At first the idea (not yet fixed) seemed to him strange. To write a story about a pushcart. That if he wrote about a pushcart, he would have a better chance. To be nominated. To be nominated for a Pushcart Prize. To write about a pushcart was good. But how? Ok, pushcarts immediately raised in his mind the association: The Lower East Side. Pushcart country. He could go there. But then he remembered. They no longer used pushcarts.
My father was struck speechless for the first time in his life on the day that my mother fell through the ceiling.
Continue reading “It Had to Be Done by Robert Douglas Friedman”
His voice was exceedingly obnoxious.
Annoying.
Incessant.
“We’ll be seeking damages for all compensable losses suffered, of course. This Judge is a real prick, though.”
You can rent Van Gogh’s bedroom on Air BnB for ten dollars a night. We were on the final leg of our cross-country expedition when we ran into Chicago and out of money. When we left Venice West we were intertwined in one-another firmer than the Treaty Oak’s roots, somewhere around Lincoln Nebraska we suffered our own poisoning. By the windy city it was more than just a cold shoulder. We checked our pockets. Seventy-two dollars in change and we still needed to get to New York where our flights home were waiting on us.
I get a bit of a break this week as we have another one of those now and again Saturday Posts.
I’ll get the reviews done first and then I’ll introduce our special posting.
Continue reading “Week 134 – An Appeal, Kathryn Toolan And No Punctuation.”
The two of them laughed as they skipped into the woods.
“You are rubbish!”
“I know sweet cheeks, my coordination is terrible.”
“It’s step forward, pause, step forward other foot, pause, step forward only quickly. Sing ‘Mary Mary, Quite Contrary…And You’ll get it.”
He tried.
They both bent over laughing.
Nova reared up on his haunches and waddled after his prey. As big as an astronaut’s helmet, he had the tan, short-haired head and paws of a Boxer, but from nape to ankle he resembled an Apatosaurus; long in the neck and tail, hunchbacked, potbellied, and girthy in the lower extremities. He dropped to all fours, broke into a sprint, and gained on MR, the outpost’s Maintenance Robot.
A NEW PLANET HAS BEEN DISCOVERED CIRCULATING AT THE FRINGES OF EARTH’S ORBIT.
Continue reading “The Night I Quit the Neighborhood Watch by Michael Grant Smith”
The moon’s on its way to November, sailing a sullen sky. I think the whole world breathed a sigh of relief tonight, when the major told us to find shelter, get some shut eye before tomorrow. We’re too close to the enemy for camp fire, all of us hiding behind trees, and under bushes, keeping as quiet as smoke, settling into the dirt and leaves like animals on the prowl.
When they can’t ignore the stink coming from his room anymore, Mom and Dad break the lock on Jeff’s door and go in, prepared, they think, for whatever happens next. It’s not like they don’t have an idea anyway, they still do all his laundry. There’s not a sock in his hamper that isn’t stiff and crusty and yellowed. Mom doesn’t even gag about it anymore it happens so much, she just makes sure to wear latex gloves when she does the whites.
The only thing that doesn’t make sense is why they always smell like sugar.
Continue reading “Sweet Boy by Matthew Lyons – Adult Content”
literally stories 