Act One
Nora Lynn Manning was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on 6 December 1941. Her parents, Arlene and Jay, were high school sweethearts who realized too late that they did not like each other all that much. Still, they chose to marry before Arlene began to show. Like so many hideously bad ideas, it was considered the “right thing” to do.
Continue reading “Nora in Five Acts by Leila Allison”
Kafkaesque
Franz Kafka has a sixty-something-word story called “The Watchman” in the translation from German. In this piece, the narrator keeps running back and forth in front of the watchman in order to taunt him, while also being terrified that he might be arrested at any moment, but unable to desist. In sixty or so words, Kafka encapsulates the outcast outsider, the paranoid underdog known as the modern human being: the contemporary everyman.
Continue reading “Writers Reading – Review by Dale Willliams Barrigar “
Here we are at Week 511.
I hate this time of year.
I hate the greed of the supermarkets – Just look at any dangling clip-strips, dump bins and every piece of space that is occupied by some shite or another.
Continue reading “Week 511 – Don’t Let Them kid You, Go Out For A Regular Beer and Inappropriate Ink.”
The first message on Elana’s iCom pulsed red as she stepped out of harassment training. This job gave her no time to breathe. When she’d signed on, they’d told her the cadence would be intense, like drinking water from an Old World firehose. Ironic, for obvious reasons. Just the thought of filtered droplets made her throat hum. Given the time, given her title as Head of Human Resources and Logistics, making jokes about water wasn’t ever in good taste.
It was her tenth day.
Continue reading “Human Resources by Salena Casha”
Cass had been on the Cold Case Time Travel squad eight years when I replaced her partner, Hoss. We’d done things differently in Present-Day Homicide so I shut up and listened. Cass was a pro, by the book mostly–she could even fix the damn machine! And since no other towns could afford the traveler fees, we’d be in ’60s Harlem one day and ’30s Greenwich the next. I’m guessing they brought me in for the Harlem cases. Brothers don’t tend to open up to two pale folks from the future. Of course, they weren’t supposed to know we were from the future, but occasionally our Era Lingo implants malfunctioned.
Continue reading “Baby Blues by Jack Powers”
A cross-country move is a big change, I get that, but no way I deserve this nightmare I’ve landed in. The relocation wasn’t even my idea. Doctor’s orders, right? The doc said I needed a drier climate and less stress. And the move did lower my stress level, at least initially. Putting three thousand miles between me and the cops, that’s a hidden bonus. Needless to say, I didn’t mention that to the good doctor.
Continue reading “The Horrible Relocation by Marco & Liam Etheridge”
Sammy was often mistaken for being younger than he actually was. He was short for his age, and skinny, and wore black-rimmed glasses and white shirts buttoned up to the very top. He had a high, broad forehead and his face narrowed down to a pointed chin; his big, dark eyes were set very far apart, halfway between the brow line and his chin, and his mouth often appeared little more than a dot beneath a small, sharp nose. His hair was black, long, and unstyled; it just hung from his crown like a toupee that had been put on wrong. With a pair of pointy ears, he would have made the perfect cartoon space alien.
Continue reading “War Games by Alan Rice”
Reader Alert – Please refer to tabs
So I’m yankin’ this thing out the drainpipe, getting’ blood up me cuffs, while those little twats are creasin’ up in the car park. They’ve proper mashed it up, n’all: it’s comin’ out in handfuls; I can feel its guts through me rubber gloves.
Continue reading “Jesu-Vape by Robin Dennis”
Adam is one of our more unusual writers. Since very early in the history of LS, November 2015 he has sent us quirky pieces often accompanied by his very individual art. He is a delight to interact with and is obviously a shoo in for an author interview and that treat is to come. However, one of the questions has also spawned this memoir, which was too good to turn down. And so please enjoy a bonus, Adam Kluger.
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever – Adam Kluger”
(Meet Boo, picture provided by Tressa Bella Barrigar)
Snow Daze
The fine fellow in this image is Boo the Husky Artist as a Young Dog–who to this very instant remains a close associate and housemate of our friend, Dale Williams Barrigar. I think Boo exemplifies the Spirit of Snow Day as well as any living creature. Huskies can handle the chill. They will smile and play and chat gleefully at the Antarctic, and raise a quizzical brow as your blood freezes faster than the face of a strip club bouncer when you get all hands with his girl. (For what I hope are obvious reasons, I have never been inside a strip club, but my brother saw a guy get jacked-up something awful for engaging in the described stupid activity: “Dude gotta face full of fist…lost some teeth.”)
Continue reading “Week 510: Snow Daze Enthusiasm; Everyday Enthusiasms; More From the Pantry and a Long Distance Dedication From David McCallum”
literally stories 