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Latest News

Literally Stories – Week 42

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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

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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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Latest News

Literally Stories – Week 41

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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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All Stories, General Fiction

Motherhood by Frederick K. Foote

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Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Please forgive me all my sins and transgressions. In the name of the Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit I promise if you help me through this I’ll never get pregnant again! Nine months of just pure, concentrated misery. And now this, this intense, unbearable agony… Never, never again.

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All Stories, Horror

The Executor by Tobias Haglund

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There is – I wouldn’t call it a hole, rather a hollow – in the ground outside my house. When it rains it fills up to form a puddle and when the sun shines it evaporates, back to a hollow. The last few summers the puddle hasn’t dried away. Perhaps the sun shone less or perhaps the branches of the tree just above it grew a little thicker, but the puddle remained throughout the season. I can see the puddle from my bedroom window. The puddle, the tree and the green area around it, the little playground outside a kindergarten and a convenience store.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Driving on the Sausage Run by Tom Sheehan

 

(Une tranche de vie, inbound)

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This morning D’Espirito “Dez” Carmine knew that one of his passengers was in trouble.
Dez shifted gears of the twelve-seat bus as he came out of Revere onto the highway north, his eyes, as ever, studying the dozen passengers on their way to work, determining a snarl, a scowl or grimace, as a straight-out give-away. Oh, they were splendid facial characters, make-up aficionados, the mostly imperturbable cast for his play-going. Each one of them he knew almost intimately, their habits, likes and dislikes, their temperaments; how they showed impatience or worry. The lip biters were evident and the knee tappers, the finger squeezers and the puckered, silent whistlers. Who slept around, who was prone to wander come of an evening after work, he knew. Evidence of it came from eye flight or hair disarrangement, an early exhaustion showing itself off or a head yet rolling in a kind of rhythm. The morning body electric, he heard a voice say in the back of his head.

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All Stories, Science Fiction

The Culex Experiment by Nik Eveleigh

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The thin penetrating whine dragged him from the warm recesses of sleep. He pawed at the air as he sank back into slumber but his swipe was ineffectual and the incessant drone continued. He turned on to his side. The insect followed. He sat up in bed, groaned and shook his head.

“Light”

The bedside globe reacted to his command painting the room a dusky yellow.

Where are you, you little…

He rubbed his eyes and scanned the ceiling. No sign of the intruder and no sound to track it by. Resigned to have to start hunting he stretched a lazy arm across his body to pull back the covers.

Ahh…there you are.

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All Stories, Science Fiction

Silent Treatments by Goran Sedlar

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Laughing out loud.

Rolling on the floor with laughter.

Smiley face.

This last one was from Barb and Trevor’s heart-felt like supernova.

The night was going well. He was being charming, funny and confident. His body language advertised a great catch and a man who should be forgiven one honest mistake.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Consequence By Hugh Cron – Adult Content

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“I blame that Lord Longford muppet. All he did was encourage you do- gooder visitor pricks! You have sprouted up like a cancer since that old fuck died.”

James stopped, “Now this was an agreement! People know that I am here!”

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