My father once told me that to be a man you must protect your family. The Reverend told me that you can only be called a man once you have taken another man’s life. They are both wrong. There are no such thing as men, only animals, living in the wild and fighting and killing each other until there is no one left to fight and kill. Here in the jungle we are wild things, fighting a war that started long before any of us were born and will continue long after we are gone.
The Penultimate Truth is a novel by one of my favourite authors, Philip Kindred Dick (b. 1928 — d.1982).
Pee-Kay-Dee — as fellow D***heads call him — story, is set in a Post WW111 earth ravaged by nuclear weapons and based upon one of his countless short stories, namely, The Defenders (1953).
The novel was published in 1964 in what many regard as Dick’s Golden Era, which included The Man in the High Castle (1962) that won the Hugo Award for best novel in 1963.
Whilst The Penultimate Truth won’t feature too highly in devotees top ten lists, as it lacks the many-layered aspects of his best work, it is still a good book.
The World Jones Made (1956), Time Out of Joint (1959), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Ubik (both 1969), Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (1974) and A Scanner Darkly (1977) illustrate that throughout his life PKD continued to grow as a writer of original, philosophical fiction, albeit his latter years being increasingly devoted to an exploration of theological matters — most famously with Valis (1981).
Week 54 will herald the last round-up of stories published on LS in 2015.
We return 4 January 2016.
In honour of Phil I have dubbed Week 53 ‘The Penultimate Week.’
Continue reading “Literally Stories – Week 53 – ‘The Penultimate Week’”
He hadn’t meant to do it. As his muscles strained against their tendons, sweat pouring from his brow, reality blurred like the trees standing behind rain-covered windows. Adrenaline coursed though his veins, filled his mouth with a metallic taste- He wondered if she’d tasted it too, in those few brief moments of chaos.
He hadn’t meant to do it. Really. But, in the moment, it was the only choice he had.
~
Jason Mattis was old. Not in the physical sense — though a few gray hairs had begun to work their way into his shadow of a beard — but in what he’d experienced over his 26 years of life. Growing up, Jason had watched his mother deteriorate in a mess of tubes and needles and medication, the whirring machines sucking the life from her as fuel for their colorful blinking lights. Sunken eyes, sagging skin, and the shadowy shapes of bones resting just beneath the surface. Smaller and smaller upon that white bed, until one day, she simply wasn’t there anymore.
In a large detached house surrounded by high privet hedges at the foot of a low hill range there is a room filled with books. Some of them date from the 19th century. There are books about geology and Greek mythology, there are books about the flora and fauna of far off lands. There are books about subjects that no longer exist. Phrenology, mediumship, gruesome racial theories. There are books whose pages have crumbled to dust. There are books that have not been looked at since the day they were pushed into place on the high shelves that surround the walls.
…It was the beginning of a new term. There was a volatile mix of the noisy, frantic new starts, in amongst the typical surly teenagers. A man stood staring at his new charges. If you didn’t know otherwise you‘d never have taken him for a teacher, he looked like a yeti. He eyed them up and down and tried to spot the ‘Wee fudds.’ He had tolerance and intolerance in compassion with sarcasm. There was also a mix of shyness with confidence but this would never be shown to the kids. His intelligence was well-known amongst his work-mates and friends. He kept it hidden though, his brains were covert. He was a person of opposites. He was by no means atypical, more unique.
Continue reading “United Forever by Hugh Cron – Adult Content”
I’ll have to tell the story because I’m the one most at fault here. I should have known better, I’m the new generation type. Even on the way home from the cemetery, going back to the house with my mother, my two younger brothers and my sister, it was me who should have known better. Lots of things should have tipped me off; instead of being bigger, having more room with a body gone from it, the house appeared smaller, at least to me. It felt smaller, smelled smaller, corners were tighter, the air cooler. I swore, after spending my first twenty-two years in it, it didn’t have its hand out for me, “Not a touch in the tally,” as my father used to say about things found useless, unproductive, too much emptiness to expend much-courted energy on.
Continue reading “Evan Stalworth’s Wealth of Words by Tom Sheehan”
The snowman smiled. He was driving a ’72 Lincoln with the windows down and the A/C on full. He smoked Kools and drank frosty cold cans of beer. The Stones played on the eight track. It was December 24th.
The Voice was speaking to him. It had been all afternoon. It was the same Voice he’d been hearing since he’d opened his bottle cap eyes and walked off of the abandoned lot of his birth. The Voice had told him to steal the car. It was nameless. The one that whispered. Sometimes it even spoke backward, as though in tongues. Now it was saying, “Smoke, drink and drive fast, for snowmen melt sooner rather than later. We have seen the future, and you are not a part of it.”
Before we begin I am sure that all of us here at Literally Stories wish to convey our deepest sympathies to the people of Paris. The unfolding story was more of a horror than anyone could ever write.
Our thoughts are with you all.
I sent for a copy of the anthology and was very happy to receive it this week. There is nothing better than the look, feel and smell of a new book, especially one that you have been involved with. I hope that all our writers, their families and friends ask the old boy with the white beard to bring them one in a few weeks time. (I refuse to mention that time of year without Prozac.) It is a privilege to champion the short story not only on a daily basis but now with something more concrete.
Our stories this week were another mixed bag. We had sadness from both our new writers, Sarah Walker and Ronald Friedman. Tom Sheehan put together a tale with a twist. Nik gave us a bit of future-thinking satire and I questioned acceptance.
We have had quite a few submissions from new writers this week and we are in the process of reading and deciding. So if you are reading this and thinking ‘Mmm, I wonder?’ Stop wondering and send! It is a pure delight for us to find someone who has that new writer enthusiasm!
Last two comments are reiterations… Happy Anniversary to the site in the past week. And of course a huge thanks to all of you for the past year!!
I look at my scars and I know why I am the way that I am. You stood by me more than you ever should and I will always love you for giving me that chance. I blew it. Lifting my hands was the biggest mistake of my life and I am eternally sorry. I am glad that you left and are out of harm’s way. You are out of my way. The medication I am on I am not proud of. The therapy sessions that I have been ordered to take don’t help. I know why I am the way I am. I know that I can’t handle the things that I saw. I have night terrors. I don’t understand why I can’t look at the wounds as I would an operation scar and only be thankful that I am still here. The mark on my neck especially scares me. I am paranoid. Hateful. I am terrified. I wish I could resent as that would be a more understandable thought but I can’t. I don’t know how to focus anymore. I only feel anger and terror and hate. I can’t control any emotion and more importantly, I can’t focus my hate on who deserves it. I am dangerous and I am only too aware what I am capable of. I look at the world as a rabid dog. Head down, eyes up and then I snap.
He’d burned the titles of his hit songs into the planks that formed the stall where he kept his favorite horse, a high-stepping Paso Fino of no particular value beyond the curiosity of its unusual four-gaited step. A short length of pine tacked on the half-door of the stall bore the horse’s name in brass letters, Dominus.
Colin looked about. The stalls and tack seemed unfamiliar. He took a deep breath and smelled sweet feed and hay mixed with the sharper scents of leather and manure.
“What the hell?”
A horse whinnied somewhere across the corral and Dominus stirred.
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