“Please! Please!!”
“I’ll get the pliers.”
“You really are the type of individual who goes home of a night and masturbates over the bodies in your basement, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“… Please, don’t hurt me!”
“Shut your hole!!”
Continue reading “All About the Truth by Hugh Cron – Adult Content”
She boarded the bus in a good-bye city, roots shallow as a water lily, a few coins to rub together, sites set back on simpler times.
Past the maze of town, the buildings stretched out and faded away, giving in to twilight, a few weary stars freckling the top of her dirty window. People settled into the dimness, part of a kindred clan, hurtling towards whatever dreams waited to disembark.
“Where are you looking?”
“Sweet Pines Middle School. Riverside Country Day. Ethical Morality on the Upper West Side.”
“All top notch — if you don’t mind me asking… how can you afford that?”
“Oh, Tom just got promoted and we’ve saved a little from his inheritance.”
*The names in this blog have been altered to protect the innocent — not the guilty.
Email One — 23 December 2015.
Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…
In actual fact Twas the night before the night before Christmas, when an email landed in the Literally Stories inbox. Attached to the email a short story for our perusal.
Standard acknowledgement email is dispatched by yours truly.
All well and good.
Christmas came and Christmas went. New Year beckoned. New Year came and was soon spent and the story we received 23rd December continued to languish in our gmail account.
Forgotten. Unloved. Unread.
9 January 2016 — Email Two.
A standard rejection email is sent out to a much-loved LS published author, *Gertrude Ponsonby.
11 January 2016 — Email One
Email One is unearthed by the same buffoon who forgot to bring it to the attention of fellow Editors. Sincerest apologies email is duly dispatched to potential LS author patiently awaiting a reply:
Sorry *Engelbert — we somehow failed to flag up your story for reading… we will read it and get back to you very shortly.
12 January 2016 — Email One
Email is sent to the author of unloved, abandoned, forgotten story to tell them it is no longer unloved and will soon have a home at Literally Stories.
14 January 2016 — Email Two
A standard rejection email is sent out to the much-loved LS published author, *Gertrude Ponsonby; the same author who received the same email for the same story five days previously.
Oops!
Later that day
Much loved LS published author replies with typically pithy good humour:
Continue reading “Literally Stories – Week 56 – A Tale of Two Emails”
Today it all came back. Once again, on another brilliant dawning, the Western Yetness still calling me, I woke with a toothache. A stupendous one! In half an hour, despite quick brushing, the stimulator poked here and there, gargling, all proving useless, the ache remained in force. It was, without a doubt, the chocolate again, or the mere thought of chocolate. I knew I was weak to most any candy, and to chocolate in particular, right from the beginning.
I, the most hated and reviled, the duly convicted mass murdering, monster calls and he, the newly anointed great red, white, and blue America white hope, comes to me like I knew he would. He enters with a mouthful of self-serving, homogenized bullshit.
“You’re just one insignificant member of a tiny, marginalized extremist group. You stockpiled weapons and hid in the shadows of normalcy and plotted your cowardly attacks. Death is a reward for your kind. Life without parole is a more fitting punishment, and it robs you of your martyr status.”
They call it the valley creep. A mire of mist slithers down the river bottom then seeps its way through the narrow terraced streets, climbing as far up the hillsides as it can travel before gravity calls time. Those who live at the top keep their distance. Their view of the valley is always from on high. Any problems up there are easily resolved. Those at the bottom bought in when they were in search of something that the cities could no longer offer. Some came to find themselves in this old mill town, industry given way to dreams of creativity and reinvention. Some fall between the gaps, others slide into the canal after a drunken night out. In the little bunting bound park the bewildered born and bred meet those who’ve blown in to tighten their arms and pierce their veins. Once a film-maker raised in the valley came back with his camera to meet them. He called out all the suicides, the blame getting put on the steep valley sides that hide the sun for months of the year. When it snows the roads in and out become impassable. The sun shines too though, and when it does the place comes alive with trippers from the nearby towns. People sit on the low old bridge and eat ice cream. Today it’s neither sunny nor cold, just a grey valley day.
Mrs. Pascal’s first rule, no sweets in the parlor.
My fingers dig into the folds of my gloomy clothes, clawing at the satin that piles under my fingertips. It does not do to indulge yourself in front of the grieving, Genevieve. Her voice scratches against the walls of my head. Not when there is work to be done.
Perhaps not, Mrs. Pascal, but to deny one their sweets in time of such pain does not do as well.
Continue reading “Mr. Pascal’s Funeral Parlor by Nikki Macahon”
Ian threw Michael a can of Dragon Soup.
“Are ye still getting kit from Jinky?”
“He’s the only one I go to, well unless any emergencies come up… How?”
Michael swallowed a few mouthfuls and rifted.
Tomorrow we end our year at Literally Stories with reflections: an address from each of the LS Editors in a fashion far removed from anything Papal or Monarchical.
Today we take our usual look back on the week’s stories.
literally stories 