He wasn’t a special man. He was just a guy with an above average trashcan. It might merit an even higher title than “above average.” Consider it magical. Yes, magical.
Continue reading “Gary’s Magic Trashcan by Peter Biles”
Tag: literally stories
Death in a Gourd by Matias Travieso-Diaz
Mate is so much more than a drink — it’s a living tradition
that binds us to each other and the land.
Fabiana Pose
The Eurovision Song Contest winner that year was a stunning brunette from Paraguay, Gisela Ortiz, who represented Spain in the contest and sang an enthralling guarania (romantic ballad) that won the acclaim of a large segment of the voting public and the members of a jury of music industry professionals. She soon turned her meteoric rise to fame into cash by tirelessly promoting a variety of products and services.
Continue reading “Death in a Gourd by Matias Travieso-Diaz”
Between Vern and Alex by Harrison Kim
AUGUST 2021:
“My will is your authority,” says Vern, the bishop’s mitre wearing business dealer. His blue veined cheeks turn red, then purple, as he laughs until the tears flow, rocking back and forth, holding his sides in front of red-bearded, yellow-toothed twenty-seven-year-old Alex as they sit making connections and trades in the rusted bus that is Vern’s hoarder home. “Hold the mirror higher,” Vern commands, and Alex does. He sees the red capillaries bulge under Vern’s eyes. “Where did you get this holy hat?” the dealer asks.
Continue reading “Between Vern and Alex by Harrison Kim”
Pissing Bullies by Rasmenia Massoud
This is the first time we’ve made eye contact, but I’ve been looking at his face my entire life. I know those narrow, close-set eyes almost as well as my own. Eyes so blue they almost glow in direct light. Eyes I always had to turn away from because of the way they constantly laughed at me.
All these years, they’ve never stopped laughing at me.
Continue reading “Pissing Bullies by Rasmenia Massoud”
Inside the Possum Coat by Patrick G. Roland
“You scary pretty,” she said, settling onto the lattice bench. She wasn’t her, but she looked at me the same way, as if she knew the part. Ever since Celeste’s funeral, I kept finding her inside strangers. I checked the time out of habit. The second hand trembled near the six. The woman was small inside a brown trench coat made of possum fur, seams hand-stitched with thick black wax taxidermy thread. The woman kept her eye on me, then threw a coin into the fountain beside us.
Continue reading “Inside the Possum Coat by Patrick G. Roland”
593: Limping Mind Games
-1-
The dumbest question to ask a kid must be “What do you want to be when you grow up?” (Often preceded by “So”). For me the best answers for that are “How the fuck should I know, I’m seven”; “Lizzie Borden” and “Anything that takes me away from you.” But I never used any because even at that young age I knew it was an insincere “points winning” question usually asked by some dweeb whose aim was to screw my mother.
Continue reading “593: Limping Mind Games”
Almost Cinderella by Claudine Mussuto
In my mind, I walked in bare feet on a narrow, yellowed, dry-grass path, not stilettos or Merrell’s, Asic’s or glass slippers. Posturing and protection seemed incompatible with the advancing disclosures.
Left and right there were walls of water like the falls in certain hotel lobbies and shopping malls, but seemingly static, not flowing, like glacial ice, the same layered turquoise and white, and mirrored, warped, the way shame distorts what isn’t love into something recognizable and consequently accepted. There was enough width for my shoulders plus an inch or two on either side.
Continue reading “Almost Cinderella by Claudine Mussuto”
Louis Lovelace and the Salvation Economy by Zachary Arama
September 8th
The idea came to Louis Lovelace after a phone call informing him of the end of the world.
He groped for an excuse to end the call, but his mind was foggy from the smoldering joint in the ashtray. He’d been burning through the severance from his last job for almost five months now, and the truth was he had nothing better to do than listen.
“Louis, it’s Sheldon. We went to college together, remember?” the hopeful voice on the other end of the line said.
“I know this seems strange, but it’s urgent.”
Louis remembered Sheldon as a devoutly religious student who shared his notes whenever Louis was too hungover to take his own. They had hardly been friends, and in the fifteen years since graduation, Louis hadn’t thought about him once.
The Butcher by Brandon Sharp
The Damascus steel, fresh off eight sets of eight strokes at fifteen degrees against the diamond rod, meets no resistance when you turn it on yourself by accident. Across the web of skin that spans forefinger and thumb, a line of blood appears and lengthens until the bright sting of pain arrives. You place the boning knife to the side of your butcher block with a gasp that you hope the other cooks don’t hear. You hold the cut to your mouth and when you remove it from between your lips, you pretend what you see is a gash in someone else’s flesh.
Continue reading “The Butcher by Brandon Sharp”
Sunday Whatever: Tweedy on Reed an essay from Dale Williams Barrigar.
“The dead don’t die.” – Jeff Tweedy
Whoever believes that a 58-year-old man can’t rock out any more hasn’t heard (or has heard and hasn’t understood) Jeff Tweedy’s new song “Lou Reed Was My Babysitter” from his 2025 triple album Twilight Override.
The symbolic title of this song alone is worth volumes as it encapsulates an American way of life, for good and ill, in five words.
Anything with Lou in it has to be great, or near-great, to justify the use of his name and this song is.
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever: Tweedy on Reed an essay from Dale Williams Barrigar.”
literally stories 