Fantasy, Humour, Short Fiction

And a Geep Shall Lead Them by Leila Allison

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Enter the Adverb Queen

Daisy trotted into my office then up the small critter ramp that runs from the floor to my desktop (Cats ignore it, they’d rather leap up and give me a heart attack). She began speaking without a preamble.

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All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever – Seven Dogs or A Dog is My Walden – An essay by Dale Williams Barrigar

                             For Extremely Intelligent Children at Any Age

“Everything is poetic that confesses.” – Jorge Luis Borges

“Delia, oh Delia / I can’t believe / you wanted all them
 rounders / never had time for me. / All the friends
                              I ever had / are gone.” – Dylan, “Delia,” World Gone Wrong                            

“Let us go then, you and I…” – T.S. Eliot

An old Zen saying rightly opines, “Do not seek comfort from others. Light the lantern within yourself.”

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Editor Picks, General Fiction, Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 549: “Be Nicer, Goddammit!”

The world has always been a snippy place (for instance, the title of this wrap was sneered at me by my boss in 1981. You can’t say stuff like that to employees anymore, but I am certain that the feeling is still felt). In big cities, especially, people go out in public with war faces on. Regardless, you used to be able to count on a reasonable degree of faked manners from clerks when you were shopping (I was often one of those clerks). Not anymore. Nowadays, it appears that the Corporate Stores hire only soulless people for customer service.

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All Stories, General Fiction

And the Winner by Knockout Is . . .by Héctor Hernández

The month before my thirteenth birthday, my parents’ marriage stumbled. Its arms pinwheeled for balance, and it might have recovered if not for the present I got. It was that seemingly insignificant little thing that pushed their marriage from behind, sending it over the edge of no return to land chest first onto the steel rebar of divorce below.

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All Stories, Fantasy

The End of All Things   by Matias Travieso-Diaz

Thor shall put to death the Midgard Serpent, and shall stride away
nine paces from that spot; then shall he fall dead to the earth, because of the venom which the Snake has blown at him.
Völuspá, Stanza 55

The Æsir gods sat around the great table in Valhalla’s dining hall, waiting. Some took desultory sips of the mead in their drinking horns, yet there was no wisdom to be gained from the magical mead, for all that remained to be learned was the outcome of Odin’s ride to consult with the embalmed head of Mimir about the meaning of recent portents. Had Ragnarøkkr, the day of the world’s final battle, arrived? Would evil god Loki and his children overcome the Æsir? What could the gods do to prevail against Loki and his cohorts?

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All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever: The Poisonous Fog of War by Michael Bloor

It’s been said that Britain is a country overburdened by history. I’m not very sure what ‘overburdened’ means in that context. But my guess is that, for my generation born seventy-odd years ago, it refers to the enduring damage wreaked by The First World War.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Ecclesiastes by Zark Fekete

Every morning, the Archivist arrived just before the sun burned off the smog. He rode the elevator to the fourth floor of the Memory Tower…the east wing…Department of Significance. The lift doors opened and he unlocked his office with a key labeled VANITY in scuffed gold.

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