The usual doubts arrive as I cross the street, heading for the corner of Abbeville Road. This seemed like the right thing to do an hour ago, sitting in a pub on the South Bank, toasting our anniversary with a third glass of wine. But now I’m here, all I can imagine is another rejection.
Continue reading “A Door with a Thousand Locks by Ed Dearnley”
When you die, you find yourself on a sandy beach strewn with sacks, some old, some in tatters, still others weathered almost beyond recognition. All your orifices have been stitched shut. First you encounter the Bookkeeper, who opens the Ledger on your double spread and pores over the left-hand page to total all the times you have hurt others and yourself, what here they call your hurtlings.
The town’s children were eager to help. They would gather sticks and small logs from the forest to add upon the pile. It gave them purpose, a role to play in what was to happen. The town’s folk had long been gathered. Many held small crucifixes close to their hearts, whilst memorized prayers left their lips. Others stood patiently, echoing silent whispers of what was to come.
Continue reading “Burning Away Sin by J.J. van Schaaijk”
Literally Reruns – Walk on By by Jane Houghton
A steady accumulation of the little things can crush the will to go on. A chore once too often; the incessant pecking of the distorted past; a great fatigue, boredom. It’s seldom the big things that move you to check out–but usually the steady drone of dead sins, memories over-handled to the point of nonsense and tired feet that get you.
Continue reading “Literally Rerun – Walk on By by Jane Houghton”
Taking the Dive
Recently, after nearly forty years of business, the nearby Social Club Tavern has closed for good. There’s a special sadness when the wild things in life die.
Still, it’s strange to feel sentimentality for something that was one hell of a long way from sentimental during its existence. The Social Club was rough and tumble. I saw some guy punch the window out of the front door after a fight with his girlfriend. A piece of plywood replaced the window for about a year. I usually like to glance through the window of a bar to get a feel for the situation. Since the Social didn’t have any other windows except the one on the front door, entering blind was a roll of the dice. Only hell knew who or what waited inside.
Continue reading “436: Farewell Neighborhood Dive; Another Week That Was; and the Debut of International, Interstellar, Interdimensional Cloven Hoof Shaking Day”
Wanda missed the bars that had surrounded her since she was fourteen. They weren’t really meant to imprison her, of course. They were meant to add to her mystique, to convince the carnival customers that she was wild and dangerous, that the fur on her face made her kin to the wolf that had eaten grandma. Turns out, she’d needed those bars to protect herself. Full-grown men, probably deacons in their churches, had growled and laughed and rattled the bars to get a rise out of her. Her mother had trained her not to respond. Middle America was full of idiots who stroked their shotguns like they stroked themselves in darkened movie theatres. Although she was on display, in truth she was the one who had a front-row seat. She’d sat behind those bars for nearly forty years watching a parade of men who grinned like fools when their crops came in and snarled at their families when they didn’t. She was there when young men started coming through with empty shirt-sleeves and even emptier eyes. She’d heard the grumbling when the law said that Blacks could come to the show “right alongside the upstanding White folks” of rural Atlanta. Two-years-ago, she’d reveled in the South’s dumbstruck disbelief when a Black man took a seat behind the desk in the Oval Office.
Continue reading “Beards by Ann Marie Potter”
Sitting forward on the hard plastic cushions of what some might call a couch, you remember your sister once told you death is an ocean: waves crashing and receding again into the watery stuff from whence they came. You remember how you used to find that image comforting, the oneness of it all, and shake your head now at the thought of it. The sterile smell of the room around you isn’t quite sharp enough to cut through a wandering mind, so you press your hand against the looming incubator to your left and hum some tune from your childhood loud enough to drown out the CPAP machine—the one that whirrs and hisses in the unmistakable timbre of crashing waves.
Continue reading “Eggshells by Amy Rains – Includes references some readers may find distressing – see tags.”
The D train doors closed just as Sammy stepped onto the platform of the West 4th Street station. Slightly miffed, he was nevertheless glad to be out of the January cold. He removed his pipe from the pocket of his overcoat, filled the bowl with loose tobacco, tamped it down into a wad, and lit it with a strike anywhere match he ran across the metal No Smoking sign on the station wall.
Continue reading “The Doppler Effect by Mark Russ”
Dr Williams soaped his hands under water. Important to keep them clean, he thought. For me more than anything. He watched the suds spill into the sink, twirling in clean white loops, neatly gurgling, almost comforting. At last, he withdrew; hands blue and sparkling from the cold.
Continue reading “Clean hands by Otto Alexander”
Today is a real delight we have three wonderful pieces by the star who is Tom Sheehan. Anyone who has read much of Tom’s work will know how much his location near the Saugus River means to him and how it feeds his writing to take us all there with him. Tom’s time serving in Korea is another strong and most often stunning content in his huge cannon of work and Interception by a Muse includes both of these and though it may not be strictly fiction it’s a darned good read. And while you are still pondering the quality of wordsmanship read on and treat yourself to two more examples of fine writing. Upon My River, Upon My Soul and Words make up the rest of this Triple Treat.
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever – A Triple Treat of Tom’s”
literally stories 