Tag: relationships

All Stories, General Fiction

What Grows in the Garden by Kathryn Lord

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The tiny clearing off to the side was cooler than the obscenely voluminous garden with its organized cacophony of colors – massed vermilions and oranges alongside indigos, violets, and fuchsias, eye-popping yellows and the occasional calm of white or cream.  Cedars bent over an exquisite pool, granite lined, with water more crystalline than glass.  Almost lost between moss-padded banks that nearly met, a miniscule stream fed the pool, dribbling over mammoth slate slabs stacked like pricey leather-bound books resting on deep emerald velvet.

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All Stories, General Fiction

In the Diner by Fred Skolnik

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Vernon looked at the menu. He saw

Breakfast Special

$2.95

in a box in the lower left-hand corner. That included orange juice, eggs, grits, coffee and a pastry. But he was in the mood for a proper chowdown. A matronly waitress came over and said, “What’ll it be, sweetie?” Vernon said, “I’ll have the pancakes, then the eggs and sausages. Fried eggs. What kind of pie you got?” The waitress said, “Apple, cherry, blueberry, pecan, lemon meringue.” Vernon said, “Yeah, give me blueberry – no, no, make that lemon meringue.” The waitress poured his coffee and brought him the pancakes with a small pitcher of maple syrup and a few pats of butter in a dish.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Milk of Human Kindness by Frederick K Foote

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“Hey, nigger, you about ready to die now, or you want to put that shit off until the sun look you in the eye?”

Big Smoke’s loomin over me sweatin and hackin open coconuts with his keen machete. He stoops to hand me a half a coconut full of milk. I lean back against the palm tree and try to accept the natural bowl but my hands start shakin, and the shakin ripples up my arms, across my shoulders, and my whole frame’s throbbin and bobbin.

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All Stories, General Fiction

After the Party by Andrew Miller

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Her chiming phone, the ring tone meant to be soothing, shattered their sleep. Alice sat straight up. “Yes-yes, what is it?”

It was Mrs. Johnson, two doors away. Her daughter had not returned from last night’s party at the beach. Did Keith know what beach? Could he go down there? It was almost light.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Departures by Lewis Carter

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We’d been drinking for hours when he asked me about her. Normally we talked about the rugby or pussy. It’s not that we didn’t have anything meaningful to say to each other; it’s just that when most guys get together they need an hour or two to talk shit before getting to anything real.

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All Stories, Humour

From the Mouth of Peter Dowd by Fred Vogel

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Man: Hello. I’m Peter. You are a lovely lady.
The lovely lady seated across from Peter: Well, thank you, Peter. I’m Georgia.
Peter: You are too pretty to be a state.
A courtesy smile.
Peter: You have perfect teeth.
Georgia: I brush between meals.
Peter: Good concept.
Georgia: You should try it.
Peter: I believe I will.
Georgia: Tell me, Peter, why are you here?
Peter (after a brief moment of reflection): I believe religion to be an archaic concept that caters to the insecurities of fragile, ignorant people. And you?
Georgia: Goodbye Peter.
Peter: Goodbye Georgia. Continue reading “From the Mouth of Peter Dowd by Fred Vogel” →

All Stories, General Fiction

The Inescapable Touch of Sunset By Leila Allison

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The atavistic avatar dropped from space:

“I did it only to see the look on our face.”

1

On his way across the short overpass that unofficially connects Corson Street to Torqwamni Hill, Holly glances down at a small house below. It’s an ugly little fist-like rental that had gone up during the Second World War—as had countless others of its kind in Charleston. Like the caw of a crow or a bit of dandelion fluff getting stuck to your cheek, this house exists only in the moment you share with it. Yet nearly thirty years gone by, the same house had once unclenched and gave Holly a touch of honesty; thus it had it had earned in his mind its own small history.

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All Stories, General Fiction

All Saints Day by Tobias Haglund

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”I used to live up there, in the red house. My window was just behind the oak tree and I stared out during the night, over this graveyard. I guess you can imagine how I’d fantasized.  Wandering ghouls and vampires. Back then only this lamppost existed. Not that one or the one after. This lamppost was like a lantern, a lonely lantern in the dark, and during damp autumn nights when it was dead silent I snuck down here and stood next to it. Heard only the flickering sound of the lightbulb. The hedges were walls all around me. And when a wind flew through the branches and when someone visited the graveyard, I hid in the bushes.”

Erica pressed out a mint from the candy tube and ate it. “Time to go?”

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Hermit of Breakheart Woods by Tom Sheehan

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Over millions of years ago Breakheart Woods, between Saugus and Wakefield in Massachusetts, had been bookmarked by boulders and blow-offs and earthly cataclysm, and to this day, somewhere in its innards from those first struggles of granite and earth fire, from violent fractures and upheavals to be known again only at the end of it all, was a cave, a cave as dark as a heart, a cave that once, I believed, pulsed with a heart. Now we were searching for that cave, in earnest.

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All Stories, Romance

Meeting of Minds by Raymond Hopkins

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People have asked just how it was that Sandra and me got together in the first place. I mean, it seems a bit unlikely, if you know what I mean. After all, there’s Sandra, small, educated, a right stunner that makes men choke on their beers at first sight, a snappy dresser that causes men’s eyes to wander rapidly southwards in the hope of even better stuff below, and a helpless looking nature which she uses to good effect when she wants somebody to do something for her. Not that she needs it, as she is quite capable of looking after herself whenever there is nobody else around.

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