All Stories, Science Fiction, Short Fiction

La Vie en Rose by Barbara Diggs        

“Where shall we go tonight?” Euan caresses my cheek with the back of his hand then brushes a stray braid away from my face. He is propped on his elbow next to me in the classic post-coital pose. I suppose he thinks he looks suave, but he doesn’t. He just reminds me of a kid trying to pull off a look that’s too big for him.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Her Father’s Ghost by Harrison Kim

Kathy’s Dad passed away in his own house, his last rattling breaths aided by the morphine his daughter poured down his ancient mouth.  He lived alone in the old place for decades.  Germs terrified him.  He secured the windows with plastic.  The air inside turned stale and rancid.  He roamed the neighborhood at night, searching for cans and bottles.  He filled the house with old lawnmowers, pieces of scrap metal, newspapers piled to the ceiling.  Kathy inherited this rotting, junk filled dwelling.  Over the next year, she and her husband Neil renovated.  All the plumbing and electric wiring renewed, a new shingle roof, restored walls and floors.  The father’s piles of tools and newspapers, old tiles and bottles all recycled, usurped by Kathy’s stuffed toys and hangers full of vintage and antique clothing, her hundreds of art books and coffee table volumes about Hollywood stars, her garbage bags and boxes packed with blankets.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Stranger on the Gradient by Tom Sheehan

Duncan Coffey felt a mild agitation. At first, he marked the subtle change as curiosity and then, making small measurements, corrected the assessment. A retired rewrite man for The Saxon Sentinel, he was frightfully aware that his capacity for surprise had long fled him. Odd moments told him he might have another person sharing his skin. This was one of those odd contemplations now working on him. His old fishing pal Ed LeBlanc used to say he had bitten off more than he could chew in this life, dwelling too often on little things, getting hung up in details, losing the big picture. “Duncan,” he offered a few times, “You could choke on a blade of grass and lose the whole thing.” He’d never explained what the whole thing was, but Coffey got the meaning.

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All Stories, Latest News, Writing

Week 263 – ‘Fucking Statistics’, Various ‘Fuck Offs’ And A ‘Fucking’ Joke. – Warning – Don’t read if you are offended by swear words – (Oh that may be a tad late if you’ve already read the title.)

Here we are at Week 263.

I’ve been wanting to do a feature on this subject for a very long time but every time I tried to write the post it sounded like a Chronic Tourette’s Sufferers Convention.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Violent Lives by Michael Ventimiglia

Stomach is a damn hard taste to forget. Even before the bile claws its way up your throat, you can taste it—hot metal and candy aspirin. Then you can smell it, too. Sharp and noxious, the promise of chewed food and belly acid to come. I hate to even think about it, but memory’s a certain breed of sadist, and it knows what we dread the most.

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All Stories, General Fiction

When People do Bad Things by James Hannan

8 am, Wednesday, and Chris waited for his mother. If only there was some way to stop her. Just because she had borne him nine long months, gotten up to him in the middle of the night in the years directly after, suffered his tantrums in the years after that, sent him off to school with a fresh packed lunch each and every day, saw to him as a teenager with his sullen silences and raging hormones, and helped him get a job and out into the world, she thought she could still intrude.

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