people by requiring them not to be like people. Depending on your point of view this activity lies somewhere between education and brainwashing. I am old fashioned to the degree that I believe a person is influenced by both her upbringing and whatever chemistry is peculiar to her. You do your best to raise a child and if she grows up to be a doctor or a teacher you share in the credit, if she turns out to be a Josephine Mengela or the incarnation of Lizzie Borden, you shoulder some of the blame.
A person can improve. But people, as a whole, seldom do because there are “leaders” who want you to do as they command and will reward “good behavior” with letting you spend your life gazing into your phone and punish “bad thoughts” with unsupported accusations and placing you under the spotlight on the scaffold for a good old fashioned cyberstoning. This has been going on in one form or another since the invention of the third person–the first child who decides that her parents should be severely sanctioned for bringing her into this overlighted, loud and dreary existence, as well as not allowing her to have a phone until she can use one responsibly.
Continue reading “Week 350- An Antisocial Experiment, Five Magi, A Special Announcement and Hell’s Jukebox: The Love Songs”
In the lull between my husband’s condemnations, I reminded our daughters that each Sunday is a Christmas. This way of thinking is Karen’s idea. She does Fridays and Saturdays in the shop with me.
She said when sorting citrus, ‘When life serves you lemons–’ and I held up my hand and asked, ‘Is there a cliché for grapefruit?’
Karen couldn’t think of one.
Continue reading “As If He Still Drives a Capri”
Someone is locked in the trunk of the car. They bang against their prison as the woman climbs onto the roof.
Continue reading “Too Close to Hell by Phil Hurst”
The weather app on my phone lies and says there’s only a 10% chance of rain; it’s raining. I listen to the sound of the soft rain as it mingles with the stillness evaporating with the rising sun. The world sleeps, and only the doves are awake with me. Humidity is 96%. Maybe it isn’t raining after all, and the sky is merely sweating. It’s hot in Mexico.
Continue reading “Hacienda of Love by Monika R Martyn.”
The Principle Players
Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon is alive in the sense that he walks the Earth, is self-aware (well, sort of) and is routinely observed “doing stuff to other stuff.” Peety neither breathes nor eats, yet he does speak (again–well, sort of), drinks, urinates, vomits and frequently passes out, so it is assumed that he sleeps, perchance dreams. Through a bizarre, interdimensional transformation unlikely to take place in the Universe again anytime soon, Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon, once merely an insensate cartoon character used to move cheap beer in a duplicate Earth, back in the late 1940’s, has been installed on our Earth as an active “citizen.” More simply put, like everyone and -thing else, Peety is.
Unlike Bugs Bunny or a Simpson inserted into a live action film, Peety remains two-dimensional. In form he is as artiscally fine and realistic as one of those “turkeys” little kids draw in school by tracing the outline of their hands on construction paper then cutting it out to be placed on the refrigerator. Peety is about the size of a Big Mac and he wears a fedora and is always seen carrying and drinking from a bottomless can of PDQ Pilsner. He travels around in a yet to be explained by science halo of popping bubbles, as to convey his constant state of intoxication.
Continue reading “Pie-Eyed Peety and the Prohibitionist: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical By Leila Allison”
I sit in darkness, isolated from the world by a dark wooden door. If I think hard enough, I can imagine I’m standing in a sunny field, or listening to the roar of ocean waves. But I’m not. As much as I try, the thin closet door in the bathroom is not enough to block out the screams.
Continue reading “Seroquel by Olivia Austin”
Nobody knew at the opening of 2021 that Yashshar Seyedbagheri would have a record breaking year on the site. At this moment, on an otherwise forgettable Saturday morning in the Summer of ‘21, Yash has appeared thirty times, with more to come. In fact we will be running out of year before all of Yash’s acceptances in 2021 will be posted. It looks like 2022 will be another Red Letter year for this author at Literally Stories.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Bathroom Throne by Yash Seyedbagheri”
I need to thank Leila for the last two postings. She stepped in when I was a bit preoccupied.
But you have no such luck today folks as it’s me again.
Continue reading “Week 349 – Feet Coverings, A Wish On Mr Coopers Sexual Technique And A Recipe For A Burn Worse Than Thrush.”
I stood there naked. I let a small smile tickle the corners of my lips. I watched several people’s lips do the same. These were people who came because they understood what being naked meant. These were people who were here because they liked my craft. Knew about my craft. These were not people that I was nervous in front of. They had explored my work and enjoyed it and were here because they wanted to see it and be part of it. I liked these events. I liked sharing my nakedness with them. It was easier to be voluble to strangers.
Continue reading “Except with Strangers by Rachel Sievers”
