Tag: loss

All Stories, General Fiction

Company of Angels, Company of Men by Tom Sheehan

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With eight hundred miles of road under my butt in the last three days, my blood sugar barely holding the line, a couple of old wounds still talking sass to me, whatever else was bugging me besides my errand, fell off the face of the Earth when Disher Menkin’s wife Elsie, the new widow, still somewhat of a knockout though she’d collected some flesh under her chin she’d never try to hide, a few other imperfections lost in a surprisingly good figure, hardly ever taciturn at best, said, “Where the hell have you been, Coop, when we needed you most?”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Rags By Tom Sheehan

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Rags, her son Greg’s dog, was a mutt who came home one day with her 12-year-old son, probably after being lost or dropped off by some callous owner and most likely hungry and attracted to Greg’s demeanor, soft voice, gentle hands, and a whistler, and that for much of his days when permissible.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Who Knows Who Lived in My House, Built in 1742, or Your House by Tom Sheehan

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For history and legend sakes, certain attributes, character traits if you will, have to be appointed here at the beginning of This old house (B. 1742), home for more than half a century of my life, and This old room, dressed with computer by me for the last 28 years. Yet I swear thick-cut Edgeworth pipe tobacco bears its welcome as strong as my grandfather’s creaking chair, diminutive Johnny Igoe’s chair. This most memorable compartment was also his room for 20 years of literate cheer, storied good will, the pleasantries of expansive noun and excitable verb, and his ever-lingering poems, each one a repeated resonance, a victory of sound and meaning and the magic of words. Yet be of stout spirit, for the chair mocks time only in the clutch of darkness thick as the eternal void, and the tobacco’s no longer threatening in its gulp.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Elon by Olivia Parkinson

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The day she left me, she left the fish. The gloopy, dead-brained goldfish sitting in our room. My room now, fuck her. I don’t miss her. She used to ask her if I missed her when she went away in the summer- not really I’d say, she’d come back in three weeks. That made her cry. Why do people cry when you tell the truth?

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All Stories, Horror

On the Edge by Mel Nicholson

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Aeryn Baker climbed into the back of his limousine and read the letter from his late husband, Van Philip Harris, for perhaps the hundredth time.

            Dearest Mother and Beloved Husband, 

You each have been a comfort and loving support to me in your unique ways, though the feud between you has been a source of consternation to me. It is my earnest wish that the two of you find a deeper understanding of one another. Toward that end, I wish the two of you to spend an evening together on my yacht, the Floating Edge. Should either party decline to participate, the declining party shall be awarded the sum of one dollar. The remainder of their inheritance shall be forfeit.

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Thousand Little Benjies by Mohammad Sadegh Sadeghi

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I

A thousand little Benjies constantly talk in my head. A thousand little creatures speaking, some in subdued almost suppressed and some in apprehensive yet hollow tones, somewhere in my head. They all talk, all of them, together, simultaneously. Shut up, shut up, shut up. They keep repeating those words. Like parrots on cocaine, they keep repeating those words. Blah, Blah, Blah. Tickets please, sir. I was sitting, and the clock went one, then two, then three, then she came picked me up and then we were here and I was sitting again but we were moving. And we are moving, and they are moving, and those are moving, and maybe it was a bicycle and not a bike. Maybe we’re not moving at all, and it’s just my head horsing around. I have liquid memories and container moods, the latter follows shape and the former follows suit. I press my eyes against my palms, and I melt right through. They won’t let me forget. These bastards won’t let me forget.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Absolution by Leila Allison

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“Is it fair?”

 Those were the last words Eddie said to the man he had thought I was before he drifted back into the only honest sleep of his final days. A smiling sleep caused by my youngest daughter, who did one of the finest  things I have ever seen a human being do.

Eddie died yesterday, and his parents have asked me to speak at his “Celebration of Life” this Sunday. I have plenty of harmless Eddie anecdotes to warm hearts and kill ten minutes with. It may be cynical of me to say it, but even though the most timid human being tends to live an R-rated life, few celebrations of such are anything less than family friendly.

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Noise the House Makes On Its Own by Jack Caulfield

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A NOISE THE HOUSE MAKES ON ITS OWN

 

Alone with his longing, he lies down on his bed
and sings a lament; everything seems too large,
the steadings and the fields.

                                                                  Beowulf

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