Welcome to our TEN YEAR CELEBRATION. We reckoned that merited capitals. And no, we are not shouting. Or maybe we are in that excited child-like type of way but less annoying.
We will have our usual bits and pieces and something that let’s us give a nod to Leila.
You see throughout this posting we will have ‘Ten Tens For Ten Years’ – These will be ten lists that we thought would be of some interest.
Continue reading “Ten Year Celebration”
I once was a young woman who, for some years, didn’t eat animals in any shape or form. I felt irresponsible and cruel eating them. That’s not the whole story, but that’s the relevant truth. I was troubled knowing that there were animals living in suffering on gridded farms overflowing with flies and shit as far as the eye could see. I didn’t want to ingest all of that pain, brutality and filth. That was too much for me to eat.
Continue reading “Sin Eater by Tarri Driver”
There were three of them. There were four of us, and April lay on the campsite and on the river, a mixture of dawn at a damp extreme and the sun in the leaves at cajole. This was Deer Lodge on the Pine River in Ossipee, New Hampshire. The lodge was naught but a foundation remnant in the earth. Brother Bentley’s father, Oren, had found this place sometime after the First World War, a foreign affair that had seriously done him no good. But he found solitude abounding here. Now we were here, post-World War II, post-Korean War, Vietnam War on the brink. So much learned, so much yet to learn.
Continue reading “The Three Fishermen by Tom Sheehan”
Asatta fussed over her warmth-membrane and scanned the flat horizon of the little planet, searching for a spark of orange light. Blue wisps of ice and dust curled about the skyline. Anjett was late returning. Soon she would have to enter the dwelling and close it off, leaving him to the intractable cold of the planet’s night.
Continue reading “Warmth by J.H. Siegal”
An Empty Family Cabin
I arrived after midnight. I found the key on the peg in the unused barn using the flashlight on my phone.
There was a blanket of stars so thick I stood in the barn door staring upward at the swirling white masses for a long time after I found the key. The shadows in the old, haunted barn had made me think of the birth of Christ story as I remembered all the departed members of my family.
Continue reading “The Ghost of Van Gogh by Dale Williams Barrigar”
I probably wouldn’t be in Mexico if there hadn’t been a knife on the counter at the Bad Dog Bar last Tuesday. I been going to the Bad Dog for two years, since I been working the graveyard shift at Drake Manufacturing. If you ever spent eight hours attaching table tops to the leg frames, you know why that kind of work goes better if you got a couple beers in you. One of the evening bartenders at Bad Dog is Hitch. He was working last Tuesday with Sheila, who waits tables. She ain’t much of a waitress, to put it gentle. She gets orders wrong ever night, even in a place like Bad Dog where most everbody orders the same cheap beer. Sheila’s popular, though, with them low-cut blouses. Most of the Bad Dog customers are guys don’t care what they’re drinking as long as they’re looking down a woman’s blouse. That’s one reason my brother liked Bad Dog right away. Plus he didn’t have to walk far after work. Then he got me to going. And I gotta say about Sheila and them low-cut blouses, when you look down that valley, you know there’s a better world waiting when you get there.
Continue reading “A Sharp Knife for Cutting Limes”
Foreword
In honor of Remembrance Day (Veteran’s Day in America), and to honor those who served, currently serve and to those who gave all, we present a reworking of a story by Tom Sheehan first published in November 2017. Tom served in Korea and knows as much about the suffering of war, and its after-effects, as much as anyone.
Since it is an altered version, we will forgo the usual link and present the work right here and now.
All the best to the veterans and those who appreciate their sacrifices.
Diane, Hugh, Leila–Eds. Literally Stories
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Continue reading “Literally Reruns – A Boy Once Known by Tom Sheehan “
A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT
First, before the Big Announcement, our thanks go to Doug Hawley for taking the helm last week. We look forward to extending further invitations to do so to our frequent writers and site friends!
Next week will feature our annual anniversary post. This year is special because it marks ten years for Literally Stories. There will be the many special features we add to our anniversary wraps plus an abundance of new ones. We have been working on this since summer and we hope to see one and all next week. As always, bring the kids, show up drunk, clothing is optional.
Continue reading “Week 506: A Big Announcement; Surreal the Deal; Five Great Values; Crystal Ball Questions”
The guitar player began. The two younger women, the singers, looked to the dancer, then to one another and laughed. Everyone knew the dancer was crazy. What would happen tonight? What madness revealed when, after standing stock still, face intense, concentrating, ugly, man-like, she would explode in sudden but precise movement. Arms and legs lashing out, a burning, erotic anger masked behind the frozen expression on her face. After moving across the stage, she would come to a sudden, freezing halt, slamming her foot down on the floor—loud. The women startled even when they knew it was coming. The dancer looked at the man—her partner. She always chose a younger man. He looked back, smiled but at a distance. She glared at him then suddenly moved again, whirling, white skirt flaring out to reveal a flash of the carmine lining.
Continue reading “Rage by Paul E Goldberg”
Warning: Extreme content – see tags.
Running.
Gasping.
Retching, the son of Olayo Mejia charges toward his village amid the stench of burning wood and searing flesh. The odor is heavy and it is moist and it fills the valley beneath him in a haze of squalid yellows and heavy browns. It covers the fog-laced treetops and mingles across the terraced fields and, as gunfire again bursts over the Salvadoran hills, its reek grows sharper with every footfall and every wild swing of his arms. Its taste lingers in his mouth, its fumes choke his lungs and he wants so much to pause and catch his breath. He wants to fall to his knees and weep in terror but he knows he cannot, for the helicopters are prowling above him, the smoke is billowing high into the morning air and his home is very far away.
Continue reading “Chalatenango, 1983 by J. Paul Ross”
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