Patsy flipped his eggs in the small frying pan, sizzling on the coils of his portable electric burner. Thin bacon smoke hung in his room. Can’t let that old bat of a landlady catch me cooking. He walked five steps to the room’s sole window, pounded the frame to break the ice seal, and opened it. Rochester’s mid-winter night air hit him like an arctic blast.
Continue reading “Patsy’s Last Gig by JD Clapp”
It was, by all means, a wonderful and perfectly lovely Tuesday. The sun was shining, the flowers were in bloom, and Edmund was running out of time.
Continue reading “Carrot Season by Alex Maciockay”
Her name was Winona. Winona on damp, drizzly school days when she raised her hand fearless of appearing callous or insufferable. Winnie on wine-dark nights she downed canned gin cocktails and let her nose go runny under porch lights. Nona inside her honey-sulked home where windows overlooked fields of magnolias whose petals sunk under the weight of thunderstorms.
But she was always Winona to me.
Continue reading “Always, Winona by Hannah Richardson”
The world ends soundlessly and mid-confession.
First, there is only darkness. Because sight fails, scents strip my room into view. Charred electricity and ingrained grease. Then melting plastic and flammable plaster. Then Victoria’s Secret body mist and snot-kissed posters.
Continue reading “Solar Storm by Veera Laitinen”
When hunting season started, my brother Isaac and I brought out the Remington and shot down angels by the creek. We’d descend the hill at dawn and lug back the carcasses in the evening. We bottled the blood for chapels and sold the bones for change to research teams on the black market. Whatever was left, Isaac kept in jars under his bed.
Continue reading “Dissecting Angels by Mason Koa”
This is the second time around for Swan River Daisy by Tom Sheehan as a rerun. It originally appeared in 2015 then was first rerun in 2018. The debut year is close to the beginning of the site and the second is from the earliest weeks of this feature.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Swan River Daisy by Tom Sheehan”
Well hello there peeps and all old China’s!!
Here we are at the exciting Week 489.
…Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, so I’ll start again.
Here we are at week 489.
This week a comment between us made me consider this.
Continue reading “Week 489 – Constants, Next Year Hopefully And Spreading The Bad!”
Sarah parked in the small lot beside Lava’s Bar on Lower Main not knowing what to expect. The ancient and industrial part of Wailuku looked the same as it had when she was a kid: non-descript dingy buildings, narrow alleys with the odd apartment sprinkled in, a snuffling dog on the corner. Despite the post-sunset, orangey sky, the area emanated an enticing melancholy, a feeling she remembered from the seat of her dad’s tow truck back in the early seventies en route to the junkyard, stereo shop, or TV repair. But now, there’s a bar! Maybe there was always a bar—or bars—here, but bars weren’t on her radar in those days, obviously. She’d always been curious about the dusty, mid-island pit of industrial Wailuku, compared to the tourist-dotted beaches in Kihei, where she had grown up a mere ten or so miles away.
Continue reading “Lava’s Bar by Marisa Mangani”
Bernie loved this day and age.
Before, he was always cold.
He never had enough to eat.
And he hated to admit it, his weakness, his curse, his companion, his reason to stay alive was the sauce. These days he had as much booze as he wanted…Well…
Continue reading “Sign Of The Times Too (The Mile-Stone Inspector)”
Näkki is a mythical creature from Finnish folklore, often described as a water sprite or demon. Näkki is said to dwell in murky waters and drown any human that crosses its path.
Continue reading “The Ghosts of Their Daughters by Veera Laitinen”
literally stories 