Tag: family

All Stories, General Fiction, Horror

Where the Dead Live by Jennifer Maloney

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My mother lives in the next town over, but she’s dead. My dead father lives with her.

Their house is small, and silent because it’s empty. The dead are quiet for the most part, although sometimes there is a sound like weeping in the bedroom and once the bathroom door slammed so hard it cracked and then there was a hole in it big enough to put your foot through, but it’s the just the wind, murmurs my mother, the same wind that skirls along her teeth, hissing through the dark cavern of her yawning jaw, a wind that bobbles my father’s empty skull and makes it nod along in agreement.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Immortality By Frederick K Foote

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“Why, oh, why Negro niece, do you sit there on the steps and cry?”

“Oh, woe is upon me and ruthlessly rides me because my father, your brother, my mother’s husband, has died. And our weeping is without end.”

“Ah, but your father was 80 and 10. It was about time for the old Negro’s story to end.”

“True, true, but he will be gone, his voice and presence will be missed, his words will be longed for, and his absence will leave a great emptiness.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Life’s A Tin Of Peaches by Leanne Simmons

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Frank likes motorbikes and works nights. He’s in bed when I get up for school in the mornings, but I know he’s made it home because there’s a grimy ring around the sink and rust-coloured wee in the toilet. His sandwich box, with a crumpled crisp packet and eggy clingfilm inside, is always by the kettle for Mum to clean out.  

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All Stories, General Fiction

Those Snowy Mornings by Gil Hoy

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On those windswept weekday mornings, asphalt driveway crusted with snow, my father would get up early, put on his secondhand boots and an old coat, and exit through our front door into the blue hour to get the motor running. That fifteen-year-old station wagon would stall if not warmed up properly and might not start again. My father would sometimes have to push it down the hill to get the engine going, my younger brother Bill and I sitting quietly in the back seat, the smell of alcohol already on my father’s breath. 

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Horror

After Lloyd by Christopher J. Ananias

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Disturbing content – see tags at the bottom of the page.

Gil doesn’t talk, just sits there drawing demons. Mr. Ny clapped his erasers together and called Gil to the blackboard for one of his impossible Geometry theorems. Gil snatched up the chalk, like a pissed-off Picasso, and made quick hard chalk-chalk marks, and it was solved. The last bell rang and the mad dash.

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All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever – Adam Kluger

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Adam is one of our more unusual writers. Since very early in the history of LS, November 2015 he has sent us quirky pieces often accompanied by his very individual art. He is a delight to interact with and is obviously a shoo in for an author interview and that treat is to come. However, one of the questions has also spawned this memoir, which was too good to turn down. And so please enjoy a bonus, Adam Kluger.

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All Stories, General Fiction

In Want of a Home by Alannah Tjhatra

literallystories2014

Angel was sprawled across the couch, the TV turned to Seinfeld. She had a cigarette in one hand and a magazine in the other.

“Wish you’d at least take that shit outside.” Grace stripped off her soaking coat, peeled a dead worm off the sole of her shoe. She stuck her sneakers on the heater to dry.

Angel rolled her eyes, a puff of smoke escaping her lips. “And hello to you too, baby.”

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