All Stories, Editor Picks, Fantasy, Short Fiction

Week 372: Family Circus of the Damned, Five Points of Light and Making Sad Amends

The Nobel Prize For Being a Corporate Tool Goes To…

Almost everything we read online is either a blatant lie or plain wrong. (Forget the “fake news” euphemism–for a kiss is but a kiss and a con is but a con.) For instance, I recall intelligent sources telling me that we use something like ten percent of our brains, and the rest may as well be cornbread stuffing until enough evolution goes by. Although this “fact” (like countless others) is certainly nonsense, someone smart started that misconception, which I bet more people believe than do not.

I’ve finally reached the point where I no longer blindly accept “facts” minus proof. I probably would be better off if I had arrived at this point sooner, but, maybe, “better late than never” is, at times, a valid sentiment–though still not much use in situations when the pardon arrives after the gallows has dropped.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Love? Don’t Make Me Laugh by Alex Barr

First time I laid eyes on Alanna, I thought, There’s a woman I want to saw in half.

She was in the audience, one leg in plaster stuck out into the aisle. After the show I watched her leave, expecting her to walk like a pair of compasses, but somehow she moved so gracefully everyone else looked awkward. I sent my assistant to catch her at front of house but she claimed she missed her, ha ha. And that’s where I should have left it. Stopped thinking about her. I  keep going over it, how I might have escaped this God-awful mess, financial and . . . yes, yes, all right, all the rest.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

A Strange Way to say I Love You by Matthew Senn

Harper Gillespie, newly fourteen, rode up to a place locals called Baby’s Bush to meet two of his friends: Dave Erich and Robinson Pike, both of whom were several years older. The bush stood in the middle of a field between two lines of pines. Almost as big as a house, they said every time someone tried to cut the bush down, they would have to stop because they heard a baby crying.

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All Stories, Historical

The Seventh Wave by AJ Lyndon

Port Fairy, Victoria 1859

I am grown now; and the sperm whales and the southern rights that brought the ships here seeking their precious oil and the bones which make corsets for ladies in far-away places no longer visit. But still the people come, and the farming settlement thrives. Port Fairy, named for a sea captain who landed in this spot, part of the Port Phillip District in the great southern land.

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General Fiction, Short Fiction

Good News Club by Leila Allison

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Mom was a world class liar. Once in a lifetime. She believed that a solid lie should have few moving parts; this theory allowed her to capitalize on the specious notion that true-sounding things are brief. Mainly, Mom got her whoppers over with a confident attitude,brevity and something in her eyes that told you not to fuck with it further.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

Roscoe and the Lightning Glory: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical

Roscoe was a three-year-old Dachshund who had a problem: his “Associate Human” (A.H.)–though in most other ways acceptable–had a thing for dressing poor Roscoe in ridiculous costumes and posting the result on her YouTube channel. Dachshunds are uncommonly dignified, and things like being forced into wearing a “Frankfurter” outfit for the sole purpose of the A.H. gaining likes and subscriptions hurt Roscoe’s pride.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

 Standing in the Rain to Wash the Sins Away by Tom Sheehan

He stood in the rain to wash his sins away thinking it would do the trick, cleanse his soul, invigorate him once more, to be what he once was. That’s our hero, Viking Arel Tor, neighborhood leader, pointer of straight or straighter paths, finder of fame, good luck, saving for you the best lady of all in your welcome arms, for now and always. Viking’s way in the world.

But where did he go wrong, our Viking?

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Cartoon by Cy Hill

It would be a lark to sit before a cartoonist at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, a joke because last night two of her oil paintings were hung in an art exhibition hall side by side with a pair of her husband’s oils.  Would not a cartoon of her be the perfect ironic token to give him to commemorate their recognition?  One local art critic dubbed them the “Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera” of Orange County, California.  Granted, her husband had cultivated him and planted the phrase, but now it was out there.

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