Considered objectively, Alan wasn’t really one of the bad guys. Provided it didn’t cost him significant quantities of time and/or cash, he was okay about helping out unfortunate relatives, friends, or neighbours. He had a soft spot for rough sleepers, as long as they weren’t hallucinating. He claimed, with some justice, that when he was working he’d worn a hole in the arse of a perfectly good suit sitting on committees, but he remained willing to do the odd shift of volunteering here and there.
Brutal, late May. Wet blankets of hot weather, suffocating. When the midday heat receded, Thomas nixed the novellas (Mattie’s legacy), filled a tall glass with seltzer and ice, and padded into the yard. He sprayed the concrete and his chair, sat on the damp fabric facing east toward the fishtail palm and the privacy fence, looking up at the eaves of the cottages the far side of the street. Old Florida. Wood and stucco. Termites and social security checks. Not yet gentrified.
Diane tilted her head back to find the top of the slide, one hand shading her eyes, and thought: that’s very high up for an eight-year-old alone.
“Mom, can I go?”
Her eyes followed the slide’s downward arc, its twists and loops. Bodies zipped through the tube. Muffled cries reverberated outward to the ground. Her chest tightened.
My great great great great great grand daughter, Miss Allison, usually tends to the bi-weekly festivities at Literally Stories, but her continuous state of despair has created a temporary state of mental paralysis brought on by the conspicuous consumption of apple jack on an empty stomach, heart and soul. Therefore she beseeched Yours Truly, Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender Spirit, to fill in for her this bi-week.
They always show the birds on TV. Black all over, matted, and unrecognizable. I wonder if the people watching even know what the birds looked like before. Vero used to track the murres around the sound. Their heads were always black, but their feathers were snow white. I told Vero’s kid once that if the fish stopped coming, we’d have to hunt the birds. She cried and cried. Stupid joke. Doesn’t matter. They’re all dead now, the fish, the birds, Vero. They never put Vero on the TV, only the birds.
The interview room was sweltering. Flies gathered around the one small window high up on the street-side wall. The Scottish summer heat didn’t seem to bother the old woman in the other chair. Archie’s first thought was how cool she looked. The tweed jacket remained on despite the heat and the pearls sat perfectly against the olive green twinset. Every tight white curl had been marshalled precisely into position. His own shirt had begun sticking to his back an hour ago.
When a farmer dies in Scotland, it’s the convention that he gets a big funeral. So, when auld Jockie Murdoch of Muirside died, it wasn’t just his relatives and his neighbours who turned up for him, but all the other farmers for many miles around, who’d known him from the auction marts and the agricultural shows, plus the contractors who’d shifted his animals, transported his fertiliser and lime, delivered his fenceposts and similar gear, the vet, the bank manager, the insurance agent, the auctioneer, the farmers’ union rep, and so on. There must’ve been more than a hundred of us.
Twelve bodies in the last month with the same MO. Each victim had blunt force trauma to the back of the head, indicating a surprise attack. Once stunned, the brutal attack continued. The autopsies showed multiple broken bones, ruptured organs, and, in one case, a heart attack. The bruising on the skin indicated that the same weapon used to hit the head was also used to beat the victims to death. The murder weapon was still unknown after twelve murders. Hoofprints were all over each crime scene, which indicates the killer knows how to handle a horse. In a farming community like this one, that offers almost no help.
Since this is a bit of a milestone, six hundred weeks is something to behold, I’m going to start off in a good mood, I can’t promise that I’ll stay that way as life trudges on and I’ve found that it goes out it’s way to annoy me. I can sit here, being happy and I can guarantee that a phone-call, a thought or an email will make me want to kill someone. Probably the fucker who phoned, or sent the email or I thought about.
So to begin with, I need something to make me smile.
This band always does!!
*I’d also like to ask two quick riddles
1. What do you call a spider with ten eyes?
2. What is so fragile that even stating it’s name breaks it?
Following on from my topic last time, I want to advise, again, something that we have mentioned before. Some topics will never make it, as, well, we just don’t like them. The one that I want to touch on is animal cruelty.
We hate that.
I wrote about Peter Mullen in my previous Saturday’s Post. He has done some brilliant work. (‘Trainspotting’, ‘Neds’, ‘My Name Is Joe’ etc.
I wanted to watch ‘Tyrannosaur’ which he also stared in but THANKFULLY I read about the first scene. Due to that, I’ve avoided it like the plague.
I also have only watched ‘The Wee Man’ just once because of the same sort of reason.
Gwen loves those John Wick films but when I heard his dog was killed – I ain’t watching them either.
This is a lesson to the fucking outraged – If you know you will be outraged, don’t read the fucking story!!
