All Stories, General Fiction

Mean, Median, Mode by Dominic Dayta

literallystories2014

It was the topic of discussion, the day he took me to sit in his Elementary Statistics class. He had on his signature look: slim-fit polos with elbow-length sleeves, jeans, and sneakers. He looked closer to a student than a lecturer. In his class, the boys yawned at the sky out the windows while the girls regarded him with glassy eyes and flushed cheeks, asking question after question, swooning at his careful answers. Everything about him was measured: how he smiled, how he modulated his voice, how he angled himself at the chalkboard. Whenever he went to the teacher’s table to check his notes, he would hold his hair at the forehead while he looked down. From the back of the room I watched him man his class like a blockbuster performance.

Continue reading “Mean, Median, Mode by Dominic Dayta” →

All Stories, General Fiction

Fancy Goodnight by Frederick K Foote

literallystories2014

At the dinner table, Fancy Goodnight, my seventeen-year-old granddaughter, drops a bombshell, spills the beans, or lays an egg depending on your perspective.

“Hey, you guys, guess what?”

Lavender Green Goodnight, Fancy’s twelve-year-old sister, responds. “You’re pregnant with twins, and you don’t know who the father is. It—”

Topaz Goodnight their fifteen-year-old sister interrupts, “It could be any of twelve homeless, drug-addicted, ex-cons that—”

Mavis Goodnight, the girl’s forty-year-old mother attempts to put the conversation back on track, “Enough, don’t joke about that. Fancy, what do you want to tell us?”

Continue reading “Fancy Goodnight by Frederick K Foote” →

All Stories, Fantasy, Horror

Wishbone by Jennie Boyes

literallystories2014

The castle ruin was the only shelter Famine could see for miles, a shadow cast on withered land, on mud, bracken and brittle heather. And on bones. Beyond was the sea, and snow clouds on the horizon. The gatehouse, its great rounded towers broken and jagged at the tops, stood defiant in the desolation, like an old, wounded knight after a battle. Wind, sea-salt, and even War had not defeated it, and as Famine traced the silhouette against the sky, he could have believed the castle would withstand time itself, if such a thing were possible.

Continue reading “Wishbone by Jennie Boyes” →

Short Fiction

The Sense of Something More by Matthew Hobbs

literallystories2014

The silver bullet train slips like mercury through nacreous tunnels; it spikes through brown hills; it plunges deep under the poisoned Thames. The bullet train slides across skyways high in the warm air, a beam of refracted sunlight among the glinting mirrored windows of office buildings shaped like so many onyx, bronze or purple vegetables. Silent, the bullet train glides with great economy at impressive speeds: there is no friction from magnetic rails.

Continue reading “The Sense of Something More by Matthew Hobbs” →

All Stories, General Fiction

Yakima Escapades by Tom Sheehan

literallystories2014

From one minute of the day to the next, Neckwrek Handel-Handel sang the song endlessly, “Ain’t No Jail Aholtin’ Me,” sang it, mouthed it, uttered it, yelled it. For his five years in Yakima Territorial Prison the guards always knew where he was, in what disposition, secure in one cell or another, or laboring on a prison work detail. Prisoner #127 was known by the only name ever used by him, Neckwrek Handel-Handel, but history had other versions that are worth unveiling if the man is to be known if not understood. Yakima Territorial Prison, as described by some Washington folks in the know, was “200 miles of nothing between here ‘n’ there,” and about the toughest place in the territory. He was 24 years old when he was brought to Yakima, the prison then just over a year old, and 29 when he escaped, in 1881.

Continue reading “Yakima Escapades by Tom Sheehan” →

All Stories, Latest News

Week 258 – Sammy Being Low, Unintentional Confessions And Extradition For Privileged Bastards.

gwencron

Before we start one mention about horror writing – we don’t need horror fiction when we watch the Auschwitz Liberation Anniversary.

We send our deepest respects.

I just found out this week that my favourite Queen song (Spread Your Wings) was written by John Deacon. I’ve no problem with that, I simply hadn’t noticed and had assumed that the legend that was Freddie Mercury had written it. In a past life I used to write a lot of poetry and whilst doing some research, I found out that Freddie had recorded under the name Larry Lurex. His brilliant extravagance was evident very early on!!

Continue reading “Week 258 – Sammy Being Low, Unintentional Confessions And Extradition For Privileged Bastards.” →

All Stories, General Fiction

Just Plain Hard Work of Ages, Work of Comets by Tom Sheehan

literallystories2014

The tip of the shovel had talked to him with a dull thud, not just through his ears, but totally. It came into his hands and up the stiffness of his arms, through the quick riot of nerves on red alert, through all passageways of recognition. It was wood! At its tip was wood, a cavernous wood, a chesty wood, an enclosing wood. Promise poised itself, much like awards’ night and names to be named. Light leaped at his back, behind his head. Down through the awesome sky of darkness he could feel a star draining, down through thirty-five years of a hole.

Continue reading “Just Plain Hard Work of Ages, Work of Comets by Tom Sheehan” →

All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Darby by Rachel Lynch

literallystories2014

Darby was born flying, and I was born hating her for it. Our house was just across the river from Darby’s family’s, our backyard and theirs stretching warlike to the banks. Their house was smaller than ours but more forceful; it was three stories tall and white and wide and had grand glass double-doors that looked out toward our back porch. We were born the same year, and our mothers would stand on either bank rubbing their bellies and swelling in the June heat.

Continue reading “Darby by Rachel Lynch” →