“Handy, this is a pretty good turnout, isn’t it?”
“Oslo, man, how many people do you think are here? Maybe 200 or so? And people keep coming. I mean, a lot of these folks just invited themselves, I think.”
Handy and I are sitting on a slope overlooking the picnic grounds at Southside Park on a cool September afternoon. The sounds of the blues and the aroma from the bar b que are calling me back to the celebration.
Continue reading “A Hell of a Story Part Three by Frederick K Foote”
To whoever has the misfortune to find and listen to this recording, this is not a hoax, joke, or the results of delirium, hallucination, or a fevered drug dream. My name is Oslo Jennings, and I’m a 64-year-old victim of a fatal heart attack while driving. My medical records at the San Juan Medical Center document I was dead for 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
Continue reading “A Hell of a Story Part 2 by Frederick K Foote”
“But why, Gran, why does everybody have to die?” He was only eight and it wasn’t like the idea was news to him. But it wasn’t something he thought much about until it got personal.
She only shrugged, advanced one of her checker pieces. “Pay attention.”
Continue reading “Gameday with Gran by Shawn Nocher”
“I want you to go out into the street today, Lionel, and stand there, for maybe an hour or so, then come back and tell me what you’ve seen. I want you to be real descriptive, make it all come alive. Don’t let me down because I’m really getting fed up sitting here, not even able to see a leaf on a tree. You’ve got your problems, but you still have your sight so please treasure it and share it with me.”
Continue reading “Counting Leaves by Tim Frank”
Chairs splintered. Egg yolk dripping off the ceiling. A gash here, a bruise there and he was tired. He was more than tired. The lumps and blame he had taken over the years finally put him over his line and as he sat nursing the latest wound, carefully devising another excuse to avoid punishment, a little place in his feline brain began expanding. Instead of the inevitable excuse, instead of the blood dripping down his paw, the brain space began to grow. It began to focus on his blood.
Continue reading “A Better Mousetrap by syndie allen”
The Scenario: Part I
He crushed two pills between his teeth and swallowed. That made four in an hour. A stomach that wanted to stay alive would have objected; but for once there was consensus. He believed that two more similar doses within the next thirty minutes should punch his ticket to the Undiscovered Country. Perhaps such an important event as flirting with self destruction should come accompanied by an unfilched metaphor, but when in doubt go with Shakespeare–Besides he’d used up all the sparklers in his suicide note. It was a fine suicide note. Well written, streaked with effortless pathos and humor. It was the best thing he had ever written. “All show, no tell,” he’d said after lighting it on fire and watching it curl to black in the kitchen sink. “Best punched ticket ever.”
Continue reading “Only a Jellyfish Would Live Forever by Leila Allison”
Scrawny old Bill Jackson worked twenty years as janitor at the mine. He swept the lunchroom, washed and waxed the office floors, operated the snowplough and weed whacked the grass. He liked to see things clean. After the mine closed, he spent most of his time driving up and down the highway and side-roads picking up cans and bottles. “Without me, the garbage would just pile-up” he told anyone who’d listen. He hauled discarded tires, old couches, rotten mattresses into the back of his pickup and drove them to the landfill.
Continue reading “The Line Man’s Last Drive by Harrison Kim “
Part One: A murderer I cared for
There was a young boy once who has read a lot – not for any romantic reason, other than his father being unavailable, and his mother being overly available. He spent most of his Saturdays in Chapter Zero (local second-hand bookstore and library) – not for any romantic reason, other than his father being unavailable. He would have spent most of his Sundays there too, but he stayed home instead – not for any romantic reason, other than his mother being overly available.
Continue reading “Crimson Coloured Raindrops by David Darvasi”
You tap left but the phone doesn’t register. Touchscreen gloves aren’t so touchy after all. Instead, the story slides onto the next one, the one on the right, which glowed orange and black like hot molten metal. There’s a silhouette of a kangaroo.
On our third date we did some petting. She said she didn’t mind my nose that drooped like burnt wax and was porous with puss. She coiled her hands into my chest hair which was whitening with the withering days. I couldn’t afford to pay her much, hence she only gave half-assed blowies. Out of pity she called this encounter a date. She knew I was dying, and I knew I needed to put that pity where my pennies weren’t.
literally stories 