Tag: free reading

Fantasy, Humour, Short Fiction

Wuthering GOAT by Leila Allison

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Meanwhile, “inside” a song playing in the fantasy multiverse….

A middle aged man dressed in late 18th century finery stood pensively at a window. It was late in the evening and he was gazing across the wily, windy moors at an ethereal, yet extremely familiar young woman in a fleecy white dress. She was singing (incredibly, accompanied by an invisible orchestra) and steadily progressing toward the window in an artistic dance. He heard his name in her song, “Heathcliff.” (The lyrics also contained some character observations that Heathcliff could have done without.)

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All Stories, Fantasy, Horror

The Ending of Us, Toxic Love During the Apocalypse by Karley Cisler

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The sirens didn’t bother me because I was busy thinking about ending things. On the morning of my 573rd cycle, we rolled out of our threadbare bed with a rumbling belly. Breakfast went down stale and seedy. Military rations were all we’d managed to trade for lately; a half-eaten block of Nutrient-Toast mocked us on the counter.

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auld author, Short Fiction

Auld Author – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith – By Leila

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“They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.”

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

There was a good film of the same name based on Betty Smith’s autobiographical novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which came out shortly after the book was published in 1943. But as it went during the days of the Hays Code of “decency,” much of the book could not be filmed due to content that the movie people figured viewers would be offended by. This involved a wildly over-sexed female character, pedophiles, alcoholism, antisemitism, children pulled from school to work after sixth grade, suicide, racism and persevering only for the sake of survival, for no greater aim than to prolong the misery. Some of those topics (especially the gentle father’s self destruction via the bottle) were addressed passingly while others were let alone.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Swirls by Laura Shell

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She moves her arms, her hands, her fingers as if she’s floating in water. From an index finger, a swirl begins. It’s the air. Concentrated. Rotating clockwise. An inch in diameter. It bends all the light and all the colors in the room, yet remains clear.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Historical, Short Fiction

Hartshead Moor Services – Westbound by Matthew Roy Davey

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The service station was different. While it was busy, it was quiet: a gentle hum of conversation and the odd rattle of cutlery and crockery. Everything was calm. There was no panic, no urgency, no pain.

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All Stories, Horror

The Little Red Who Survived by Aleks McHugh

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Now first off, thank you for caring to listen. Or I presume so.I waited a long time to speak about the conspiracy that tried to bend me to its will and deny me mine, starting with my right to self-pleasure at the age of 12, to be master of my own body.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Searching for Unicorns by Michael Bloor

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Willie Ferguson lay staring at the wee cracks in his bedroom ceiling.  Like a lot of people, he hadn’t realised, til he stopped working, that he was missing something. It sure as hell wasn’t the job that he missed: he’d collected his pension with a sigh of relief. It wasn’t family either: his sister, Margaret, living behind a privet hedge down in England, was emphatically a distant relative, and should ever remain so. But Willie knew he really was missing something.

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Short Fiction

Ian by Hugh Cron

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Ian was a stereotype.

I didn’t really know him but I knew his wife.

The reason I say ‘stereotype’ is that he was a raging alcoholic but unbelievably functional. The usual story here, he worked in the entertainment industry as a lighting man for a theatre and that was a life that had alcohol not just at the end of the day, also throughout. As long as he could shine a spotlight and in these more technical days, programme a system, no one gave a shit.

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All Stories, Horror

Watchtower by Rebecca Klassen

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No one can understand why Elena stays, and neither can I. If it had been me, I’d have left; there are plenty of other Cornish seaside towns to live in. Actually, if I really had climbed those steps and seduced a sixteen-year-old like Elena did, I’d have jumped from the watchtower onto the rocks below. They were discovered in the act by the caretaker, Jim.

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