Tag: literally stories

Short Fiction

Week 370: A Mass Extinction, Four Moral Authors and Nine Reasons Why I Will Not Go To Heaven

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There once was a race of authors who had achieved a level of celebrity similar to that of movie stars. Even people who didn’t read knew these authors by sight. They became the “must gets” for the swankiest dinner parties and were topics of discussion at all lesser gatherings. Then it ended. Just like that. Inexplicably. Alas, few authors turn heads in the wild anymore. Stephen King might–then again his face is hard to forget.

The mysterious mass extinction of celebrity authors is a phenomenon that only I have noticed or care about. Which means I am either a trailblazer or just another deluded soul, a couple of moments of clarity shy of the asylum.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

Roscoe and the Lightning Glory: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical

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Roscoe was a three-year-old Dachshund who had a problem: his “Associate Human” (A.H.)–though in most other ways acceptable–had a thing for dressing poor Roscoe in ridiculous costumes and posting the result on her YouTube channel. Dachshunds are uncommonly dignified, and things like being forced into wearing a “Frankfurter” outfit for the sole purpose of the A.H. gaining likes and subscriptions hurt Roscoe’s pride.

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All Stories, Fantasy

The Otherworld Hiding Place by Michael Bloor

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Schiehallion, aka The Faery Hill of the Caledonians, is a magnificent, isolated, rugged, limestone ridge in Highland Perthshire, in the plumb-centre of Scotland. I’ve climbed it many times in the past, but now my arthritic knees deny me that pleasure: the jarring of the knees taken all the enjoyment out of hill-walking. So what the hell am I doing now, struggling along Glen Mór, on the south side of Schiehallion, in the November sleet, with a giant ship-in-a-bottle in my rucksack?

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Vet by Tom Sheehan

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The first man in this story, Carl Savage, stood at the end of the ward in a veterans’ hospital in Central Massachusetts: the second man, bed-ridden, stared at him, fighting for a splash of recognition. There was the way that man shrugged his shoulders, looked back over one as if he had missed a targeting mark. The second man moved in his bed; a slight movement barely noticeable. He had not moved much in almost twenty years. He wanted to call out, but he knew no name; but knew something; it spun up out of him as if it were the last chance in the whole world. The man at the end of the hall halted his departure and turned around slowly in his departure. The second man in the bed began to move one finger. One finger! One finger as if tapping on a key, tapping, tapping, tapping.

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Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – Nose by Doug Hawley

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When you put out a shingle that says STORIES WANTED, you get a little bit of the good stuff and plenty of what you deserve for your impertinence. The “plenty of what you deserve” element is easy to describe: In some way something about each one in it sucks. That’s as scientific a way of putting it as I can give you. But the good stuff is hard to define; and sadly, some of the good stuff meets the same fate as the suck stuff for one reason or another. Actually, most of what we reject is well done, just the story is in some way incomplete, in our humble estimation.

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Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 369 – Statistics, (What a cracking word – It’s up there with ‘crocodile’ – A nod to the Kemp Brothers!) Opinions And Worth The Watch.

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I’ve mentioned a few times that we go through the same process as anyone else when we submit our work. To be fair though, I think we’ve all changed from the early days when we first started doing this.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Dauntless by Frederick K Foote

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Oh, yeah, here he come. A handsome young, broad-face, dark skin, Black boy with curly hair. He walks with a swagger and a smile. A smile that would strip girls and women, boys and men, out of their underwear at the glint of those sparkling teeth. And he got moves. Athletic, strong, and fast. And he come up here to the log with a smile and style, not knowing he’s still a child.

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All Stories, Science Fiction

A Probing Interview by John Willems

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 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!”

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