Tag: life

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

All I Love Dies Alone by Leila Allison

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 Squirrel Pen Diary: First Entry

Last Wednesday morning I entered Our Lady Star of the Sea church during mid-week mass. While two dozen or so senior citizens went through the ancient, dusty rites (monotonously administered by an equally ancient and dusty priest), I rose unseen and snuck upstairs to a small balcony that communicates with the church’s attic. I climbed atop the guano splattered stone rail that hugs the balcony and balanced myself on one foot and held the other out as though I intended to take a seventy-foot step onto the marble walkway below. After I had done all that, there wasn’t much else to do except wait for someone to notice me.

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All Stories, Latest News

Week 175 – Perspective, Invective and Uncharted Waters

Nik

Hello again one and each.

Another busy and interesting week at LS and, as always, a few unexpected twists and turns.

It goes without saying that we’ve had five more brilliant stories (more about those in a bit) but we’ve also had a whole host of wonderful submissions that have already filled up slots for the next few weeks.

That last line requires context – or perhaps perspective – in order to carry its full weight. A theme we’ll be touching on quite a bit over the next couple of hundred words I suspect.

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All Stories, General Fiction

What Follows (The Chair) by R. Harlan Smith

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On the night Frank Pearls died, he gathered his little congregation around his chair and gave each of them a little snack like a priest giving Holy Communion. They received their snacks gleefully and smacked their lips to show their appreciation. Then he settled back in his chair, swallowed another glass of whiskey, filled the glass again, and in his calm, pleasant voice,  proceeded – sometimes he would read to them from Joyce, or Kierkegaard, or Al Capp, or sometimes he would just talk to them about philosophy, but he would never tell them it was philosophy. Tonight he would talk.

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All Stories, Humour

The Black and White of it by Peter Caffrey

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Melvin sat on the garden wall, deep in thought. Chip pan fires were the stuff of 1970s public information films and soap operas. He didn’t know a single person who had suffered a chip pan fire but out of the blue, it happened to him.

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All Stories, General Fiction

I’ll Tell You Your History by L’Erin Ogle

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They never tell you how hard it is to love someone.  Or how hard it is to be loved.

The first person you ever think you love is the shift manager of the restaurant of your first job.  He’s twenty, four years older than you, and you don’t even know him.  He doesn’t know you.   All you remember about this first love, the one you aren’t ever supposed to forget, is that your first kiss was a shotgun hit of weed that turned into tongues and teeth mashed together, that later he vomited tequila in the sink and then you fucked in the spare room of your friend’s house.  You were so drunk you didn’t realize you started your period and it looked like a crime scene, which seems appropriate now.  Anymore, sex and love seem like crime.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Trains, Ale & The Poet by Martyn Clayton

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‘You were cocky that first week at St Joseph’s,’ said Ian to Terry as the train pulled out of the station.  They’d been planning on having a quick pint in The Station Pump but Terry and Micky’s bus had been late so Ian had sat there drinking alone.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Fancy Any Shots by Mayzie Hopkins

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I must’ve told the story of where I’m from, why I came here, nearly every night for the first few months. Most people do, when there’s a new person that’s the first thing we usually ask them, “So how did you end up here?” As I became more known and recognised faces I would only talk to tourists about it, if I’d already had a few drinks and they’d asked.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Memory Lane is a Highway by Tyler Folds

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They had teased about it often, but Sophia chickened out. Alone, I stand on a dirt road that hasn’t seen traffic for miles. I curse myself for not sticking around long enough to learn how to drive.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Romance

Learning to Fall by Leila Allison

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It’s always a good idea to examine the condition of a dangerous handmade-thing that scoffs at gravity before you trust your life to it. When was the last inspection? Does it always make that sound? Dangerous handmade-things that place a fatal distance between you and the hard, unforgiving ground require the greatest scrutiny.

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