Since this is number six hundred, I reckon I need to do something enlightening and appropriate. I thought about a lot of the topics I’ve used in these and also the points I’ve made and those that have been made to us. I’ve come up with this. It’s a sort of list of things that I’ve used and the experience that we’ve all gained. I’ve done these since Week 64 and Leila has taken one every two weeks since around Week 360ish.
I would say that I have learnt a helluva a lot about the site, these postings, writing and myself in that time.
So in no particular order!
– A statistic first. We’ve had over 17 000 submissions.
– Since Week 64, I’ve been trying to work out how to easily find out how many writers we have.
– From those, only three people who’ve been published took umbrage with us.
– There are only three previous writers who we would now never consider.
– AI is something newish. There wasn’t many stories of this ilk at the beginning. There is now and they are mostly fucking boring.
– There are always exceptions.
– Sometimes there are never exceptions.
– We changed the guidelines once and had to change them back due to some woke fuckwit. I really do regret that…But for the good of the site, I was happy to accept my regret.
– All our decisions are for the good of the site.
– Telling us you have chronic dandruff and such like is more information than we need.
– If we piss you off, have some pride, stay pissed off!!
– If you become un-pissed off, I can’t promised that we’ll do the same.
– A decision is a decision, asking us to change our mind is futile.
– We can spot passive aggressiveness in an email a mile away. We will respond courteously but we really want to answer with ‘Fuck off and die’!
– We’ll always be professional.
– In our minds and wishes, we can be really childish.
– Comments instigate thought and inspiration.
– Those who don’t comment or read comments are missing out on thought and inspiration.
– I’ve used comments between myself, Leila and Diane as inspiration for these postings.
– We can’t thank those who comment enough!
– As already mentioned in this post, animal cruelty stories will never get through. I’m still traumatised by the late, great Tom Sheehan’s brilliant but harrowing story ‘Titanic’. (I’m filling up as we speak)
– We all miss Tom Sheehan.
– We’re all in awe of the amount and quality of Tom’s work.
– The three topics that I use for a title in these postings, I try not to use the words from the body of the posting.
– I’ve always wondered if anyone noticed the point above?
– Sometimes the number of the posting has relevance.
– There are only two films with the number 600. They are ‘The 600’ (A Rwandan film) and ‘600 Miles’ staring Tim Roth.
– I know fuck all about Rwandan films.
– Anything with Tim Roth in is worth watching – I’ll have a look.
– Any song that has the number 600 in it, to me, looks like shit.
– I know very little about classical literature and very seldom do I use any content in these postings. Except to slag off ‘1984’ and Shakespeare.
– I wonder if my slagging off of any topic is insecurity?
– See above – Fuck that – They bore me!!!
– I sometimes scribble down bits and pieces that’ve made me think and I hope that I can use them in The Saturday Posting, but as a rule I very seldom know what I’m going to write about. – I’m sure you’ve noticed.
– Another old tip. Never in the name of fuck, class you or your story as hysterical.
– PC, Woke, Proclaimers and The Outraged are and always will be cunts.
– I swear a lot but I don’t give a fuck!
– Our (You) writers are as good, if not better than many a published writer!!
– I will always hate romance!
– Sometime happy coincidences happen. This part of the posting is exactly 600 words!
Okay onto this week’s stories.
We had two new writers, a third timer, a sixth timer and a twenty-fifth timer.
To our new folks, we welcome them, hope that they have fun on the site and continue to send us their work.
Send in a Re-Run (A story you read a while back and enjoyed) Throw in an introduction and we will post what you send us.
Please keep commenting or begin to comment.
Say ‘Thanks’ to the folks who take the time to read and comment.
Before I forget*
1. A spiiiiiiiiiider.
2. Silence
I need to thank Mr Tam Cowan whose column in ‘The Sunday Post’ has given me a few of the really stupid jokes I’ve used.
Just before a last piece of music, I will leave you with something he was pondering…
‘I’ve read a lot about rivers and the term for effluent is always raw sewage…What kind of weirdo cooks it??’
I’ve been watching ‘Lazarus’ by Harlan Coben – Not my favourite of his but it was still enjoyable and there is a song throughout that reminded me of a cover that was miles better than the original. If ever a song suited a voice, this is that one!
Oh and we just had to say:
Thanks to all of you who have stuck with us over these six hundred postings, the writers, the readers and especially those who comment – We appreciate you all!!!
In hindsight, I wondered if Marge was telepathically receiving my violent fantasies. Was this my fault? I remember trying to turn a light bulb on with my thoughts when I was a kid—not even a flicker. But that doesn’t mean telekinesis or ESP don’t exist.
literally stories 