My promotional Facebook ad campaign is far from ready. An upside down, high resolution, Marlene Dietrich holding my self-published book awaits my intervention. I hesitate before choosing the rotate option or is it the flip? Marlene looks regal, confident in her fur coat. What would Marlene think of a book starting with:
She loved lemons and would squirt them on everything, their yellow rind reminding him of her sunshine. Lemons never tasted sweeter. Without her, his heart wouldn’t beat right.
“Isn’t this all a bit – I don’t know – American?”
It was the only description I could think of that fully captured my distaste. I sat in the kitchen with my arms crossed, looking up at where Jack, my husband, and William, his publicist, were standing on the other side of the kitchen island; the low-hanging light above us illuminated their faces as they watched my every reaction.
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.
The bride brought only a small bundle from home. Wrapped in a deep blue silk, she carried medicines and a small bone whistle. The bride was from a family of witches fallen from grace in a time of altered belief. Her home was an island dripping warm green forest into a wide magic river.
Jim Elm knew there were no such things as happy endings. Someone lives, someone dies, someone carries on.
His wife Millicent had cheated on him and she would pay, but to Everett Harley it was much deeper than being unfaithful; she had constantly touched, with ridicule, what she thought was the most fragile element of his being, poetry; so, he made up his mind that he’d not allow her any pardon for her perils; no rhythm in leniency, no white space in the matter, no alliteration at all, at all.
Continue reading “Hence the Half-way House and the Poet by Tom Sheehan”
I met Libby through an online dating site after I graduated college. Our “In Tune” rating was exceptionally high. I tended to get nervous and tongue-tied around women, but it was different with Libby. We had so much in common we finished each other’s sentences half the time. I was so taken with Libby, I found myself growing more and more concerned about her spending time with anyone else.
Continue reading “The Drag Queen and The Dozen Dicks by David Henson”
I am a dutiful wife.
It’s Monday. Every Monday and Thursday, I visit Lucas. I always bring new flowers, and since it’s the summer they’re from my own garden. There are daisies and tulips and baby’s breath. It doesn’t matter what I add to the water, or how I snip them, they are always dead when I come the next time. The staff will have ensured there are no dead leaves scattered around the vase on his windowsill, but the stems will remain, withered stalks decaying in their coffin.
A chunk of ash-blonde hair, not yet white like the rest, is matted to Willa’s perspiring forehead. Her body is pasted to the damp sheet that’s pulled off the bottom corners of the sofa-sleeper, eliminating the soft barrier between her bare calves and the rough mattress—she must have been thrashing in her sleep again. She does that when she travels. Her husband, Riley, is standing over her. “There’s a diner down the road. I’m going for fresh coffee,” he says, banging his elbow as he turns in the narrow walkway of the motorhome. “Don’t feed the goat,” he yells, slamming the door behind him. It sticks.
Those women and his wife entered the coffee house and sat down. The girls’ day out shopping always ended at Yeoli’s. It was a gentrified coffee house on Banks Ave. It used to be a rundown storage facility. This was a smallish city, an old town. Pete sat outside Yeoli’s in his pickup truck, not directly in front, but down a short distance a little past the red brick trim. His wife couldn’t see him through the front glass.
Continue reading “The Great God Cernunnos by Tom Chambless – Adult Content!”
literally stories 