Tag: Short Fiction

All Stories, Science Fiction

Personhood 2172 by Kimberly Lee

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A course I’m taking at the University received the dubious distinction of being voted “least popular” last semester. The results were based on an algorithm formulated by a group of thoughtless students. I happened to be in Dr. Phillips’ presence when the unwelcome news appeared in front of him on his Feed. I immediately signed up; I felt bad for him. “Que sera sera,” he’d said, a phrase I’d found soothing. I didn’t know what it meant, of course, but it sounded lovely. I’d pulled the definition up on my Feed and it didn’t disappoint. The class, by the way, is called “Say What?: Speeches and Turns of Phrases from the 20th and 21st Centuries.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

To Sleep Perchance to Dream by Stephen J Matlock

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There it was, in black and white: Cecily VanDeGroot, dead at 88. Rich. Well-known. A good-sized family who’d want a good show. One I could give them.

Damn. “Services provided by Eternal Rest.” Lo’Retta had beat me out again. Early bird gets the worm.

And so do the dead. But we don’t tell the customers that.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

All I Love Dies Alone by Leila Allison

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 Squirrel Pen Diary: First Entry

Last Wednesday morning I entered Our Lady Star of the Sea church during mid-week mass. While two dozen or so senior citizens went through the ancient, dusty rites (monotonously administered by an equally ancient and dusty priest), I rose unseen and snuck upstairs to a small balcony that communicates with the church’s attic. I climbed atop the guano splattered stone rail that hugs the balcony and balanced myself on one foot and held the other out as though I intended to take a seventy-foot step onto the marble walkway below. After I had done all that, there wasn’t much else to do except wait for someone to notice me.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Funeral by Kevin Counterman

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Sonny’s hand shook as he took a drag from his cigarette. Rain drops from the eaves above bruised onto Sonny’s faded grey scaly cap. He watched on as his lifelong friend Daniel reached the walkway to the funeral home. With his head down, and hands in his rain slicker’s pockets, Daniel walked down the cobbled path. “Sonny,” he said with a nod, as he reached the tall, twin hinged doors. The two men shared a moment of a silence, backs toward the funeral home, long faces towards the rain, as Sonny’s cigarette began to fade.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Trains, Ale & The Poet by Martyn Clayton

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‘You were cocky that first week at St Joseph’s,’ said Ian to Terry as the train pulled out of the station.  They’d been planning on having a quick pint in The Station Pump but Terry and Micky’s bus had been late so Ian had sat there drinking alone.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Talk Part Two by Frederick K Foote

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The Talk – part 1 

Mae’s back home and our abode’s now full of teen angst, motion, and noise. My daughter’s more than a handful, but Darin and I are glad to have her back at least for the first hour or so. I’m the primary custodial parent for both of our kids. However, my wife, Beth, has divorce decree defined vacation time with our children. Mae has blown off the last three vacation visits to her mother. To satisfy Beth’s angry demands and to avoid going back to court, I convince Mae to spend three weeks with her mother.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Receipt at Ogden’s Twist by Tom Sheehan

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Young Trace Gregson, thin and curly at eleven and generally happy-faced, cringed whenever he saw Dirty Molly Sadow. If there was such a thing as a bad witch about in the world, she was it. People said her toes were black with earth rich as The Hollow, and that she smelled foul as chicken leavings.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Many Sad Fates of the Family Jones  by Lucy Caird

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My Mum didn’t die a peaceful death. She got bitten on her toe by a rattlesnake whilst walking through the big park at night in her flip flops. She didn’t have the cell phone with her because my Dad had it that night. The poison got into her veins and stopped her heart. The next time when we saw her, she was all stiff and puffy. But her face was angry, most likely about the cell phone, I think. My Dad says she comes back in the form of a hurricane every few years or so and it’s our goddammed duty to weather the storm. He says they can call ‘em whatever they want – Irma, Katrina, Harvey, but they all Hurricane Josephine to him.

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All Stories, Horror

The Box by L’Erin Ogle

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The Box arrives on his fiftieth birthday.

It is sitting on the desk in his office, wrapped in shiny black paper, adorned with a scarlet bow.  It is square, the kind of box that might contain a paperweight, or a large book, or a box of chocolates.

Really, it could be anything.

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All Stories, Fantasy

  The Hiring of May Witherspoon by Tom Chambless

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May liked to set out bits of meat for the big birds. It was one of her few pleasures. She would dice up some cheap round steak and set it out in cubes along the porch rail. The part she loved, the thing about the ravens she adored was, they left her presents. She left them food and they left her a fake pearl, a thimble, little shiny things.

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