Aphrodite and Thanatos sprouted from the concrete concourse of the high rise, low life, urban, projects. Public housing, private prisons, the new slave quarters, home to random, but, persistent and pervasive violence – every day.
Born without preamble or portfolio, trust fund or roadmap to success.
Continue reading “Aphrodite and Thanatos by Frederick K Foote”
I need to thank Tom Sheehan for my inspiration this week. I don’t know if anyone noticed but we published a relevant story on the holiday of its relevance, if you see what I mean. We don’t normally do this. We published an old friend of ours near Christmas on our first year (Hope you are well Sandy) but that was more by sheer coincidence as we were trying to get established and we were very short of stories. We wanted to keep it until June but the numbers wouldn’t allow.
Continue reading “Week 81 – Holidays, Relevance And Bad Poetry”
Sol Schmeckendorf dabbed at his work shirt with a wet napkin. The grease from the chicken and broccoli was going to leave a stain. The only solution was to ask for seltzer and even though it was his absolute favorite shirt—he just didn’t feel like it.
The first thing Miguel became aware of was the blistering sun on his cracked lips. He could feel the great white eye of the earth staring at him, taunting him to fully wake and confirm that his recurrent nightmare had once again followed him into morning. He opened his eyes and blinked slowly, taking in the brilliantly white-washed blue of the sky. It was day five. He felt death in his bones.
Continue reading “Between First and Final Breaths by Kathryn H. Ross”
Begley came here first, and the way I understand it, the fence surrounding the site hadn’t begun to unravel yet, so he had to enter subterranean style. He lowered himself through the sewer grate right out there on Kendall, under the old shuttered newspaper shed, having faith somehow it would lead him here, right under the old train station. It did, by the utility rooms and employee lockers, three floors down from where we’re sitting.
Continue reading “Most of Us Are From Someplace Else by Philip Ivory”
Old Scott’s Mill had given off odd sounds since the day it closed down. Now it gave off a sense of passage.
Yet again, our hearts go out to those effected by events in this sick world!!
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Something strange happened this week. I laughed and was filled with an ambition. I want to visit Iceland. (Sorry Diane, Adam and all my English friends!!!) I am petty, childish but grateful that this narrow-minded thought came to me as it gave me an idea for this post. Continue reading “Week 80 – Emotions, Pygmies And Paddling Pools”
I probably shouldn’t be doing this, but can’t think of a good reason not to. Maybe it’s true what my parents say about a teenager’s frontal lobe or cortex or whatever not being fully developed. Anyway, I’ll be back before they’re home. I slip the bracelet over my hand and slide the switch to Future.
Having spent the previous day stripping layers of old paint off the shop front the last thing she wanted to do today was begin on the interior. But needs must. Her body complained as she dragged it out of bed, Al still snoring contentedly beside her. He was a lazy bastard but to be fair to the boy he’d worked hard the previous day. He’d climbed ladders and brewed up and carried stuff and taken increasingly fraught instructions as she slowly reached the end of her tether. He moved an arm and an eye shot open then closed again, his head being buried further down into the pillow.
I’m sitting in my Manhattan psychiatrist’s office feeling so anxious and depressed that my limbs aren’t sure whether they should twitch spasmodically or rest heavy and stone-like inert. But the shrink, let’s call him Dr. Becks (in real life his surname is actually just a different brand of beer), has my fickle attention suddenly. Why? Because instead of talking about how to cure me of my various mental illnesses (the impossible dream) he’s talking about an idea he has to make my all but moribund fantasies of big-time Hollywood success come true. He thinks this screenplay idea that he thought up, based on some show he saw on the History Channel, would make a perfect project to attract the attention of one of his celebrity actor patients – let’s call her Kali Kass (in real life her first name is just that of a different Hindu goddess). And who better to write the initial spec screenplay treatment (i.e., unpaid long synopsis) than me, Evan Breach (pseudonym), the man who has written and directed micro-budget films that have been reviled around the world at tiny film festivals (and even the occasional big one, where at the coyote-like reviewers were waiting to rip him apart with mere words, their fangs dripping auteurial blood).
Continue reading “The Hell with Hollywood by Edward S Barkin”
literally stories 