The world had been ending all week. I heard the growl and supersonic whine of jet airplanes whooshing off Grissom Air Force Base. The rain came down all week, too. Like it would never end—even if the world did. I stood at the porch railing with my eye on the pelting silver darkness, but I didn’t see Boone. All I saw was the glare of the streetlight reflected on the wet tarmac like a false moon.
Continue reading “Relapse at the End of the World by Christopher J Ananias”
Two in the morning. The air was luminous, chalky, bloated with humidity. The smoke detector was a broken stoplight, stuck on green all night. Exhausted, jet lagged, eyeing the light, I thought of my ninety-eight-year-old grandmother Ida.
Continue reading “Super Moon in Rome by David Levine”
(Elliott the Header Pigeon is on vacation this week. PDQ Peety is filling in and is also filling himself with PDQ Pilsner.)
Introduction
I again found myself undertaking the idea of the End of Humankind. Which is not to be confused with the End of the World because that will happen a few billion years from now when the sun dies, at which time it will greatly expand and obliterate everything on out to Jupiter. Like the rabid cur shot dead by Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird a dead sun is still a dangerous sun.
Continue reading “Week 577: Can’t Teach a Shark to Kill Tofu”
The laptop glows in the dim kitchen, blue light flattening the room, turning the window into a black square that gives nothing back.
I drag the computer closer, rubber feet rasping across the table like a warning.
Resurrection Pass Overnight: Intermediate hike: Good fitness required.
The photo at the top of the event listing shows a line of hikers crossing a narrow bridge, green valley opening beneath them, the future open wide.
Continue reading “Wolf. Normal by Lynne Curry”
I stopped drinking after my younger brother Cody chose assisted death. He was paralyzed from the neck down and never able to get high again because of it. That gave him courage.
Continue reading “When I Almost Became a Monk by Harrison Kim”
Inside Saint Anthony’s Basilica in Padua, he turned to his wife and whispered that he had a “confession to make,” darting three steps toward a dark, vacant box.
“You got me,” she whispered back. She still liked his jokes, even after six years together, three as digital nomads. Pointing to her fitness tracker watch, she reminded him that they each had Zoom meetings starting in thirty minutes.
Continue reading “Confessions of a Digital Nomad by Dan Shiffman”
Extreme Adult Content – refer to the tabs at the bottom of the story
A small dark-haired boy was walking in the fog like a phantom. Lenny Coins thought about his father. How could his father do such a thing—things? But the balloons. What about those?
At the bus stop, Tom waited for Lenny and offered him a Marlboro cigarette. Like he did every morning.
“I’m only eleven. I don’t smoke, Tom.” This was in the eighties when the Marlboro Man rode the range, instead of a hospital bed. Smoking was cool, and serial killers were coming on strong.
Continue reading “The Stringer by Christopher Ananias”
Of all the writers who have appeared on the site, L’Erin Ogle is the one whose name I most expect to turn up on the list of famous writers. She is not a commercial type of writer, but she is just plain so damn good that you’d think that even the doofs who control the money would notice her. But maybe it is for the best that she continues to make her way under her own control and at her own speed.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns: Artificial Love by L’Erin Ogle”
Hello there folks and folkessess. Here we go again and are at Week 576.
Before I start I need to warn you that there is a new virus doing the rounds. If you get it, don’t go to A&E. With this ‘Peekaboo Virus’ go to ICU.
I apologise for that and I despise myself for admitting that it did make me smile. (Mr Cowan once again.)
Continue reading “Week 576 – Pretty Colours, Being Alert And An Attempt At Misdirection.”
The ol’ boy downstairs humps his walker a few inches b’fore ever’ step he takes down the driveway. Had a stroke his wife tol’ me but she says he’s stubborn as a cocklebur and won’t let nobody else git his mail.
literally stories 