Tag: memories

All Stories, General Fiction

Too Much Asia to Erase by Tom Sheehan

literallystories2014

Sleep in any odd alley came piecemeal to Chris Banntry (and never luck, he would add, if anything else.) He called it bonesleep or curbsleep, or a number of other things, just as long as minutes of it were sometimes accompanied by a kind darkness. He liked the minutes where his bones could soften for the merest of moments and his mind go blank and his stomach cease its horrible arguments, and the insects, the ants and other crawling enemies, might take a night off from arduous labors. The darkness, inevitably, could bring enemies of all sorts with it, or the strangest of friends.

Continue reading “Too Much Asia to Erase by Tom Sheehan” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Shoe in the Wall, or Viola’s Place by Tom Sheehan

literallystories2014

Day closed in around me, and the night that followed, reverie and recompense fighting for equal space, or so it seemed, for hours on end. I had come down the road for about 30 miles, my car loaded with a good assemblage of scrap wood from packing crates, the heft and feel of each piece hanging on my fingertips, like echoes on the rebound; you know, the kind that refuse to let you sleep, wondering what tree in what forest a man with a purring chain saw in his hand had figured to be good enough for cutting. Their images were locked up tight for me: I had cut wood in the state forest for six years at that point and tree selection had never bothered me, winter warmth with odds had grabbed me from slumber, working with my saw, the split logs in stacks growing each day in measureable cords.

Continue reading “The Shoe in the Wall, or Viola’s Place by Tom Sheehan” →

All Stories, General Fiction

The Cleaner   by R.L.M. Cooper

literallystories2014

October

Frank always hated rainy days. He hated them when he was working and he hated them when he was ill. Like today. Today was gray and wet. The leaves, falling steadily from the big oak out front, randomly blew against the rain-splattered window beside his bed and stuck there momentarily before gradually sliding down onto the sill where they gathered into a brownish, wet pile and ultimately fell to the ground beneath the rhododendron bush.

Continue reading “The Cleaner   by R.L.M. Cooper” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Story of the Week

The Boat Song by Tobias Haglund

Tobias Haglund

typewriter

 

“Dad! Dad! Are we there yet? Are we?”

“No.”

“But we’ve been driving for-EVER!”

“Quiet back there!”

Frida held her breath. Jack looked up in the rear-view mirror. “What are you doing?” He turned to Hanna. “What is she doing?”

Hanna turned around. “Are you holding your breath to be quiet?” Frida nodded her head enthusiastically. Hanna held out her hand and gave Frida a high-five. “I’m also going to hold my breath. We can’t disturb Jack!”

“Alright, ladies. I get it. Should I turn on the radio? Will some music make you happy, honey?”

…at an age of seventy-five. We celebrate his memory with a song Robert Broberg crafted in 1967. Here it is. The classic; ‘The Boat Song’.

One of the sailboats said, to the other that, you are lovely,
we should be boarding in hand, courting far from land,
sailing off unmanned, like only sailboats can,
Bada-bam-bam-bam-bam, bada-bam-bam-bam-bam…

Continue reading “The Boat Song by Tobias Haglund” →