“It’s hard to believe I exist in this place,” I tell my wife Rita.
On this trip to her hometown L. A. I’ve felt increasingly unreal. My eyes scan the ground, try to see this city at a basic level. There’s too much to take in if I raise my sight, the sheet white mist, streets lined with tents, people staggering and shouting.
Continue reading “La Cienaga Boulevard by Harrison Kim”
The sun is too hot for May, and my arm is starting to burn. That’s what I’m thinking of when I’ve missed my afternoon bus. That and my sister, Julia. My name is Elijah William Scott. And I am the reason my sister is dead. There’s a shortcut you can take off of Sawmill Road to get to our house. I don’t take it anymore. I don’t need to look at the drawings, the flowers, the “We Miss You” signs. It’s all bullshit. It doesn’t mean anything. She won’t know.
Continue reading “Julia by Chloe M. Dehon”
“What the people believe is true.”
—Nanabush, Son of the West Wind, Grandson of the Moon
I was a story I told myself.
My body required mechanical help with inputs and outputs, causes and effects—the purpose of one function needed to be fitted to the function of a higher purpose, from swerve of nerve to bend of bone, synapse to neuron across the junctions electric.
Body shifts, reflex tests, muscle pulls were performed. Others asked questions neither understood nor answerable.
Continue reading “The Story of Jimmy Gray by Gerald Coleman”
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“Hi,” I said when Anna-Lou finally answered the door. She looked like hell but that greatly improved when I showed her a thirty milligram bottle of Methadone. I had guessed her situation correctly and for the first time in ages I had the power to ease suffering.
“Sarah–what?” She said, confused, as she had a right to be. I imagine she experienced a moment similar to wishing for something utterly impossible and seeing it come true. In the forty years I had known her, not once had I directly addressed “her condition.”
Continue reading “The Designated Shepherd by Leila Allison”
We often run pieces that rub some persons the wrong way. Some folks are sensitive, others as Jack Nicholson once observed “can’t handle the truth.” Still, it is far better to provoke a reaction than not. Sort of like there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Franky and Jesus by -Hugh Cron”
Who is the greatest writer ever?
Is that a loaded question?
Literally snobs will come up with the usual suspects that I’ll not mention. I can’t really as there are very few of the so called classics that I have read.
Continue reading “Week 487 – Famous Five, Charlie and Young Mr Bell!!”
When I inherited my great-uncle’s fortune, I quit my job at the drycleaners, but I kept driving my thirdhand Nissan. I didn’t stop shopping for housewares at Twice But Nice, and I even renewed the lease on my two-bedroom walk-up on Standard Street.
Continue reading “Omaha Hold ‘Em by Shoshauna Shy”
On July 3rd, 1903, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show gave a performance in Abergavenny, a market town in the Black Mountains of South Wales. The town sits surrounded by seven hills, but the most prominent is The Sugar Loaf (it’s Welsh name is Pen-y-fâl), which looms over the town. At the close of his show, Buffalo Bill annouced to the crowd his intention to climb The Sugar Loaf the next morning. It was said that, the next day, Bill was accompanied up the mountain by half the adults and all the children of the town.
Continue reading “Buffalo Bill’s Day Out by Michael Bloor”
Mr. Balding, our 5th grade Social Studies teacher, was so old that the Germans shot the hair from his head on two separate occasions and in two separate wars. Mr. Balding was so old that he hated and despised discussing his age. He was so old that the hairs in his ears had fossilized and had grown longer than the hair on his head. He was so old that his cataracts had cataracts. He was so old that he couldn’t remember being our age. And, yet, in a weak attempt to connect to what he imagined to be our violent sensibilities, once a month, or so, some military and patriotic force compelled him to tell gory and graphic war stories from behind the full view of the obit page of Peoples Gazette—our local and irregularly published bi-weekly.
Continue reading “Nobody Ever Retires, Even After They’re Dead [1] by J Bradley Minnick”
(A Novel Excerpt)
Author’s Note
Gertie McDowell, a naïve young girl with a talent for misadventure, has joined a women’s wrestling troupe called Christian Ladies of Wrestling. The troupe was put together by Wanda Sue, a bank robber with a streak of religion whom Gertie met while serving prison time because she “trusted the wrong sort of fella.” The mission of the troupe is to bring folks closer to Jesus by having women posing as Christians wallop the daylights out of women posing as transgressors. Gertie’s wrestling persona is Haystacks Holly, a lustful temptress who leads married men astray. Her tag team partner, an Apache girl named Cocheta, is billed as Blasphemous Berta, an outspoken atheist who deifies witchcraft. Both girls incense Christian audiences by flaunting their unsavory lifestyles.
Continue reading “Samoa Moa by James Hanna”
literally stories 