Tag: fiction

All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Anniversary by Nik Eveleigh

Nik

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“…and when I asked him if he had any banking experience do you know what he said?”

Toby grins. Waits for the punchline.

“He said… and I quote…” Alan straightens his tie, leans back for effect. “He said… I’ve had a savings account since I was fifteen.”

Alan Ward is not the kind of boss who waits for subordinate approval. He’s a table thumping, bellowing roar kind of a guy and stays true to form. “A savings account? If the little shit had managed a current account I might have employed him for the hell of it.”

Toby shakes his head. Rueful smile, thinks about what to say. Settles for an agreeable but flimsy “Savings account!” and another head shake.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Science Fiction

Michael by Tobias Haglund

Tobias Haglund

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It’s raining again. I haven’t been out for weeks, but it seems every time it’s my turn in Cell 421, it’s raining. Chuck wanted to trade. He said he’d give me his lunch for three days if he could stay in Cell 421, the only one with a window. Although I do want to eat more, I simply couldn’t take away his food. Not for this. Not for staring out of a window. It’s always the same thing; rain. It’s rain and with these long, almost endless lines of people.

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All Stories, General Fiction

In Flight Memory by Nik Eveleigh

Nik

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The ice will wake you. You’ll hear it dropping in the plastic cup, sense it being passed in front of you to the woman in the window seat you haven’t spoken to since the flight began. You’ll drift, then you’ll open your eyes and stare into a face that would be prettier with less make-up. Her strip-light smile won’t fade as she asks you, patiently, for the third time if you’d like something to drink. You’ll order a gin and tonic even though you don’t want one because that’s what you do on flights. While she rummages for the gin needle in the haystack of unwanted brandy you’ll wonder if you’ll get peanuts or mini pretzels.

You’ll bet on pretzels.

And you’ll be right.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Homes, Brothers and Fantasies by Tobias Haglund

Tobias Haglund

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I catch the sunrise over the bridge every morning before I sit down by the subway. It’s not because I particularly enjoy sunrises or because I somehow find comfort in them. It’s just on my way. That’s it. I live on the other side of the bridge and since most workers get up early, I also have to get up early. I try to hurry over. For some reason it’s easier to imagine us without a home. It’s within the very term homeless. It does happen that someone recognizes me and when they do, they’ll never again share a few coins. The magic is gone. I’m no longer just that homeless man who sits there waiting for them when they go to work, and still waits for them when they go home.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Mount Carmel Raid by Tom Sheehan

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Mount Carmel Road was a quiet dead-end in the north of town. In the middle of the night when the war in the Far East was over and the radios blared the news, all lights went on in all the houses on that blind street, except where the card game was played. Many of the neighbors were solidly indignant about that turn of events on VJ Night, two Mount Carmel boys would not be coming back from the mad Pacific, which most of us only saw in Saturday newsreels at the theater.

This house was a dark house on a dark street in my town that, with some lesions and scars, hangs on to a place in my memory and will not let go. Tenants and landlords hardly leave scribed notations of a dwelling, thinking all things will ferment, dissipate, and eventually pass on. Fifty years or more of recall usually get dulled, terribly pockmarked, or fade into the twilight the way one ages, dimming of the eyes, bending of the knees, slow turns at mortality. But this one rides endlessly in place, a benchmark, a mooring place. It resides as a point of time, a small moment of history colored up by characterization of one incident.

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All Stories, In conversation with...

Literally Stories In Conversation with each other by Tobias Haglund

Tobias Haglund

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Tobias: Welcome fellow editors to the Literally Stories Autumn summit.

Diane: Where is my drink?

Tobias: Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t bring any alcohol.

Hugh: PISH!

Diane: Oh deary… I thought for sure there would be a few bottles of wine. And some for you guys as well.

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Background
Latest News

Literally Stories – Week 42

Nik

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The last week has thrown up all manner of political oddities from around the world – and I’m not just referring to Donald Trump’s combover which must be standing on end at the news that Arnold Schwarzenegger (an immigrant no less) has stolen his old job on The Apprentice. The Labour Party in the UK has a new leader several light years left of centre. Australia is going through Prime Ministers faster than a stuttering sports team changes managers, and just this afternoon in Burkina Faso a very large chap in an army uniform locked up the President.

At Literally Stories we try and steer clear of politics. No military coups for us. No bloc voting. Just an oasis of calm, storytelling quality in a world of turmoil.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Romance

Retinitis Pigmentosa by Tobias Haglund

Tobias Haglund

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I’m Saga and I live in a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. I have a disease. It’s not fatal, but I am going blind. My doctor told me that I was slowly going blind. My mother said that my eyes were only losing their clarity. It’s true. Before it gets dark it will first become blurry. It already has.

I rewrote that intro several times and finally ended up with that one. I don’t want my disease to define me, but it is the only reason I’m slightly interesting. I was seventeen years old and I went to a public school in a county that had almost no public schools. I wore large glasses – still do – which I had to change batteries on every week. A function inside the lenses automatically adjusted to the daylight. When I started my first year of high school we were supposed to stand up in class and tell the others a little bit about ourselves. I told them I enjoyed reading, knitting and playing the piano. My teacher laughed and asked why I used past tense. She was right though. I could still enjoy most of those things, the piano made a sound and I could feel the fabric when I knitted, but I couldn’t read as well. I can still read to this day, but it takes longer, much longer.  I lose patience.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Story of the Week

Your Scheduled Recording by Louis Hunter

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Mary wanders home and dreams of television. She has all her favourite shows recorded, ready and waiting to be watched. She passes a sign for fried chicken. It flickers overhead, metal shutters pulled up, open for business. At home, Mary knows, there are jacket potatoes in the oven and a beer in the fridge.

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Background
Latest News

Literally Stories – Week 41

literallystories2014

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For someone who does not know a DSL from a WLAN Week 41 ended somewhat chaotically. I am talking routers of course and some would say what’s new?

Solutions to a faulty on/off button came both high and low-tech.

Cape Town (Nik) provided the know-how. The high-end geek-speak.

Sheffield (me) the low-brow pass me a roll of gaffer tape and I’ll fix mentality.

It really is amazing what you can keep running with an ounce of ingenuity and a paper-clip.

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