Tom Mitchell had lived alone for longer than he could remember. His wife, Lily, had passed away a decade ago, and their children had long since moved away, caught in lives of their own. The house, once filled with laughter and warmth, now echoed with a quiet, unrelenting stillness. Even the walls seemed to breathe differently, like they were holding their breath, waiting for something – or someone.
Continue reading “Shadow by T H White”
The bones spoke to Angelina the way other women heard gossip over garden fences. Snake vertebrae whispered of rain coming from the east. Coyote teeth predicted claim jumpers and cattle thieves. But it was the human bones that spoke loudest, and those she kept hidden beneath her floorboards, wrapped in red silk stolen from a dead Chinese merchant’s shop. Each bundle reminded her of her own lost child, the daughter whose bones she’d never found to read.
Continue reading “The Bone Reader of Tucson by Dana Wall”
Envision a seamless sky lining a hillside speckled with white stones. The air surrounds them, almost scentless, incensed lightly by pungent moss. Gaze ahead as the lush hills overlap, take hold of one another, layered green and hazel veils each saying to the next: Spring. Translucent Spring. And I could see through it and taste it as anyone can at seventeen. Every day seemed to be like this one, then, endless and shady, but on this Tuesday morning curiosity did more than lead me. We ran. Run with me now.
Continue reading “Meant for the Dead by Susan Jennifer Polese”
Yesterday I walked another bit of the South-West Coast Path, from Praa Sands round to Marazion. I was with a friend, who is aiming to complete the entire circuit of the path, from Minehead to Poole Harbour. He does bits of it as and when he can, and invites people to accompany him if they live locally, or are keen walkers, or just feel like doing it with him. This was a short section, only about six miles – well, short for him; about the right distance for me to walk comfortably.
Continue reading “White Horse by Kate Mole.”
“I’ve signed you up for swimming lessons at the Y.M.C.A. Lessons start Monday. That’s tomorrow,” Mother said as I stood on pretty pink petals that lined the ground of our backyard jungle. A late spring snow had just left the rooftop of our home. The gutters were filled with brown, wet leaves. Father stood high atop a wooden ladder. Looking up, I saw his blue jeans and the dirty soles of his shoes. Mother stood under him, holding the bottom rungs. She wore a small bee-hive hairdo, a plaid shirt, and black slacks. Every so often a clump of leaves exploded in a burst behind me.
Continue reading “The Day the End of the World Was at Hand by J Bradley Minnick [1]”
(Editors’ note: Happy Easter to everyone. And we thank Daniel for forgiving us (me) for misplacing his accepted story, which we are pleased to run today–LA)
The funeral is held in a large generation-spanning cemetery, with manicured lawns and polished granite headstones for the average, marble for the more-than-so, and pieces of nondescript rock hastily and carelessly inscribed for those who thought someone important enough for a marker, but not enough to break the bank.
Continue reading ” Eulogy by Daniel R. Snyder”
My family used to have roots connecting us, like the trees. We could speak to each other without a word mouthed aloud, sentiments flowing through invisible strings attaching us all. The roots vibrated with each family triumph and wilted during shared sorrows, singing silent songs between us as we went through life together. My older sister, Joan, used to say the roots were blessings.
Continue reading “Root Rot by Cailee Combs”
Themes that some readers may find distressing – see tabs
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July 7, 1917, Arras, France
It was no great shock to hear of corpses rising from their graves.
Not in this toppled world, where men turned moles. Where the fresh aged fastest, stooped and wizened in their dark holes, dreading the sun. Where a man’s next breath might kill him before he smelled hay in it. Just that, no longer the searing pineapple and peppered bleach of chlorine. Phosgene suggested merely a whiff of musty hay before the man’s lungs drowned him. Drowned, with no water in sight.
Continue reading “The Spoils by Toni Juliette Leonetti”
Each morning my mother opens the door in her housecoat and slippers and draws the newspaper inside like a prisoner drawing his supper dish through the metal slot of his prison door. She lays the paper across my father’s plate so that it will be there when he comes down for breakfast, but she never slips the rubber band off the tightly rolled bundle.
Continue reading “Something from Montreal by Elizabeth Rosen”
Night falls black and starless. His eye is drawn to the cemetery. A chill runs through him. Young sees his breath in the porch light. He takes the air into account—the change. Things will have to be shut off soon and covered, other things will have to be turned on. He hears footsteps and the slamming of cabinet doors. Young thinks, are those snowflakes? I hope not. Trinity’s rusty black Chevy Cavalier has the trunk lid standing open.
Continue reading “Girl on a Trampoline by Christopher Ananias”
literally stories 