He heaved and cried uncontrollably.
Snot bubbles.
His mom told him not to be unhappy as he buried his face in the desk while lightly holding her wrist.
“Think of the good times you just had and will have in the future —and you can always write something about it”
He always got emotional when someone he loved left him.
Continue reading “Men without Women by Adam Kluger”
The two men sat in the dim kitchen. Drinking. Dark clouds hung low in the gray sky like they wanted to open their bellies. Cigarette smoke curled from a glass ashtray. Larry Miller got up from the yellow Formica table and pointed at a steak bone on a plate in the sink. The white plate was smeared dark with A-1 Steak Sauce. Larry said, “That was Jenny’s last supper. A T-bone steak, a baked potato, bread n’ butter, and a Coke.” He seemed proud to Thurman like he wanted Thurman to appreciate it.
Continue reading “Death on a Full Stomach by Christoper Ananias”
Adult Content
For Ann
That sound, sharp.
It slices through the air like a whip. It jolts me awake. I haven’t gotten used to it. The harmattan wind blows through the open windows. I rub my shoulders and try to warm my body up. The huge searchlight in the yard casts a shadow of the cashew tree on the walls. The branches spook me. They’re wraiths reaching for me, their pointed tips looking like spears aimed at me, reaching for my soul. A woman’s scream. Sergeant Wasiu’s gun cocks again. He’s the chief of the guards – a cruel man with gallows humour. The creeping feeling rises up in me again. The night’s quietness is eerie. The woman’s screams are louder now, they’re bloodcurdling.
The gun roars. Her screams stop abruptly.
Continue reading “The Broken Piece of Me by Doyin Ajayi”
There’s a quality peculiarly magnificent to certain enthusiasts, particularly those whose enthusiasm tipped over into outright crankery, or what was perceived to be such. It depends, I suppose, on what it is has gripped the enthusiast’s imagination; a person’s overriding obsession with, say, the history of mirrors may induce a groan or a shake of the head in those utterly uninterested in the history of mirrors; similarly, an obsession with Shakespeare will send to sleep persons not given to worrying about Shakespeare. And Shakespeare, of all writers, has worried the minds of many. In the words of scholar Ivor Brown, “Shakespeare stands alone in his spawning of cranks and bores as well as of erudite scholars and devotees of genius.” To which one might add a note of gratitude on considering the former. Certainly the byways of Shakespeare-lore would be marginally the poorer without its tales of the grandiose and/or driven amateur.
Continue reading “The Shakespeareance of a Lifetime (Or Two) by Geraint Jonathan”
Here we are at Week 561.
A few things have come to light throughout the past couple of weeks.
Firstly – Following on from Leila’s comments about the submissions we received a few weeks back:
Continue reading “Week 561 – Keep Your Distance, Gregory And Lawrence And Remembering The Hurricane.”
I am cursed with my very own personal psyops helicopter, a flying machine that takes me anywhere it wants to go, no matter how much I beg it to leave me be. Matte black, of course, updated constantly—the latest sensors, time travel, you name it. Highly sensitive to excruciating shame, humiliation, and social embarrassment. Fully automated, sentient, and merciless.
Continue reading “Helicopter by Marco Etheridge”
The Lemonade Stand materialized at the corner of Maple and Third like a memory made solid, and Cliff felt his foot ease off the accelerator. Through the windshield of his sedan, the sight struck him, not of this stand with its crooked cardboard sign and red plastic cups, but of something older and as familiar as his own reflection and twice as strange.
Continue reading “Seven Flowers for Lemonade by Daniel P. Douglas”
(Content that some readers may find upsetting – refer to the tags at the bottom of the page)
“Shut up the shutters, boy, and light up the pit.”
No more words were needed. The crowd in the parlour of the King’s Head heaved and jostled. Dogs were untied from table legs as their owners rushed towards a shabby staircase leading to a room below. Jimmy Brown, the proprietor, held his hand out for shillings as the cacophonous queue pushed past.
Continue reading “God’s Creatures by Jennifer Sinclair Roberts”
A Kvetch
We have now officially opened the twelfth year of Literally Stories UK. And as it goes in life we have faced a recent challenge after we were listed (unbeknownst to us) by one of those publications that do such things. I do not know why such services still exist in the era of Google, nor do I grasp why people rely on such services, but the situation exists.
Continue reading “Week 560: A New Year Begins”
When Drea’s mother called to ask if she could take her to see Jerry, Drea clenched her fists without realizing it and dropped the phone.
“What happened?” Drea’s mother asked.
“Nothing,” Drea said loudly as she squatted to pick up the phone. She sat down hard on the floor and tried to breathe slowly, in for four and out for six, as her therapist had suggested she do when triggered.
Continue reading “Seeing Jerry by Susan R. Weinstein”
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