Tag: general fiction

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Literally Stories – Week 65 – Getting Nowhere

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The grass needs cut and I’ve returned to work after a week off. I hate gardening and I especially hate working. So I apologise for the depression that is oozing from my pen. I have watched Bambi’s mother being shot fourteen times in a row to try to cheer me up. It just made me hungry. But that soon stopped when I remembered I was heading to work. It takes the notion of food away from me. It also takes away any thoughts on being sociable, helpful, understanding and committed. I don’t think I like working with the public.

Anyway, I thought about what to write. It came to a choice between this posting and a suicide note!

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All Stories, General Fiction

Rescue by Lou Gaglia

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On the bus ride home from my summer job, I couldn’t get the bank teller’s face out of my mind. The line had been long, but I’d stood there waiting on it anyway because I was out of spending money. Having nothing to read, I watched the tellers absently, but the dark-haired, dark-eyed woman at the first window seemed familiar, so after a minute I looked only at her. She seemed unsure of herself as she nervously counted money, and she only glanced at a customer for more than a second at a time. Even when it was my turn, I watched her from the next window, pretending not to. She peeked at me once, maybe sensing that I was staring, but didn’t look over again. There was a defeated slope to her shoulders, and sometimes she blinked rapidly for a moment, as though she were suddenly preoccupied.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Killing Frost by Sharon Frame Gay

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James Frost leaned back in the recliner, adjusting his body into the soft confines of the old chair. It was leather, shiny with age, comfortable as a slipper. It was the only piece of furniture he had brought with him from home when he moved into Garden Court last year. Hell, at ninety-two it was time that he treat himself to a little comfort. He was tired of cooking, tired of housework, tired of watching his late wife’s garden wilt and deteriorate into patches of dirt, only memories remaining of the gladioli, daisies, and Lily of The Valley that Millie loved.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Letter to the Lost by Tom Sheehan

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Dear Big John and Little John and Billy and Hughie and Londo and Eddie Mac and Breda and Kujawski and the comrade I carried to his death whose name I never knew and all the others I pray for every night yet, the men of the 31st Infantry Regiment;

Every reading I’ve done for more than sixty-five years simply begins this way: John Maciag was all bone, knees, elbows and jaw, hated his rifle, proficient at killing, wanted home so badly it burned his soul. We leaned up that mountain near Yangu, frightened. War’s hurricane tore our ranks, trees of us lifted by roots. I came running down three days later. Like cordwood the bodies were piled between two stakes, all Korean but that jaw of John Maciag I saw, a log of birch among the pine. The sergeant yelled to move on. I said no, maybe never. I am going to sit and think about John Maciag’s forever, whose fuel he is, what the flames of him will light. Perhaps he will burn the glory of man or God.

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All Stories, General Fiction

One Dick, Two Sheryls by Bruce Costello

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“This is Dick trying out his new tablet.” Dick keyed in the words and touched TTS. Key in your words, the salesman had explained, touch TTS, and the tablet will speak back what you’ve written.

“This is Dick trying out his new tablet,” a female voice repeated.

Dick’s eyes lit up. He keyed in another sentence and hit TTS again.

“My name is Sheryl and I love you,” the woman said.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

Eddie by Hugh Cron – Adult Content

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“Isn’t this place just perfect?”

Jan was talking to herself as she wandered around her new home. He hadn’t moved from the lounge.

No! It isn’t. It’s fucking yours! Your house! Your money bought the fucking house! Yours!! Everything is yours!! It will always be yours! God!! I FUCKING HATE THIS!!!

His thought induced tantrum died down. He took a breath and thought of puppies. Eddie liked puppies.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

The Swamp Tour by Adam Kluger

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“… There’s a little green frog swimming in the water a little green frog doing what he ought-a … Alright all you gladers… there are 15 species of frogs and snakes in this here swamp and the most deadly of all is Captain Dwayne’s trouser-snake responsible for breaking hearts and busting up trailer parks on both sides of the Okeefenokee. This here’s injun land compadres. You’re on an Indian Reservation and the spirit of the hawk and the water dragon oversees these waterways. Now you calls em gators but we calls em draaaaagons… and if you let old captain Dwayne rev up this here rusty metal wildebeest to 150 miles per hour we’ll just see if we can rustle up some draaaagons for ya … ”  [vrooooom!]

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All Stories, General Fiction

She Has Brown Hair, Brown Eyes, and Freckles by Dylan Macdonald

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typewriter

Kendall comes home from work at five, takes off her winter coat, takes off her shoes, smiles at me, washes her hands, eats a banana and half a chocolate bar, pours herself a glass of water, sits down next to me on the couch, and puts her glass of water on a coaster. She kisses me.

“You know I drink eight gallons of water every day,”  she says with such certainty.

Sometimes she can believe even the most impossible things.

“You definitely don’t.” Surely, that would be impossible.

“Yes I do! Don’t say that.”

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

Passed On by Hugh Cron – Adult Content

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“Paula! Come in! Sit down beside your old Granny Lizzie… I want to tell you some things.”

“Another one of your stories gran? Are you not too tired?”

“Tired? Not now. I’ll be dead soon, so even if I wanted to sleep, I’ve not got the time. You need to hear this.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Other Woman by David Jordan

literallystories2014

typewriter

Jason and I watch the morning news as we get dressed to go for a walk in the snow. There is a warning of a coming storm. The weatherman says a foot of snow could fall tonight.

“Did you buy gas for the–” I begin to say, but the last word won’t come to mind. I try inserting different words in my head to see if they fit: gas stove, Toyota, lawnmower-no, not the lawnmower during winter. My body shakes with frustration, and my head begins to ache when Jason suggests:

“The snowblower?”

“Yeah,” I say, “the snowblower.”

“It’s ready when we need it,” he says.

“Okay,” I say, and I relax again as we finish getting dressed.

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