I tried to eat an apple whole the other day. I spit it up on the tile, watching as my saliva bubbled atop the cracked checkers. Vince and I laughed hard at this: my attempt, the fall, the wet sound of bruised apple flesh. We stopped only after Vince sat on the wicker chair so hard it splintered. I put a blanket over it and Vince biked home, using his jacket sleeve to gather my spit-stained apple and throw it outside – for the squirrels, he said. Three days later, Mom took the blanket to wash and when she screamed, I told her that Hurricane Nancy must’ve done it. Mom said that wasn’t funny; last month’s hurricane had taken Grandpa’s beloved chicken coop and now he had to buy the factory-farmed eggs they sold at the grocery. I said, “Wow, what an inconvenience!” and was grounded for a week.
Continue reading “I Tried to Eat an Apple by Billie Chang”Tag: literally stories
My Fair Juan G Starring Boots the Impaler By Leila Allison


I was watching the 1969 Science Fiction flick The Valley of Gwangi on TV last month. It was playing on the ancient Philco set that connects the PDQ network in our sister realm of Other Earth to my home realm of Saragun Springs. The film was the final Ray Harrhausen/Willis O’Brien dinosaur picture. The story involved a thirty-foot tall, psychotic Allosaurus named (brace yourself) “Gwangi,” who somehow managed to reproduce (apparently without a Mrs. Gwangi) and survive at a “Forbidden Valley” in Mexico with other unlikely creatures for at least 145-million years–without, mind you, attracting notice until 1969–that from a reptile with the brain power of a caraway seed.
Continue reading “My Fair Juan G Starring Boots the Impaler By Leila Allison”Literally Reruns – Half by Doug Hawley
Well here we go, we now say farewell and thank you to 2023. And as the year cleans out its desk in the present and moves into the archives, we close it with the last of ten reruns over the past nine days!
Longtime site friend Doug Hawley specializes in making the absurd seem possible. And that talent is extremely present in Half. It begins with an almost religious disease matter-of-factly diagnosed by perhaps the most dubious physician since Wm. S. Burrough’s Dr. Benway of Naked Lunch.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Half by Doug Hawley”Literally Reruns – Mary, Joseph and the Baby by Diane M Dickson
To locate this Holiday Rerun, I had to go way the hell back in the vault to find this wonderful little piece by our own Diane M Dickson. Mary, Joseph and the Baby is truer to the spirit of the occasion than anything you can buy at Amazon and the dialect is musical. Unique but it gets across.
It’s an old story in many ways, but blessed are the poor and meek no matter what the corporations say.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Mary, Joseph and the Baby by Diane M Dickson”Christmas Rerun – A Crow in a Pear Tree by Nik Eveleigh
The saga of site co-founder Nik Eveleigh’s Storm Crow series remains to this day excellent reading. A sort of forlorn hero, whose humanity is commingled with humour and despair. And good old Stormcrow appeared in a Christmas tale seven years ago. Seven years is a magic number as far as time goes, and rest assured that readers new to Nik’s character will agree that the old crow has aged well.
Continue reading “Christmas Rerun – A Crow in a Pear Tree by Nik Eveleigh”Christmas Rerun – The Real Bad Snowman by David Henson
Today’s Rerun is brought to you by the darkside of life. It ain’t aimable Frosty awaiting these children, but during this season it would be an error to omit the truth about the many lives around us in which misery is pretty much a full time experience. David Henson has a way of injecting some light into the darkest of places, which should be a quality found in Christmas.
Continue reading “Christmas Rerun – The Real Bad Snowman by David Henson”Bonus Christmas Rerun – The Perfect Personification of Religion by Hugh Cron
Since it is Christmas Day itself, we add a bonus story by our own Hugh Cron. It is not our object to deride those who have faith or get sentimental about the holiday. And Hugh’s The Perfect Personification of Religion states the true meaning of Christmas better than a fleet of Rudolphs. It is a tale of common decency and a priest who made himself holy through his dedication.
Continue reading “Bonus Christmas Rerun – The Perfect Personification of Religion by Hugh Cron”Christmas Rerun – A Little Red Wagon, A Long Remembered Face by Tom Sheehan
Merry Christmas, even to the humbuggers. Today we present two in a series we call the Reruns of Christmas. James McEwan began this party yesterday, which will last through Sunday. And there will be no rest for the wicked because the new year begins with new stories next Monday.
Continue reading “Christmas Rerun – A Little Red Wagon, A Long Remembered Face by Tom Sheehan”Christmas Eve Rerun: The Lady in the Bauble by James McEwan
Merry Christmas Eve. And as foretold in yesterday’s post there will be Ghosts of Reruns past attending the site this week. Consider this very early site post by our friend James McEwan, a herald, who will lead off with this Rerun today, the first of nine replays over the next eight days. Enjoy!
Continue reading “Christmas Eve Rerun: The Lady in the Bauble by James McEwan”Week 460: Terminating The Tree With Extreme Prejudice and Welcome to the Holiday Rerun Fest

Well here we are, Christmas. Today I choose to remember it well. My family used to include a Dachshund-Chihuahua mix named “Fang” who joined the team when I was in sixth grade (named after Phyllis Diller’s fictional husband). Fang was a fairly peaceful little guy but he hated Christmas trees. Every year he would attack the damn thing late at night at least once. His partner in crime “Rags,” a tiny Rat Terrier, would encourage Fang with little barks, but feign innocence when the light came on.
Continue reading “Week 460: Terminating The Tree With Extreme Prejudice and Welcome to the Holiday Rerun Fest”