Insanity
I have lived in the same apartment since October 1998. That was not by design, but it has worked out that way. Until I settled here, I had not lived in one space longer than four consecutive years, including childhood. Something always happened; nothing has yet to happen here. The building was sold last year, but it was just a case of meeting a new boss, the same as the old boss.
Continue reading “Week 541: They Are Dripping Me Insane”
As the hot afternoon ticked by, Lizzie thought they wouldn’t show. Then, far off, a vehicle coming down that dusty road. A car, not a truck.
It got closer and the passenger door was opening even before it stopped. Then Charlene was out and running to Lizzie, and Lizzie, she was jumping straight into her big cousin’s smile. Both of Charlene’s hands were on either side of Lizzie’s face.
‘Oh, I’ve missed you!’ said Charlene. ‘You been all right, baby? Have you?’
Continue reading “Lizzie by Richard Hulse”
I moved the boiling eggs to the cold burner. Hopefully Edward wasn’t lactose intolerant. I was making my famous potato salad. The newscaster sounded solemn—something about a landslide—Indonesia or somewhere. Then almost musically, “Onto the local murders.”
Continue reading “Potato Salad and Mixed Drinks by Christopher Ananias”
Acacia knew her calling from the age of ten. Noticing all her clothes were labeled ‘MEDIUM’ and, being a highly impressionable girl, she naturally assumed the universe, or possibly a parallel one, was offering a clear hint as to her correct career path.
Continue reading “Is There Anybody There? By Michael Smith”
I was looking out the front window, watching the snow fall, waiting for the mailman to come with my disability check. Jesus, the snow is sticking now, and my tires are bald. I needed to deposit that check today. I was out of food, running low on whiskey, and I still owed Mrs. Schmidt half the rent for this little shithole of a duplex. Fuck my life. Then, I got the call.
Continue reading “Alterations by JD Clapp”
“Follow me,” a broad-shouldered woman wearing a name tag that said Deborah told Jade.
Jade followed her through a glass door, past a man working a register, and down a hall lined with half-open boxes.
Continue reading “Hannibal, Missouri by: Amber Bell”
“ERNEST. From the soul?
GILBERT. Yes, from the soul. That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one’s own soul.”
Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist”
“Under the preservation of a specific form, my soul is safe.”
Raymond Llull
Edgar Allan Poe was the kind of individual who could fall in love with a woman after seeing her for a mere few moments, or less, on the street. Dante had this feeling when he first saw Beatrice, and her later early demise compelled him to take twelve years out to compose the greatest single literary work of the Western World, a poem that still helps to define what the afterlife is (in our imaginations) eight centuries after he finished it. (And he died almost immediately after finishing it.)
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever: Eleonora and Poe by Dale Williams Barrigar”
Hi guys, another weird week and I know that they’ll get weirder. Sodding interview on the 22nd as I was an idiot (No really) as I walked out my job due to me being allergic to working with a fuckwit of a manager. It threatened me three times with disciplinary as I questioned its total unfeasible dangerous requests and time management! No fucker has ever said no to this fuckwit. I knew if I didn’t need to speak to it, I would have been fine – But long story short – Questioned it, refused to do something fucking stupid, was threatened and then walked out!!
Continue reading “Week 540 – Can’t We Swap The Dead For The Living? The Man Can Do Something Special With A Bit Of Film And A Riot At Somerset Park!”
Fluttering canvas frames a view that has tugged at Ralph Nilsen’s dreams. The mountain is dark against the star-smeared sky, curved like a sickle, beckoning. Ralph permits himself a few moments to glance upwards, to watch the spindrift pluming across the Milky Way. Moments are all Ralph has. He will not be back, not for another season, not when he is within three hundred vertical metres…
Continue reading “The Silver-Lined Ridge by Matthew J. Richardson”
a short story by T.C. Barrera
from the yet-to-find-a-home short story collection, “Counting Birds”
“You know how it is, Eli. Mickey says you gotta get to this one today. You’ve just gotta. This guy’s paying a big, and I mean, a BIG fuckin’ rush fee; that Mickey, of course, is charging for on top of the doubled fee that he was already going to charge. Mickey says, if he asks, it is due—”
Continue reading “Directions From Simi to Long Beach and All the Life In Between”
