All Stories, Romance

Just for Now by Tom Sheehan

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My son Jamie brought me to all my treatments at the hospital in Danvers,  a 7-minute drive for him as he says for more than three years (I am loaded with many ailments of various kinds) and I always noticed a lady who brought her father for his appointments, but dressed as though she was going to a ball, a fancy dress, and a marvelous pair of legs that could dance her across Broadway in her day, being the  knockout she was, and carried yet a boatload of her beauty into a few years of time.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Return to the Lakehouse by Adam Kluger

literallystories2014

The meme had been replaying again and again in Booger’s mind. 

“They are eating the cats, eating the dogs, eating the pets in Springfield.” 

It was about 50 days away from a quite consequential presidential election. 

Bugowski was pushing 60 and he was just as big a mess as he always was.

“Have you read the secret life of plants?” Rooster asked Booger as they unloaded the cooler full of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Poland Spring with  lime (the most carbonated of all seltzers) and all the other boxes, bags and items for another guy’s weekend. “The plants communicate through chemical emissions, I read an excerpt…not surprising given their predominant place on the planet and the way they all live together harmoniously…beautifully, really.” 

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Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 541: They Are Dripping Me Insane

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Insanity

I have lived in the same apartment since October 1998. That was not by design, but it has worked out that way. Until I settled here, I had not lived in one space longer than four consecutive years, including childhood. Something always happened; nothing has yet to happen here. The building was sold last year, but it was just a case of meeting a new boss, the same as the old boss.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Lizzie by Richard Hulse

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As the hot afternoon ticked by, Lizzie thought they wouldn’t show. Then, far off, a vehicle coming down that dusty road. A car, not a truck.

It got closer and the passenger door was opening even before it stopped. Then Charlene was out and running to Lizzie, and Lizzie, she was jumping straight into her big cousin’s smile. Both of Charlene’s hands were on either side of Lizzie’s face.

‘Oh, I’ve missed you!’ said Charlene. ‘You been all right, baby? Have you?’

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Potato Salad and Mixed Drinks by Christopher Ananias

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I moved the boiling eggs to the cold burner. Hopefully Edward wasn’t lactose intolerant. I was making my famous potato salad. The newscaster sounded solemn—something about a landslide—Indonesia or somewhere. Then almost musically, “Onto the local murders.”

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Is There Anybody There? By Michael Smith

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Acacia knew her calling from the age of ten. Noticing all her clothes were labeled ‘MEDIUM’ and, being a highly impressionable girl, she naturally assumed the universe, or possibly a parallel one, was offering a clear hint as to her correct career path.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Alterations by JD Clapp

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I was looking out the front window, watching the snow fall, waiting for the mailman to come with my disability check. Jesus, the snow is sticking now, and my tires are bald. I needed to deposit that check today. I was out of food, running low on whiskey, and I still owed Mrs. Schmidt half the rent for this little shithole of a duplex. Fuck my life. Then, I got the call.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Hannibal, Missouri by: Amber Bell

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“Follow me,” a broad-shouldered woman wearing a name tag that said Deborah told Jade.

Jade followed her through a glass door, past a man working a register, and down a hall lined with half-open boxes.

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All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever: Eleonora and Poe by Dale Williams Barrigar

literallystories2014

“ERNEST. From the soul?

GILBERT. Yes, from the soul. That is what the highest          criticism really is, the record of one’s own soul.”

Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist”

“Under the preservation of a specific form, my soul is safe.”
Raymond Llull

Edgar Allan Poe was the kind of individual who could fall in love with a woman after seeing her for a mere few moments, or less, on the street. Dante had this feeling when he first saw Beatrice, and her later early demise compelled him to take twelve years out to compose the greatest single literary work of the Western World, a poem that still helps to define what the afterlife is (in our imaginations) eight centuries after he finished it. (And he died almost immediately after finishing it.) 

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