The sirens didn’t bother me because I was busy thinking about ending things. On the morning of my 573rd cycle, we rolled out of our threadbare bed with a rumbling belly. Breakfast went down stale and seedy. Military rations were all we’d managed to trade for lately; a half-eaten block of Nutrient-Toast mocked us on the counter.
Continue reading “The Ending of Us, Toxic Love During the Apocalypse by Karley Cisler”
“They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.”
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
There was a good film of the same name based on Betty Smith’s autobiographical novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which came out shortly after the book was published in 1943. But as it went during the days of the Hays Code of “decency,” much of the book could not be filmed due to content that the movie people figured viewers would be offended by. This involved a wildly over-sexed female character, pedophiles, alcoholism, antisemitism, children pulled from school to work after sixth grade, suicide, racism and persevering only for the sake of survival, for no greater aim than to prolong the misery. Some of those topics (especially the gentle father’s self destruction via the bottle) were addressed passingly while others were let alone.
Continue reading “Auld Author – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith – By Leila”
Happily Never After
I cannot help but knock feel good fiction. It reminds me of Heaven, which no one has ever described to my satisfaction. From what I have seen, Heaven looks like an eternal installment of Songs of Praise (I thought the USA had a monopoly in the department of hokey religious programming, but the UK has once again exposed my ignorance).
Continue reading “Week 464: Happily Never After and Antisocial People Have Feelings Too”
She moves her arms, her hands, her fingers as if she’s floating in water. From an index finger, a swirl begins. It’s the air. Concentrated. Rotating clockwise. An inch in diameter. It bends all the light and all the colors in the room, yet remains clear.
Continue reading “Swirls by Laura Shell”
The service station was different. While it was busy, it was quiet: a gentle hum of conversation and the odd rattle of cutlery and crockery. Everything was calm. There was no panic, no urgency, no pain.
Continue reading “Hartshead Moor Services – Westbound by Matthew Roy Davey”
Now first off, thank you for caring to listen. Or I presume so.I waited a long time to speak about the conspiracy that tried to bend me to its will and deny me mine, starting with my right to self-pleasure at the age of 12, to be master of my own body.
Continue reading “The Little Red Who Survived by Aleks McHugh”
Willie Ferguson lay staring at the wee cracks in his bedroom ceiling. Like a lot of people, he hadn’t realised, til he stopped working, that he was missing something. It sure as hell wasn’t the job that he missed: he’d collected his pension with a sigh of relief. It wasn’t family either: his sister, Margaret, living behind a privet hedge down in England, was emphatically a distant relative, and should ever remain so. But Willie knew he really was missing something.
Continue reading “Searching for Unicorns by Michael Bloor”
Ian was a stereotype.
I didn’t really know him but I knew his wife.
The reason I say ‘stereotype’ is that he was a raging alcoholic but unbelievably functional. The usual story here, he worked in the entertainment industry as a lighting man for a theatre and that was a life that had alcohol not just at the end of the day, also throughout. As long as he could shine a spotlight and in these more technical days, programme a system, no one gave a shit.
Continue reading “Ian by Hugh Cron”
Here’s a treat – Everyone loves Leila and she has been a tremendous asset to the site since well before she agreed to join the editing team. So, let’s find out more:-
Continue reading “Sunday Whoever.”
This is my first posting of the New Year and I hope that you all had a cracking time that you either can’t remember or won’t regret!
I should be happy and uplifted.
And I am in an inverted way due to some shite that we need to put up with. (It gave me this posting).
Continue reading “Week 463 – Transparency, Blanketing Eradication And He Also Knocked It Off.”
literally stories 