Tag: life

All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Ben by Hugh Cron – Warning – Adult Content.

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Before Ben knew it he was sixty.

He wasn’t sure if that bothered him but it was now forty one years.

He stayed in what he called his ‘But and Ben’. He loved the old bed that pulled down from the wall. Ben reckoned that there was a cure for cancer within it’s mattress but he didn’t care that there might have also been a hundred different types of lurgey living within the confines of decades of dead skin and bodily fluids. It was quite comfortable.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction, Short Fiction, Writing

Legs Eleven by Hugh Cron

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She smiled as she heard his wail. He’d always been delicate and wasn’t as mature as the other kids.

…But she knew that would change soon.

He ran into the room with his fist clenched out in front of him.

“Now then Jimmy, don’t cry. It’s only a bit of blood.

…And it’s worth it.”

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction, Short Fiction, Writing

Just Dad by Hugh Cron – Adult Content.

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“I’m no a bad guy.”

“I know.”

“But this. I need to do this?”

“What can I say?”

“And it’ll be you?”

“Yes.”

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 358: The Pursuit of Meaningful Longevity, Tales For the New Year and an Elevating Saturday Special

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Welcome to a new year. Today is 8 January, an interesting date due to the odd mix of persons born on it. For example, Elvis, Stephen Hawking, David Bowie and Larry Storch were all born on this date. Elvis would be eighty-seven (thus still possible to “sight” at southern Piggly Wiggly buying peanut butter and bananas, if you are crazy); Mr. Hawking would mark his eightieth. and Bowie would be seventy-five. Alas all are gone, but we still have Larry Storch (dear God please let him live at least til this post airs, please, please). Yes, we still have “Corporal Agarn” from F-Troop. Mr. Storch turns ninety-nine today, and has outlived the others mentioned by a considerable margin of years even though he was (and by a long way) born first. 

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

(100) Calling Occupant By Leila Allison

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Saturday, 8 February 2014

Torqwamni County Convalescent Center

4:53 A.M.

Naturally, the first thing healthy people experience when visiting the Torqwamni County Convalescent Center (T3C) is depression; many often secretly promise to kill themselves if they should wind up “like that,” but they never do. Mainly, T3C contains a sum of breathing bodies greater than the number of active minds. Most are elderly, and all are persons too well (in the technical sense) for the hospital but too sick to go home. Hardly any ever go home, save for in the religious view; most depart in the coroner’s van.

The inadequately appreciated orderlies and CNA’s and housekeepers, the real workers who do the staggering dirty work, and who are first blamed when something goes wrong, do their best to take care of the people in double occupancy rooms shared by pairs of the same kind of people: plainly, men with men, women with women, an active mind with another. The insensate are also kept together, or utterly alone, if their population is at an odd number.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

99 Maab and the Rehab Spirit: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical By Leila Allison

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Introduction

Maab is my first FC to name herself. She was simply the Photobomb Fairie until she began to talk. When she called herself “Mab” the first time, someone pointed out that her name has been used by Shakespeare and others, and hardly original. It turns out that Mab is as common a name among Fairies as Taylor is in cheerleading.

No one remembers how the second A landed in the middle of her name, I’m guessing a typo. But Maab liked it and told everyone to call her Maab, and that she would hear it if you omitted either A.

Physically, Maab is four inches long, mostly iridescent green and is a very attractive mix of a Dragonfly and a Tinkerbell sort of person. Like everyone else, Maab moves at various speeds, but unlike the rest of us she is able to hop dimensions and seemingly disappear from common sight and yet still be “there” when captured by a camera–hence the title Photobomb Fairie.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

347: Mental Scar Tissue, Curtain Calls and Scares A to Z

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I recently recalled a cherished Halloween memory from my childhood: I was in the living room watching a Casper the Friendly Ghost Halloween special on TV the Saturday morning prior to the big day. My monumentally hung over grandfather just came out of the kitchen, a glass of what surely held only healthy tomato juice in his unsteady hand. A great question had formed in my mind.

“Grandpa, how did Casper die?”

“He asked the wrong people a lot of stupid questions.”

By now it must be obvious that I have seized upon Halloween as the inspiration for this post. Since the Nobel prize for literature has already been passed out, I see no reason to introduce revolutionary literary techniques or topics until the next voting cycle begins.

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All Stories, General Fiction

To Serve by Yash Seyedbagheri      

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When I was little, I was afraid aliens were going to eat me. Of course, it was just that Twilight Zone episode I’d seen, To Serve Man, the one where a message of peace turned out to be an alien cookbook and the world was its meal, people being fattened up on a spaceship for the slaughter. They had to convince me it was just a show, a parable about humanity and all that.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Flight of Time by Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri

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The cathedral clock across the street from Nick’s home rang out the hours, the quarters. The clock chimed out his life, the Westminster Quarters and memories floating from the august belfry, the huge bells hidden inside, the clock ticking. The clock Nick once tended to.

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