The small Hyundai coupe crept around the church parking lot. Obviously anxious, Jason Halpnuscht peered about as he drove, his head swiveling back and forth. He surveyed the area around the dumpster and the large hot air outlets on the rear of the building with care.
Pastor Penn Benner hated to see homeless people on the property.
Continue reading “The Business of Saving Souls By Mitchell Toews”
We love Christmas, Sandra and me. We love all its traditions, like mince pies, and getting presents, and stuff like that. The best bit as far as I’m concerned is the swilling down the booze so I can’t remember what happened the morning after, but Sandra says that’s not very healthy and I have to ease up a bit this year.
First and foremost, we send all our thoughts and sympathies to Adam and his family at this sad and difficult time.
As much as he can, we wish him and his family a peaceful Christmas.
Continue reading “Week 105 – Stories, From Us And Happy Holidays”
‘Twas the night before Christmas
And in the alehouse below
A creature was stirring
A miserable old crow…
“Stirring’s a bit strong a word for it to be fair Nug, but I admire your cheery optimism.”
Nugget shook his lumpy, misshapen and somewhat yellow head. “You know me Bresst. Ever cheery.”
“Been meaning to ask you something though, Nug. What’s this Christmas thing you keep singing about?”
“That? The celebration of Christopher Thomas?”
“Eh?”
“Christopher Thomas? You’ve heard the tale of Old Chris surely?” Nugget laughed goldenly as Bresst shook his head. “In that case I propose the same again to lubricate the tale. And,” he continued, poking the form slumped over the table beneath a black feathered cloak, “We’d better get another ale into him if we’ve got any chance of him functioning. Now where’s my favourite…ah! There she is! Menna! Three ales please darlin’. And a couple of those otters on a stick if you’d be so kind.”
Continue reading “And A Crow In A Pear Tree by Nik Eveleigh”
Man: Hello. I’m Peter. You are a lovely lady.
The lovely lady seated across from Peter: Well, thank you, Peter. I’m Georgia.
Peter: You are too pretty to be a state.
A courtesy smile.
Peter: You have perfect teeth.
Georgia: I brush between meals.
Peter: Good concept.
Georgia: You should try it.
Peter: I believe I will.
Georgia: Tell me, Peter, why are you here?
Peter (after a brief moment of reflection): I believe religion to be an archaic concept that caters to the insecurities of fragile, ignorant people. And you?
Georgia: Goodbye Peter.
Peter: Goodbye Georgia. Continue reading “From the Mouth of Peter Dowd by Fred Vogel”
When it came it was sudden.
There had been a bunch of false alarms and near misses.
Paul Buckington had avoided the inevitable for as long as he could and at some points he thought perhaps, Providence played a part, and at others he credited himself with simply persevering against daunting odds.
The world stops. Lincoln no longer hears the sounds of recess through the open kitchen window facing the grade school playground. In the living room, his wife holds fast, motionless, her words clipped as quickly as shears snip a stem. The silence rushes over him the way water envelops a diver. It’s startling and complete.
It has been a strange week for me this week folks. I met a guy I went through secondary school with. I reckon I hadn’t seen him for around thirty years. I was very surprised when he asked about my writing. He had seen an article regarding the anthology over a year ago and had remembered. It was nice to be asked. Not many people ask, but to be truthful, not many people know or realise what this all means to me.
I mentioned last week about me writing poetry and I’ll admit, I am the most un-poetic person ever! I’m even surprised that I do it! I have always kept all my writing a bit hidden. I am not as guarded now as I once was and if anyone asks what I do in my spare time, I champion this site and all our stories.
Continue reading “Week 104 – Interest, Promotion And Mrs Claus’s Disappointment.”
”I used to live up there, in the red house. My window was just behind the oak tree and I stared out during the night, over this graveyard. I guess you can imagine how I’d fantasized. Wandering ghouls and vampires. Back then only this lamppost existed. Not that one or the one after. This lamppost was like a lantern, a lonely lantern in the dark, and during damp autumn nights when it was dead silent I snuck down here and stood next to it. Heard only the flickering sound of the lightbulb. The hedges were walls all around me. And when a wind flew through the branches and when someone visited the graveyard, I hid in the bushes.”
Erica pressed out a mint from the candy tube and ate it. “Time to go?”
Over millions of years ago Breakheart Woods, between Saugus and Wakefield in Massachusetts, had been bookmarked by boulders and blow-offs and earthly cataclysm, and to this day, somewhere in its innards from those first struggles of granite and earth fire, from violent fractures and upheavals to be known again only at the end of it all, was a cave, a cave as dark as a heart, a cave that once, I believed, pulsed with a heart. Now we were searching for that cave, in earnest.
Continue reading “The Hermit of Breakheart Woods by Tom Sheehan”
literally stories 