Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – the Questing Knight by Michael Bloor

Michael Bloor’s excellent little gem, The Questing Knight, looks at, then beyond the charm of a pub raconteur. Michael shines a light on the truth that people had ignored with his description of the man’s previously unseen widow. This is a beautifully understated piece of work that says more than its small quantity of words.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 388: Interstellar Juice Boxes; The Week That Is and Visual Velveeta

In a Saturday post several months ago I took aim at the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Looking back, I discovered I did not insult it enough. The Great Eye recently opened and discovered (brace yourself) more galaxies. At work, I often deal with large shipping boxes separated from their invoices, thus they arrive as mysteries that I must explore. Whenever I open one to see what’s inside nowadays, I always say “Look gang, more galaxies.”

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

A Little Time by Dylan Martin

 The world was so much simpler when Forever 21 was just a shitty clothing store. Nowadays, it’s nothing more than a bar off 42nd street, with a comically-large hourglass by the door filled with sand that never falls. I used to consider it nothing more than a cheap gimmick; another one of the city’s countless tourist traps. The truth is the bar was never what attracted people. All those stupid, far-from-subtle decorations aren’t what people come to stare at; we are.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Girl with the Long Dream by Tom Sheehan

I had heard about her for a long time. She lived alone in a cave in a deep-set canyon, on a cliff looking sharply down at the edge of the prairie. She was a most beautiful Indian maiden who, I heard from several sources, had been driven from her Cherokee village. The word bandied about said she was bound in her mind to find a good man to be her husband. She would have the best of children and would be the best of mothers. For that she needed the best man she could find.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Show Off by Frederick K Foote – Contains adult language and themes.

On a balmy day in May, Betty Brown said to a joyous Black boy jiving around on Broadway, “Walk that walk, Boy. You know you sooo fine. You know I’m gonna make you mine. It’s just a matter of time.”

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Editor Picks, Fantasy, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 387: Blame It On The Tintintinabulator; Five New Memories, Plus a Season Finale

I blame it on the Tintintinabulator, that musical Spirit who goes from ear to ear and secretly whispers catchy songs into semi-catatonic minds. That is my theory for why tunes get stuck in our heads. Currently, Kate Bush is singing Wuthering Heights in my mind. “Cathy” has been at the window for about a week. She’s done it before and will again. It usually takes ten days for her to go away, satisfied that she has once again qualified me for a berth in Crazytown.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Road Finally Home by William R Stoddart

It’s a circuitous route via thumb from my home in the old Borsch Belt in upstate New York to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And when I’ve decided it was time to move on, I bummed rides through rural Southern towns trusting the unspoken agreement, the rules of the road. I made my way to the interstate — a flip of a coin, a wet finger held high in the sweet tarry air. I made a fist of my right hand, extended the thumb, and rode it all the way to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, pitching my backpacking tent near Pequea Creek.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Charlestown Calling Back by Tom Sheehan

These days, you’re the only Townie I would know on sight as you grace our Riverside Cemetery in your own hellos, tall as all get-out, robust, time marking your way past that mere issue, and a charmer from a distance on any day of the week. I wish, among other issues and dreams, that you’d recognize me, wrap those loving arms around me, greet the passing among all these stones, upright, neat in place, fighting off the centuries one by one.

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