“Men are gold, and women are white cloth. Gold, once sullied, can be cleaned and polished, while white cloth, once soiled and torn, can never be clean again.”
Khmer proverb
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Tag: free reading
Hell Cat Laid Low by Marco Etheridge
Maggie slogged through the murky gloom of Water Street, her boots squelching in the muck. Gas streetlamps threw wavering silver cones into the darkness. The feeble light only accentuated the inky Manhattan night. Piles of manure and offal cast eerie shadows across the black mire.
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The Cormorant and the Misophonyx: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Leila Allison
Prelude
There are three music Spirits. First you have the Tintintinabulator. Tins were classically trained pianists in life who haunt specific keyboards (pianos, organs, harpsichords, etc.) in death. Tins are generally friendly, but being artists they are hypersensitive to criticism and require reassurance full time. Next we have the Chimespeak. Best described as self-taught travelling minstrels/buskers in life, Chimes are nomadic Spirits who wander from here to there and affect anything from the grandest church bells on down to kazoos fashioned from handkerchiefs and combs. Tastes aside, these two Spirits classes are equally talented even though the Tins tend to look down on the “prolish” Chimes, who in turn wonder how a Tin can look down on anything with “its” head so firmly tucked up its own buttocks.
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6th Anniversary of Literally Stories – Today is the day. A post will follow on Saturday 28th celebrating all our milestones.
Orange Girls by Tim Frank
The orange girls hit the tanning salon then went to Lacey’s flat and smeared fake tan lotion on top just to be sure. They crammed into her bathroom, their bodies wrapped around each other like snakes in a cardboard box and then wrestled to gain a glimpse of themselves in the mirror. They slapped on foundation, blusher, eye shadow, eyeliner and fake eyelashes making sure not to swamp the almost bruised orangeness pasted across their thighs, cleavages and a multitude of other unmentionable crevices. They filled their bottles with vodka and orange, taking gulps like thirsty construction workers as they rode the train into town. Lacey lit a fag in the carriage on the way and then the rest followed suit. Soon the windows went foggy. Other passengers fake-coughed in protest and the orange girls turned brown in the dim light.
Continue reading “6th Anniversary of Literally Stories – Today is the day. A post will follow on Saturday 28th celebrating all our milestones.”
Kenny Women by Fiona McGarvey
Amber Kenny was a timid child. She had a round face and hair to match her name. Every night she prayed for her wild, orange curls to turn dark and straight but every morning they bounced back into place, redder than ever.
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Literally Reruns – Direct Democracy by Tobias Haglund
As luck would have it this piece has been brought to the surface in the nick of time. Leila’s comments are very pertinent now as we await the outcome of events over the next few weeks. This is what she said:
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Week 298 – Perfect Poaching, A Gorgeous Glare And A Respectful End.
Three thousand days in and America is still counting.
Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it feels that way.
You wouldn’t see that happening in Britain. Our powers that be are a lot more organised than that. Well maybe not so much organised, but for every day not being in power is expenses that they are missing out on and children that they aren’t molesting.
Continue reading “Week 298 – Perfect Poaching, A Gorgeous Glare And A Respectful End.”
GELDR by ShivaRJoyce
The grey metal lockers of the changing rooms slam with a familiar rhythm. Some staff carry the end of work day weariness in their shoulders, others give a cheery ‘See you tomorrow.’
Never to me.
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Residual Grief of The Dead Soldiers Mother by S.A. Cavanagh
When we received this work we were undecided what to do with it. We knew that we wanted to publish such a powerful and emotional piece of writing but, in fairness, it isn’t what we would normally class as a story. I will be honest and say that it moved me to tears.
Anyway, fate took a hand. We were scheduling this week at the time and when better to publish this than Remembrance Day.
Black Bird of Prey, the Death Ship by Tom Sheehan
The battle had been harsh, crude, and longer than expected, but at the inevitable end the ship Gerben Huraq had sailed on for three years, initially at the point of a maniacal sword in the hand of a maniacal privateer, was sinking fast. Huraq, still on the good side of thirty years of age and seemingly primed for long distance of days, had once crawled up a rescue rope to that ship from another sinking ship. Now, twice saved and twice accepted aboard a rescuing vessel, he was in the water again, in the Black Sea, the sea of seas, death scene of floaters, those abandoned, thrown overboard or fallen from their stations at battle, each one in a downward slide into their own histories. He had no idea how long he would last on this wide sea, until one precise moment when he espied the growing dot of a mast at full sails advancing from a distant point, ever moving closer, hope most possibly a passenger, and a final surge of excitement propelling his nearly inert body toward an expectant welcome.
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