Leaning against the grimy brick Mel scuffed her feet on the flags. She flicked a fag end into a puddle of scummy rain water. Her fingers quivered and shook, fiddling and picking at the little gold clasp on her shoulder bag. She sniffed, wiped the back of her hand across her nose. She needed a fix but couldn’t have one yet, she needed to keep her wits about her. She hated being out on the street, well of course she did but it was Saturday and so there was no choice.
First rule of working with Brad Blackwood: improvise.
Second: get into your character’s skin.
Both hard to pull off–Brad Blackwood never shoots light flicks. Brad says, the plot should write itself. If so, the plot is one shitty writer. Anyway, Brad doesn’t write screenplays, so maybe it’s just an excuse.
Continue reading “Counting Feathers of Life by Sergei Walnisty”
Gerald Xavier Kilmer placed his cell phone on the corner of his walnut desk, breathed deeply, exhaled, looked down from his fourth story window, and saw for the second time that day, what he had experienced more than thirty-five years earlier. Kilmer turned, his eyes followed the long corridor connecting other executive offices, then he turned toward the window again. When he looked down, it was gone.
Continue reading “A Place for Those Without a Place by Thomas Elson”
Ask any shrink or probation officer, “What is the most troubling kind of client?” You will hear the same answer every time: stalkers. Not the run-of-the-mill stalker—the jilted boyfriend type—but the schizo who obeys no authority save the voice inside his head. Lecture him, he will not listen. Warn him, he will not be impressed. Put him in jail and when he gets out he is likely to stalk you.
Prod Herling believed he had been followed for weeks or months, never once seeing what he thought was there. But his history came with repeated sensations.
My Grandma often told us about an adventure that she and Grandpa had in Winnipeg soon after my dad was born.
Continue reading “The Fifty Dollar Sewing Machine by Mitchell Toews”
He wakes with a start. The mug is there as always but the message this morning reads like some terrible urban legend.
Your wife is dead it says.
Squirrel was a little under average tall and railly. Mostly crooked teeth. Reddish hair, oily. Everbody started calling him Squirrel back in high school. He didn’t mind so much. Better’n Twerp from earlier on. One night Squirrel goes to the Tap Bar, and Big Ed’s wife, Ellie Lynn, is there without Big Ed. Ellie Lynn looks like she’s had a few so Squirrel goes an sits by her. Ellie Lynn seems real happy for Squirrel to buy her a few, and he has a few himself. Well, to cut to it, Squirrel and Ellie Lynn end up closin the place and goin to his truck to get at it. After finishin, Squirrel says to Ellie Lynn “Let’s do this again sometime, wanna?” Ellie Lynn don’t say nothin. She just gets outta Squirrel’s truck and walks off laughin and pullin up her pants.
Fraternal twin brothers from an exemplary family with a long history of silver spoons, silk stockings, white gloves, and blueblood.
Arthur, the elder by minutes, born to ponder, plan, plot and practice minor deceits for major gains and elaborate scams for minimal returns or momentous losses.
Theo of the laughing lips and smiling eyes, a charming and pliable character and a lubricous seducer of young girls and married women. The younger brother, a slippery wordsmith, giving every word a double or triple meaning. His promises are rarely broken because they are seldom understood.
Continue reading “Atreus (Arthur) and Thyestes (Theo) by Frederick K. Foote”
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
My alarm clock rings. It wakes me up. I sit up in bed, and run my fingers through my hair. I have such pretty hair. Everyone thinks so. They’re all so jealous of it, they never tell me how much they like my hair, but I can tell. I can see it in their eyes.
literally stories 