I’ve mentioned before that I don’t read novels anymore. I miss them but I think when you read as many shorts as we do, your reading discipline changes. At one time I enjoyed reading forty pages of build up, now I think ‘Get fucking on with it.’
Continue reading “Week 224 – Characters, Sixteen Points And Two Types Of Shandy”
The boy’s father considered there to be two primary aspects to parenting – the importance of time spent with the child and the importance of time spent without the child. One took precedence over the other. Once a month, without fail, the father would take the boy to the barber and they would both get their hair cut the exact same way. The father would have a shave and the boy would envy him while he had it. It was because of this ritual that the boy would forever remember the back of his father’s head.
I have a brother who isn’t a boy at all, but a fish.
When I tell people this, most of them chuckle politely, their bustling minds already flicking past the youthful imaginings of the charming little boy. That is, until they’ve seen him with their own eyes. My brother with his transparent fins and gills cut into the side of his neck and of course- the sea of shimmering scales that secretly hold all the colours of the world.
And the name of the star is called Wormwood…
–Revelation 8:11
Pus star Wormwood glowered ceaselessly in the cigarette sky. Although it was only midday, Wormwood pulled long shadows from the sour crabapple trees, whose fruit not even the crows will eat. Embittered little trees, Scotch broom, feral blackberries and scrub grass are all that grow in the brief ridges and ravines and knolls that serve as the community “backyard” throughout the valley. During wildfire season the broom pods burst and the smoky wind disperses their dusty spore. During wildfire season it’s easy to believe in hell.
It was official. Martin McClintock was scheduled for recall. Recall was his name for it. He’d also heard revoke, the big take back, shit outta luck (that was the sinners’ special), and the Rapture. That was a favorite of the bible thumpers. Whatever it was called didn’t matter though. His number was up and he knew it as soon as he opened his mailbox. Continue reading “Martin Gets a Letter by Ferguson Williams”
During the summer holidays when I was twelve my neighbour shot his three sons. I was at home with my brother when it happened. We were experimenting with a magnifying glass, colouring strips of card with different pigments to see which would burn first under the focussed triangle of sunlight. I remember the sound of the gun was a huge and deep boom. I could feel the concussive force even through the walls of our house. I heard a shot, a scream, two more shots, and then silence. Three shells fired from a breech loaded shotgun, each containing nine double aught spherical pellets, their destructive force expressed onto the children next door. The boys used to play in the yard. I would see them almost every day. They were all younger than me, twins and an elder, one at school. My mother would look after them from time to time when theirs wasn’t well. I tried to teach them how to play cricket.
The first Pango babies were born six years ago. It started in Southeast Asia so, naturally, no one in the West believed it. The odd morning show’s chuckling hosts would read reports of Cambodian women giving birth to strange creatures and they’d laugh it off. Then a Pango was born in San Francisco.
All writers have that one bugaboo story that refuses to finish. It’s as though the damned thing has something against you, and would do anything to mess with you, even to the point of sacrificing its chance of appearing anywhere in the Universe. My bugaboo story is called Renfield and the TomTom Ghost. It has been in production for two years, yet not even a hundred words have been “shot.”
Continue reading “The Renfield/TomTom Ghost Debacle by Leila Allison”
Leila Allison has rootled out a story by a strange one off author – who was Xavier? well who knows – but anyway this is what she said:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – The Elite Agency by Xavier P Xavier”
Well here we go again. We are at Week 222.
I’ve had a bit of time on my hands over the weekend and I’ve come to a few conclusions.
Continue reading “Week 222 – Pointless Coffee, Overworked Malcolm And Memories Of Cupid Stunt.”
literally stories 