Tag: neighbours

All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

I Don’t Like to Complain by Russell Dupont

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I don’t like to complain.

When you live in a neighborhood, side-by-side with other home owners, there’s a little give-and-take that has to go on. On one side of us there’s the Cummings. The Cummings are in their fifties and almost every Sunday they have a little family barbecue, their two sons and their families come over and the kids, they’re still kids, and they make a little noise but Fred Cummings is a good guy and I don’t mind the smoke from his grill because what he’s cooking usually smells good. By seven o’clock, they’re long gone.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Chicken Sandwich by T.A. Young

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Klib placed the bag on the counter and took out a sandwich. And now you have read the most boring sentence to begin a story ever. The bag, the counter, the sandwich, even Klib: nothing even remotely interesting.

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All Stories, General Fiction

 Mushawie off the Hill by Tom Sheehan

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Jimmy Mac, on the second-floor porch of his Smith Road house and the early sun barely creasing the edge of Baker Hill, looked over the top of the box scores, the Sox winning their fifth in a row, and saw, for the first time in he’d later guess to be about eight years, Mushawie just coming to the bottom of the Cinder Path. Coming off Baker Hill. He couldn’t remember Mushawie being off the hill. My God! Jimmy, said to himself. Nobody saw Mushawie unless he wanted them to see him, him socked away back in on the Delmere property the way he’d been since VJ Day in ’45.


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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

What We Discard by Gil Hoy

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On Wednesdays, I take my trash down to the curb. You have to wait until 3 pm to bring it down. It gets picked up on Thursday mornings at around 8 am. Our setup is a lot like other New England towns. There’s a blue bin for recyclables, a black bin for regular trash and a brown bin for yard waste.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

The Dog by Paul Goodwin

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My new neighbour is on the doorstep, towering and muscular, jaw thrust forward, bushy grey whiskers like a Victorian.  “Your dog kept me awake last night,” he says.  “Incessant howling.  Given me a headache.”

“Impossible,” I say.  “I don’t have a dog.”

He leans forward, slow like a crane.  His face is close to mine.  I see madness in his eyes.  His breath smells of tobacco.  “Don’t give me that.  Think I’m stupid?”

I force a nervous laugh.  “I’ve never had a dog.  Stick insects and a hamster when I was a kid.  Never a dog.”

He’s walking away.  He tells me he’ll get the police onto me.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Smoke from the Chimney by Tom Sheehan

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Diagonally, out my back window, pal Buzz Chadsy’s house sits like a white peppermint on the side lane, one house between us. In winter’s Christmas snow, it celebrates life and color, at Easter the calm is newly evident, at night a single bulb lights the living edifice. Many late evenings, it is the last sign of life as I trod to bed, to a deep sleep, or a night full of dreams on the run.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

The House Across the Street by Robert P. Bishop

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Harvey looked out his front window, saw the real-estate lady pull into the driveway of the house across the street and get out of her car. She walked to the For Sale sign with Sale Pending pasted diagonally on it.

Another victim is moving in, he thought.

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Guide to Walking Down My Street by Tim Frank

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I just want to get to my flat up the road, hoping I don’t bump into any of my neighbours, but they’re all loitering out front, sweat trickling into their eyes, swaying slightly in the raging sunshine. The road is long and straight with oak trees lining the pavement, creating circles of hot shade. Birds perch on branches and shit on BMW’s. Everyone wants the trees cut down.

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