Ed was at a conference in Bakersfield and told me there was a problem with the pet sitter tonight and could I stop by the house and feed the dog her dinner. I’d done it a few times before. Ed was my brother-in-law.
Continue reading “Alumni by Ted Gross”
James, an assistant editor of a small online literary magazine in Brooklyn, moved to
Alaska. He was recently divorced, and his novel, which had taken him ten years to write, got rejected by every major New York City publisher.
Today will be like any other day. You’ll softly snooze the alarm clock as it sounds, just over an hour before your train pulls into the station. You will feel the groggy effects of sleeping fitfully, as has become the norm. Pressing snooze, you tell yourself you’ll get up on the first alarm tomorrow, already knowing you won’t.
Continue reading “A Day Like Any Other by Danielle Rhodes”
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE - FROM ALL OF US IN LS TOWERS
Did you eat too many mince pies? Have you overindulged on the chocolates? Is the whole jolly, feelgood, merry, lovey dovey season getting to you. Maybe we can help
with Literally Stories – Christmas Hellweek. Stories to counteract all that goodwill: Enjoy
Image: Scary Christmas Baubles from www.freepik.com n.b. This is an AI generated image.
Still feeling a bit too gooey? Still have the urge to hug people? Don’t worry – we’re here for you. Literally Stories – Christmas Hellweek. Stories to counteract all that goodwill: Enjoy
An Introduction from David
ULTRA-BELFAST
If you’re the black sheep then any family event, gathering or occasion can feel like Ultra-Belfast. There’s a purgatorial feel to your day when you’re plucked from your home comforts and trappings and shipped back to a time and place when your independence and autonomy was restricted. I vaguely remember committing the first few sentences to the white page. I’d like to say it was during the Christmas before it was published here, that would be remarkably apt but it would also be horse piss. It almost certainly came after one of those events though. One where I looked around a table and saw variations of the same face looking back at me. A little older, a little worn down. The light behind their eyes, a little dimmer than it had been the previous year, or the one before that.
For anyone who doesn’t buy into it, the Northern Irish summer and in particular the 12th of July, is the ultimate purgatorial state. Twenty-first century living grinds to a halt so a minority of over intoxicated and under informed can lay claim to everything within their eyeline in the name of tradition. Loyal servants of the crown celebrating the victory of a Dutch King over the English Monarch. Celebrating the victory of a protestant king over a catholic king. Celebrating the victory of a protestant king, who led a largely catholic army, financed by the vatican. Trying to explain it could turn you mad.
The truth of the matter is, to be Northern Irish is to live in a permanent state of purgatory. Irish by geography, British by rule, your individual identity, independence and autonomy permanently in flux and controlled by calendar and tradition. I’m ten years older than the writer of this story. If I had to try, I don’t know if I could write it now, but I still relate to it because I’m still sitting at that card table waiting to go all-in.
Welcome to Ultra-Belfast…
Ultra-Belfast by Dave Louden – Adult Content
Image: Scary Christmas Baubles from www.freepik.com n.b. This is an AI generated image.
Well this is a bit of a different piece – but that’s what the Whatever post is all about. Ladles and Jellypoons we give you an essay by Geraint Jonathan.
A pioneer in the use of manacles, Richard Topcliffe’s imagination knew bounds, if you’ll not forgive my saying so. He was a man who lived and breathed his work – going so far as to design his very own ‘torture-machine’, compared with which, in his own words, “the rack is mere child’s play.”
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever: Not Quite the National Treasure by Geraint Jonathan”
Ho ho humbuggery
I am tired of PC Christmas. I figure a grown up can endure the Christian God for about six weeks every year without becoming a whiny child about it. Most of us knew that Christmas was bullshit growing up, but I never turned down a present from Santa nor have I ever failed to drop a coin in the Salvation Army bucket.
Continue reading “Week 512: Ho Ho No!!!”
Jamie was a very successful killer.
Continue reading “Magpie by Hugh Cron – Adult Content”
Annie awoke to the feel and smell of soft, clean linen against her skin. Yesterday’s flight had exhausted her, but she’d slept well, and felt rested. She lay on her back wriggling her toes, deriving a childlike pleasure.
Continue reading “Are You Ready Annie? by Martin McNeil.”
The lake breeze chilled the back of his neck as he bent over the boulder to inspect the patterns of lichen spreading on its surface like an ink spill. This was the one he was to find. As the receding waves sucked the water from the sand around it, the rock sputtered and gurgled as if it were alive, a nursing infant or a dying soul. He had trekked almost three miles from his cottage to reach this point on the beach, the farthest out on this side of the island. From here it was fifty miles to the mainland over the surface of an inland sea. He removed his clothes, tossing them into the water. He was to carry nothing. Standing nude, he waited, facing the dunes that rose to the stretch of trees above the beach.
Continue reading “The Promise by Russell Fee”
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