All Stories, Fantasy

  The Hiring of May Witherspoon by Tom Chambless

May liked to set out bits of meat for the big birds. It was one of her few pleasures. She would dice up some cheap round steak and set it out in cubes along the porch rail. The part she loved, the thing about the ravens she adored was, they left her presents. She left them food and they left her a fake pearl, a thimble, little shiny things.

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All Stories, Latest News

Week 166 – PC – Nonsense, Bollocks And Pish – Warning Strong Language

This isn’t a great start when I state, please don’t take offence at what I’m going to say!

I’ve never really ripped into PC although I believe that most of it is nonsense. PC is too close to censorship for my liking and I do believe that if anyone corrects you from saying any well known phrase that’s gender specific into something like ‘Police-Person’, they should have to call the Police-Person and Ambulance People for assistance.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

The Distress of Newly Made Ghosts by Karl Miller

I’m on my third slow loop through a nearly-empty parking lot, passing by darkened stores as the last workers depart on a Sunday night.  The land on which the mall sits was once part of the Everglades – I helped survey it as a summer job years ago.  I’d wade into the forest with a machete and mark the trees developers would be saving – the slash pines were going, but the live oaks would stay to be stranded in asphalt.

Three days ago, Tristan, my cousin’s boyfriend, was waiting at a stop sign on his motorcycle when an inattentive driver plowed into him.  If I delay my arrival any longer, I’d miss his viewing completely, so I finally drive across the street to the funeral home.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Liv Oh by Frederick K Foote

My sister, the wooly haired, laugh a lot, chatterbox, Liv Oh, at age nine or so, saw Digg, the goat bodied, eagle-headed desert God fucking his sister, Uwe, the gazelle bodied, fish-headed Goddess. Liv Oh witnessed the Holy Union in the high desert under bright spring skies and giggled, covered her mouth, too late.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Three Things by L’Erin Ogle

“Three things?” he said.

“Three things,” Lexie said.  She was lying on her stomach, ankles crossed and held in the air, typing on her Mac.  He had a Dell himself.  But Lexie and her mother were Apple through and through.  His ex-wife would buy a toilet seat if the Apple logo was on it.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Some Animals by Alexander Franks – Adult content

Underneath a billboard beside the highway, an imperious impression of a gorilla spun a banana-shaped sign which read “Free cable & HBO & air conditioning.” It was early spring and the air cool and crisp, but the gorilla had been at it for several hours—throwing the sign up in the air, swirling it around his limbs, passing it around his back—the man underneath undoubtedly hot from the body heat trapped in his fake polyester furs. Cars filled with people on their way to work would occasionally honk hello, and the gorilla man would wave and point at the sign. The cars would then slowly pass, the occupants smiling and nodding but not looking directly at him.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

The Girl Who Became a Goose by K. Barrett

This is the story of a girl who became a goose.

It began with a broken heart. Eloise found herself crying in unexpected places at unexpected times. In the grocery line, when a clerk with kind eyes asked with such sincerity, How are you today?, her eyes brimmed. The answer swelled in her throat. She had to look away and mutter Fine, I’m fine. She was not.

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