Don’t worry if you can’t work out whether or not you saw double in Week 61.
I can assure you, you did.
No need therefore to visit an Ophthalmologist or a Neurologist or anyone whose job title ends in ologist. Your eyes were not deceiving you. There were two Allisons, but only one Cron, who made a double appearance, plus a welcome return to Literally Stories by Dave Louden.
Continue reading “Literally Stories – Week 61 – Seeing Double”
There may be organizations more useless in the universe than my union, but I’m at a loss to name one. Just this afternoon I was seated at the wrong side of my rep’s desk; and although the gent eventually professed sympathy for my plight, I could tell from his er-ing and hmmm-ing, uh-ing and you-don’t-saying, that when it came to fixing a grievance, he’d be as effective as a chimpanzee pitted against Einstein in an equation smack-down at Math Camp.
Continue reading “The Amalgamated Union of Pennames and Imaginary Friends by Leila Allison”
Hey “Kamp-town Racist”… here’s a poem– doo-dah, doo-dah…
Roses are red, violets are blue–without your brilliant literary and sociological insights I wouldn’t know what to do.
Alfred Klumpner aka Drunk Holden Caufield aka Whitey
…
She bought a maternity t-shirt that said “Friends Don’t Count Chromosomes,” and she wore it like we were getting just what we’d hoped for. I spent my time praying that the test had been wrong. I listened to Imagine and added my own verses “Imagine all the people, living without disease…”
#1: Put a mirror in front of your feeding bowl. Cucumbers generally approach from directly behind and often attack while the victim is eating. Make sure the mirror is above you and tilted downwards so that you can clearly see the floor behind you. Should you spot a cucumber sneaking up, turn around to face the cucumber and back slowly out of the room. Whatever you do, do not panic and jump wildly into the air! You’re likely to come down directly on top of the cucumber.
The local bus huffs and heaves its way into Way Stop, West Virginia. It halts with a shudder and a sigh in the mid-morning sun.
I collect my duffle bag and straighten my fatigue uniform jacket. On Main Street, there’s an honest to goodness general store, a diner, Bob’s Gas Station, a few empty store fronts and two small white churches almost directly across the street from each other. The June morning is moving toward hot. I move toward the diner for coffee and directions.
Continue reading “Mourning Becomes Her by Frederick K. Foote”
It was a snowy Saturday and I was headed to King Carol Record store on the Upper East Side to check out what new albums were in. Zig-Zag Records was nearby so I could swing by there as well.
It was the 1980’s and I was totally into music like the Talking Heads, Duran Duran and Devo and all the other bands that were becoming popular on a new channel called MTV.
It was late afternoon and I don’t remember if I was baked but I’d say the odds of that were 50-50.
Our resident Statsmeister, Nik Eveleigh — as he doesn’t give a fig feel free to mangle the pronunciation of his fine family name any which way you like for instance try Evil-Eye, Evel-Eeee or in Afrikaans I am reliably informed, Ever-LICCCCHHHHHHH — has been busy tweaking his spreadsheet.
Cape Town this time of year is a trifle warm I understand, so we mustn’t judge. However, for once Mr. Ever-LICCCCHHHHHHH’s obsession with figures — I mean extremely useful hobby — has produced a stat worth dwelling on for more than 0.37 seconds.
A submission we received at Literally Stories in the past couple of days tipped the total word count for all said submissions over the one million mark.
Yeah. I know. I should have warned you to sit down first.
Folk as far afield as Reykjavik and Rotherham, Berlin and Barnsley are reeling in the face of this earth-shattering revelation and no doubt wondering if in fact it was their story that triggered this sensational milestone and what exactly this means to them.
In an ideal world a pop-up box should have appeared on the ‘lucky’ author’s screen informing them that as the writer of the one millionth word to be read by the Literally Stories Editors they had won a holiday for two to the Seychelles.
Sadly, Pop-Up blockers being what they are these days thrills such as that are a thing of the past.
What hasn’t changed is Monday’s promptness at the beginning of our literary week…
Continue reading “Literally Stories – Week 58 – One million words”
Stuttering lights crossed the night sky as the drones floated above the spidery criss-cross of network cables, just a few inches above my head. I kept thinking about the cameras pointed at my house, wondering if I would get to see the recording of that moment when my life changed. I followed the movement of the hovering four-armed machines until my eyes stung.
3 AM. Time to eat. I went back inside my house and ate a dozen cold chicken nuggets from a box lying on the counter. My appointment with the filing officer was at 7 AM. I couldn’t sleep, even after dinner.
Hey Sully:
Hoping all is well atop the literary world. I told you if I got really bored I would write a story about you but instead of a story– all that you inspired was a tiny little poem. Check it out!
literally stories 