“You’re too young to be gallivanting around looking for a job.”
“I’m nearly fourteen,” James puffed his chest out. “And jolly reliable.”
“Who says?”
“My sister.” He switched to a well-spoken accent, “One should always consider James for tasks of this nature. He is excellent and jolly reliable.”
Continue reading “The Milkboy and The Vampire by Michael Shawyer”
Drummossie, Aberdeenshire – January, 1976.
Because I couldn’t afford the necessary welding repairs to my Morris van til the end of the month, I was getting a daily lift into Aberdeen, with my friend and neighbour, Stewart. Aberdeenshire is the cold shoulder of Scotland and it was a hard winter. Normally, if you’re getting a lift into work, it would be churlish to object to push-starting your friend’s car. But, in a week of snow and ice, push-starting a VW beetle first thing in the morning involves a major (nay, crippling) effort. So, come Friday, I was pleading with Stewart: we would have to replace his starter motor that weekend. Stewart readily agreed, little knowing the pain and humiliation that would ensue.
Continue reading “The VW Starter Motor Catastrophe by Michael Bloor”
(A Novel Excerpt)
Author’s Note
Gertie McDowell, a naïve young girl with a talent for misadventure, has joined a women’s wrestling troupe called Christian Ladies of Wrestling. The troupe was put together by Wanda Sue, a bank robber with a streak of religion whom Gertie met while serving prison time because she “trusted the wrong sort of fella.” The mission of the troupe is to bring folks closer to Jesus by having women posing as Christians wallop the daylights out of women posing as transgressors. Gertie’s wrestling persona is Haystacks Holly, a lustful temptress who leads married men astray. Her tag team partner, an Apache girl named Cocheta, is billed as Blasphemous Berta, an outspoken atheist who deifies witchcraft. Both girls incense Christian audiences by flaunting their unsavory lifestyles.
Continue reading “Samoa Moa by James Hanna”
From sunrise to sunset, Jill was a good-time girl.
She was hot stuff, longing to live large in high cotton, and Jack—was Jack—a jack of all trades, a master of none, living on the edge looking for face-to-face horizontal celebrations.
Continue reading “Jill’s Idiom Odyssey by Frederick K Foote”
“This is it, Mitch, the crunch match we’ve all been waiting for.”
“That’s right, Bud, a fight we never thought would happen, or even should. But here we are. Weird.”
Continue reading “The Big Infight by Tim Frank”
My wife went ahead to her parents’ house for Thanksgiving, so I had to catch up to her after work. It’s a four-hour drive, and after two hours driving up highway 35, I needed to get off the road for a burger and beer. As soon as I got out of the car, I was surrounded by this white light, which I initially thought was just a floodlight from the shopping center. Before I got to the door of the microbrewery, I felt myself dissolving into a thousand little bits, and in five seconds, I went from the parking lot of a pour house to some kind of oval room with bright, white metal walls. Then, an alien walked in through what could have been the orifice of a metallic uterus. When I say an alien, this guy could have been taken from the fake autopsy video Fox tried to sell us all in the 90s. As cliché as it may be, he was a grey stick figure with oval, black eyes. The first words out of my mouth were “Dude, you’re an alien!”
Continue reading “A Probing Interview by John Willems”
After a year of high adventure, its time for one young woman to return home.
-1-
A few hours before the Fabulous Felinespy got in, Alice and Jim were abed with their cats, Amy and Battling Maxo. Alice was reading a scantily edited “speculative non-fiction ” book written by a congenial local nutburger named Renfield Stoker-Belle. Although the self professed “authoress” couldn’t hold a narrative if she were Velcroed to it, Alice found Spirits of the Wow-Signal Emoji well worth every penny of the twenty-seven she had bid on it.
Prefatory Remarks by Ms. Allison’s Employer
After almost three years in the making, Leila Allison Studios has informed me that something called Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost: A Feeble Fable has opened its pitiless eyes and is currently slouching off to anywhere but Bethlehem to get itself born. Although this… whatever it is… exists in print only, Ms. Allison insists on bringing her productions forward as though they were motion pictures, complete with a cast, crew and an expense voucher that I am hesitant to look at.
According to an urban legend whose popularity exponentially expands with that of the increasing population of congenital idiots, it takes three years for swallowed chewing gum to pass. Ms. Allison feels that the audience should view Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost: A Feeble Fable with the soul of that urban legend in mind. For reasons unchallenged by critical thinking, Ms. Allison is certain that any audience able to identify with a wad of Juicy Fruit, grimly determined to survive a perilous journey through untold miles of intestines only to wind up someplace a little less than heaven, is probably the sort of audience who will embrace Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost: A Feeble Fable for whatever the hell it might be.
Her (here I make like Pilate and wash my hands of the affair) little whatever it might be “stars” four members of the Union of Pen-names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters, to which Writer-Producer-Director Ms. Allison reluctantly belongs. The players include Renfield Stoker-Belle typecast as Renfield Stoker-Belle; a “literary turkey” named Krook briefly essays the role of the TomTom Ghost until he’s suddenly (and inexplicably) replaced by Miss Izzy (Queen of Shoeboxes), who chews the scenery (as well as a bit of Mr. Krook) as the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost. There’s also an old car named Lucille involved. She has no lines but I’m told that she drives the action. Ms. Allison so wanted a celebrity fictional car for the role, but union rules forced her to settle for one of her own construction. My guess is that Titty-Titty Gang Bang and Herpes the Love Bug were both unavailable.
Anyway, I figure that I should step in and issue this fair warning: Something in Leila Allison Studios has opened its pitiless eyes and has slouched off, possibly, in your direction.
Your Obedient Servant,
Ms. Allison’s Employer
Rain was spattering off the windows like a lunatic’s depiction of the Niagara Falls. Occasionally, the odd drop would be eerily illuminated by a passing headlight. These privileged drops would fade into dull oblivion within seconds, joining the herd of drops that continued to assault the windows like an angry geography teacher with an AK-47.
literally stories 