Tag: relationships

All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

(100) Calling Occupant By Leila Allison

ireneallison12

Saturday, 8 February 2014

Torqwamni County Convalescent Center

4:53 A.M.

Naturally, the first thing healthy people experience when visiting the Torqwamni County Convalescent Center (T3C) is depression; many often secretly promise to kill themselves if they should wind up “like that,” but they never do. Mainly, T3C contains a sum of breathing bodies greater than the number of active minds. Most are elderly, and all are persons too well (in the technical sense) for the hospital but too sick to go home. Hardly any ever go home, save for in the religious view; most depart in the coroner’s van.

The inadequately appreciated orderlies and CNA’s and housekeepers, the real workers who do the staggering dirty work, and who are first blamed when something goes wrong, do their best to take care of the people in double occupancy rooms shared by pairs of the same kind of people: plainly, men with men, women with women, an active mind with another. The insensate are also kept together, or utterly alone, if their population is at an odd number.

Continue reading “(100) Calling Occupant By Leila Allison” →
All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

99 Maab and the Rehab Spirit: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical By Leila Allison

ireneallison12

Introduction

Maab is my first FC to name herself. She was simply the Photobomb Fairie until she began to talk. When she called herself “Mab” the first time, someone pointed out that her name has been used by Shakespeare and others, and hardly original. It turns out that Mab is as common a name among Fairies as Taylor is in cheerleading.

No one remembers how the second A landed in the middle of her name, I’m guessing a typo. But Maab liked it and told everyone to call her Maab, and that she would hear it if you omitted either A.

Physically, Maab is four inches long, mostly iridescent green and is a very attractive mix of a Dragonfly and a Tinkerbell sort of person. Like everyone else, Maab moves at various speeds, but unlike the rest of us she is able to hop dimensions and seemingly disappear from common sight and yet still be “there” when captured by a camera–hence the title Photobomb Fairie.

Continue reading “99 Maab and the Rehab Spirit: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical By Leila Allison” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Biff Malibu by James Hanna

literallystories2014

My wife, Mary, and I sit on the deck of The Boatyard, a Sarasota seafood restaurant. Since our retirement, we lunch here several times a month. Mary is eating a hamburger because she is allergic to seafood. I am devouring fish-and-chips, which I have smothered with malt vinegar.

Continue reading “Biff Malibu by James Hanna” →
All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Step by Yash Seyedbagheri

literallystories2014

Mother, the one who birthed us, was the one who turned the oven on. Tossed us in there, my older sister Nan and me, as though we were turkeys at Thanksgiving. She was too strong for us to resist, though we tried, squirming, kicking. But she was still strong.

Continue reading “Step by Yash Seyedbagheri” →
All Stories, General Fiction

Quiet Longed For, and You by Marco Etheridge

literallystories2014

Sunday morning, and some idiot is trying to start his piece of crap car, cranking it over and over. Will that battery never die? There’s no fuel or no air or a lack of both and all the hope in the world is not going to light that sorry engine off. Give it a rest, will you please, for the love of all things holy, or if not divine then at least civil?

Continue reading “Quiet Longed For, and You by Marco Etheridge” →
All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

1975 b.c.e. By Leila Allison

ireneallison12

-1-

A Saturday Morning, 1975 b.c.e

One, two, three, four, five…

One, two, three, four, five…

One, two, three, four–

As she lay in bed, Tess shoved the early morning hum of the street and small under-noises in the apartment out of her mind and focused solely on the little clicks she heard in Anna Lou’s room.

Tess knew about Anna-Lou’s habit. Her mother was a careless telephone gossip, especially when in her wine, which was pretty much always. “The doctor’s been feeding her Percodan and God knows what since they shot Lincoln.”–or something similar, was what Mom said to friends on the phone when the subject was Great Aunt Louise. For some boozy reason, Mom believed if she lowered her voice to a confidential tone that neither of her children would make a special effort to listen.

Continue reading “1975 b.c.e. By Leila Allison” →
Fantasy, Short Fiction

It Lets the Air In By Leila Allison

ireneallison12

Fittingly, it began at the end of the world, New Delhi. The job now over, the American was about to board the first of many trains west when a slumped and shambling beggar in a ratty shawl stopped him on the platform. “Rupees, rupees,” the familiar whine. The American sighed and smiled and said, “Sure, all right. For old time’s sake.” It was eight-thousand miles to Madrid, but God damn India had a way of converting distance to years.

He offered the wretch a few coins, but the figure in the shawl slapped them away, which caused a hell of a scrum amongst other beggars on the platform.

“Hi, hi, what for hell’s sake is this, I’ll show you,” said the American. He had a temper, and often raised his hand. But the beggar stood erect and kept on standing until he was at least a foot taller than the American, not a small man himself. Arms lashed out from under the shawl and hands of unimaginable strength grabbed the American by the shoulders and lifted him near, toes scraping the boards. Despite the violence and surprise of the situation, the American wasn’t a coward. He summoned the nerve that had distinguished him from others in the Great War and looked up at the face under the shawl. All he saw was darkness.

Continue reading “It Lets the Air In By Leila Allison” →
All Stories, Fantasy

Boxes by Shira Musicant

literallystories2014

Lizzie’s dark curls held sparkling rain diamonds. Her eyes were bright. Julia! Lizzie often arrived unexpectedly, coming through the walls or the door.

I brought you a present. A box, Lizzie said. A little box, she added, her eyes laughing.

Continue reading “Boxes by Shira Musicant” →
All Stories, General Fiction

On the Radio, Ronald Reagan is Wheezing by Adelino de Almeida

literallystories2014

It’s Friday, and on the radio, Ronald Reagan is wheezing his way through a speech. I hear him often, he’s always on the news, on TV, on the radio. This is his decade, and from his sibylline delivery I learn that his economic policies will one day make me rich. I cannot understand how, and he does not explain it either; so, for now, I just hope that my mates and I can keep our jobs.

Continue reading “On the Radio, Ronald Reagan is Wheezing by Adelino de Almeida” →