One more drink.
Only one.
I need a clear head to stop me doing what I really want.
I have a list of names and I want to type up some misfortune beside each of them.
But I’ve not done that yet.
Continue reading “The List by Hugh Cron”
Tag: free reading
Troublemaker by Cathy Adams
The first thing Clara stole was one of those glittery cell phone covers that looks more like the cover for a light switch. That was Clara’s first impression of the flat, pink object with rhinestones shaped into a falling star. She was in Target, and the clerk she had asked to help her find shoestrings told her to go to the seventh aisle where there were definitely no shoestrings but row upon row of phone covers, useless plastic rectangles that were supposed to “reveal your personal expressiveness.”
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Parent Interview by Jill Malleck
My last parent interview of the day was late, by a good twenty minutes, and the damn meeting was only booked for fifteen. Truth was, I didn’t care that Derek’s folks hadn’t shown. For two hours I’d spent fifteen-minute slots explaining to overly optimistic parents how they’d raised kids as dumb as doornails. Nothing I hated more than parent interviews, except teaching in the 8:30 am session. No science to it; try teaching teenage zombies.
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Hana by Mariam Saidan
I’m baking a cake, a well-mixed paste of carefully measured amounts of flour, eggs, oil, sugar, banana, baking powder and a pinch of cinnamon, ready to go in the oven for 45 minutes, when she knocks on the door. I think of taking my apron off, but I decide not to. It’s cute, with birds frolicking in a pink world. I look like an unusually traditional woman for our time, I feel. A woman. A kitchen. An apron. A cake. Pink. But I feel something perverse, almost noble, in quietly subverting these clichés still viciously clinging to these symbols.
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Literally Reruns – Ship by L’Erin Ogle
Joy Florentine has come up trumps with not one, not two, not three but five Rerun suggestions. So pin back your eyelids – eeurgh! Here is number one.
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Week 333 – A Maiden Amount, Some New Traits For Samael And Patches Isn’t Just About Dungarees.
Here we are at Week 333 – Half the number of the beast.
I realised that I didn’t know why 666 was the number of the beast so I looked it up.
I’m none the wiser! It’s a bit complicated.
Continue reading “Week 333 – A Maiden Amount, Some New Traits For Samael And Patches Isn’t Just About Dungarees.”
Perry by Dianne Willems
He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to be a hero so badly he could hardly think of anything else.
The Parrot sighed, and thought. A lump the size of an orange had formed in his throat, and he wanted it gone. It felt suffocating.
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The End Of The World by Dave Henson
When my broadcasting partner, Screwdriver Dan, drops his jaw, I think he has a dental problem. When the station manager texts me to stop by her office after our show, the thought of a raise flashes through my mind. The first inkling I get that something’s wrong is when our call screener informs us the switchboard is lighting up, and no one wants to talk about home repairs.
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Light by Yash Seyedbagheri
It’s the first clear winter night in almost two weeks. I drive the streets into our valley community, 2003 Subaru Forester rattling with age and emptiness. Well, more like I’m driving down the one winding main street that slopes down a hill, flanked by cathedral-like ponderosas. A few side streets branch off to the market and the cluster of shops and the one or two churches that flank either side of the river. The outskirts, the hills beyond, my cabin, darkened rooms, and bills wait behind me, all splayed across the kitchen table. Power, water, a myriad of cards maxed out, in part due to my fondness for Fat Tire.
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Rapturous by Marco Etheridge
The Rapture came to pass on an Easter Sunday and the irony was lost on no one, except perhaps the two and a half billion people who were vacuumed off the face of the earth. What exactly the departed experienced, ironical or literal, remained a mystery. None of them ever returned.
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