Tag: relationship

All Stories, General Fiction

The Bard of Oracle Park by Leila Allison

literallystories2014

 

typewriterOracle Park has one tree. It’s a little non-fruiting cherry that seems nervous because cherry trees usually grow in numbers. They typically line parkways and chatter amongst themselves like a backstage gaggle of pink-clad chorus girls. By itself, however, a cherry tree seems fretful. Now, a lone wolf oak is expected—for it has a greedy nature that sucks up the best of the soil and hastens the death of the grass around it. But not the cherry; they are used to sharing resources as though they are swapping garters and smoking off the same cigarette. One suspects that without intervention the little cherry in Oracle Park may die of anxiety, or from overdosing on too much sunshine and minerals. If this one survives, it will most likely grow to cast an uneasy shadow.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Liquid Memory by Christopher Dehon

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typewriterI pulled up to the 7/11 and realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ordered an Icee. I mixed Coke and Strawberry into the biggest cup they had. I remembered when Cheyenne and I were in middle school how we used to mix this with the vodka her mom never bothered to lock up. The girl behind the counter looked like she’d recently graduated from high school, although she held herself with a toughness beyond her years. She’d either shrunk her uniform shirt on purpose or lied about her size, because I could see her belly button ring on her washboard stomach. I looked at the half-eaten nachos behind her and figured she only had a few more years to look like this. She didn’t ask where I was going or where I’d come from. When she handed me my change, I noticed the frenzy of old cuts on her left arm. These weren’t those superficial, privileged, symmetrical cuts girls in my high school had. These were frantic and left her arm looking like an old cutting board. These were the cuts that you get when your uncle’s bent you over a couch for a year and no one believes you. I thought about giving her a hundred dollar bill to impress her. I could tell her where I was headed. She’d be touched and give me her number, and then…what? I threw a pack of Cheyenne’s brand of smokes on the counter, paid with a twenty, and left.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Aphrodite and Thanatos by Frederick K Foote

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typewriterAphrodite and Thanatos sprouted from the concrete concourse of the high rise, low life, urban, projects. Public housing, private prisons, the new slave quarters, home to random, but, persistent and pervasive violence – every day.

Born without preamble or portfolio, trust fund or roadmap to success.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Comet with a Nasty Tale by Tom Sheehan

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The morning, at the outset, had no promise of being ecstatic, though Professor Clifton Agnuus put the rock into his briefcase. Every time out it was about eight pounds of drama for him, at least at the start of term, and now off on a new year. A storyteller he should have been, he argued, a yarn spinner, the kind of a writer that Professor Albie Short, over in A&S, his one good buddy, drooled over, and had been doing so for almost forty years. Albie was apt to open a conversation by saying something like, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” There was a time Albie would likely answer a telephone call the same way, or with Bartlesby the Scrivener’s opening remark, “I AM a rather elderly man,” but all that had sloughed off when he was burned by some wise-ass responses. For reasons best known by them, he and Albie liked each other. If anything, Agnuus might say Albie was the coin’s other side.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Moira, Actually by Adam Kluger

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Sol Schmeckendorf dabbed at his work shirt with a wet napkin. The grease from the chicken and broccoli was going to leave a stain. The only solution was to ask for seltzer and even though it was his absolute favorite shirt—he just didn’t feel like it.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Between First and Final Breaths by Kathryn H. Ross

literallystories2014

typewriterThe first thing Miguel became aware of was the blistering sun on his cracked lips. He could feel the great white eye of the earth staring at him, taunting him to fully wake and confirm that his recurrent nightmare had once again followed him into morning. He opened his eyes and blinked slowly, taking in the brilliantly white-washed blue of the sky. It was day five. He felt death in his bones.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Victorian Anthropology by Martyn Clayton

literallystories2014

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Having spent the previous day stripping layers of old paint off the shop front the last thing she wanted to do today was begin on the interior. But needs must. Her body complained as she dragged it out of bed, Al still snoring contentedly beside her. He was a lazy bastard but to be fair to the boy he’d worked hard the previous day. He’d climbed ladders and brewed up and carried stuff and taken increasingly fraught instructions as she slowly reached the end of her tether. He moved an arm and an eye shot open then closed again, his head being buried further down into the pillow.

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