Jardine walked towards town. Town was what all the residents called the shit heap that was a few shops and two halls. The shops consisted of a butchers, which supplied good enough meat, a Spar, which was the usual Spar shite, a bookies and the mandatory charity shop.
Jardine was heading to one of the halls. The other was for Masons only.
He looked around himself and considered.
“What a dump!”
I had this to consider as I fell: that to be pushed from the eleventh floor of a slum hotel, in the end, isn’t so different from being pushed from the eleventh floor of the Ritz-Carlton. The outcomes would differ very little.
*
”Did you know Leonardo da Vinci was a farmer’s son?”
“No.”
“He was. Born out of wedlock by a mother who was a farmer. You can imagine how it must have looked. Fifteen century Italy, born and raised by a single mother, yet he still managed to accomplish those many great things. It really is a great argument that every social class should be given a chance, right?”
“Right.”
“The next Leonardo da Vinci might be raised right now by a single mother.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Yes.”
“Look. If you don’t want-”
“I want to. Let’s just talk for a while first.” Kevin sat down on the bed. “Would you? Would you please say something. Just… I wanna hear you talk. It soothes me.”
Continue reading “Before Hitting The Ground by Tobias Haglund”
Alejandro knew he was dead but that didn’t stop him from wanting to come to America. His body lay on the dry dirt exactly where he’d fallen, the muscles rapidly losing their ability to stretch out and contract. His mouth was fixed, oddly enough, in a permanent grin.
”Sit down, my good friend, sit down.” Adam gave Tobias a stout. “There you go. Something imperial to take your mind off of things.”
“Thank you, kind sir. My mind has been racing, that’s for sure.” Tobias took a big enough sip for it to be called a chug, but he did it in such a gentlemanlike way it remained a sip. “Mind if I share with you what burdens me?”
“I’m all… wait -” Adam chugged a stout and slumped down. “Ears.”
“I’m a Swede, as you know, and therefore when I write English, prone to make mistakes. Some are because it’s a second language and some are genuine mistakes. Let’s start with the latter. Take for instance the word mistake. In Swedish a miss is always spelled with two S. Even when writing mistakes-”
“I’m sensing a pun here…”
Continue reading “Tobias Haglund in conversation with Adam West”
Literally Stories welcomed a new author – Ashlie Allen – onto the site in week 22. We also saw the return of an ‘old boy’ in Dave Louden.
Newcomer Ashlie gave Wednesday a real chill with The Violin He Played Downstairs – keep an eye out for that kid Abramo folks, he’s a bit special.
In an alternative Ulster known as Ultra-Belfast Dave Louden’s protagonist was seated at a card table with a rather unsavoury bunch. Texas Hold’Em was their game. You got to hand it to Dave, it was a fine story.
Sandwiched between these diverse horrors we found Hugh Cron, who dealt readers another unsettling hand when he gave us The Choice. Hobson only knows what to make of that one?
Sweden is a wonderful country full of peace loving, pine furniture admiring Nordics. Erm – not according to Tobias Haglund it isn’t. Well, wasn’t, back in the day when Sadistic Justice got metered out here, there and ‘bloody’ everywhere, in his gory tale of valour and revenge and how not to form a queue at IKEA.
If your appetite wasn’t fully satisfied by Tobias’ smorgasbord of Scandinavian mayhem then no doubt you easily digested the Bread and Chicken Diane Dickson served up on Friday. Not a culinary delight but a literary one nonetheless.
The pain was indescribable. First had been shock and horror then disbelief and now all that was left was pain.
In a damp cellar the mould mixed with the scent of urine coming from his rags. A drop of sweat still dangled at the tip of his black hair from an excruciatingly painful hour as the hatchway closed. He was strong, the strongest, but he had never endured that level of pain. Moss and mice were signs of hope, or at least hope of life in the dark.
Conspirator. Traitor. Your house shall burn and your name will be dragged in the mud.
And they dragged his face in mud. Along the wooden planks and the stone. From one side of the long wall to the next. Two hard punches to the back of his head threw him into the stone. He lost teeth. A man stamped him in the lumbar region, which was the reason he couldn’t stand up.
He won’t do anything else. All he ever does is sit downstairs and stroke his violin. No one recognizes the notes he plays. Most of the time he makes no effort to play pretty sounds. Maybe pretty noises break his heart because he thinks he’s ugly inside and out.
Continue reading “The Violin He Played Downstairs by Ashlie Allen”
You’ll have to choose.
“Who said that?”
You did.
“No I didn’t. Who is taking the piss?”
…Mirror, mirror on the wall…We all know the rest. You said that. Do you deny it?
“No. I was only mucking about. For fuck sake I was only having a shave.”
You should never muck about with your soul. You are in trouble now! You’ll have to choose. One of three. If you hurry you will be able to stay but if you don’t…Well…
literally stories 