Tag: Short Fiction

All Stories, General Fiction

Twolips by Gerry Coleman

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“A dream fulfilled is a dream lost.” 
                                                                          —Mickey Lafferty

The year Rosemarie Zuccarrelli moved away from Ninety Second Street to live with her maternal relatives in the Midwest, we were thirteen.

She quickly metastasized into likenesses and lies, was diluted by adaptations and revisions I fabricated to fill forward the missing frames. I did what most teenaged boys did: I played sports, pushed my luck with inaccessible girls, snuck beers, and cheated on tests. I wrote poems. Spare poems I did not share, poems touching upon alienation and nothingness, the depths of the surrounding black and unyielding ocean, and the silence of God in the world.

I idolized her.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Last Number by Arpi Vanyan

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She had done the same thing every evening for three years.

She would pour tea into a cup with a chipped rim, sit by the window, pick up her phone, and dial a number.

The same voice, every time.

“The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Resurrection Blues by Joel Bryant

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After the break-up of Dystopian Dentist, I immediately decided to form a new band. Screw those other guys, holding me back, crushing my artistic vision.

I was looking to move to a more blues sound, which made me immediately think of bringing in Croydon Dan. He was the only string slinger I coveted. Cat played like he’d been born in the Deep South, not South London. We’d lost touch over the years, so imagine my major dismay when I found out that Dan was pushing up the daisies. I never did discover how, but the dude did have issues. Still losing him was a massive bummer. He’d have been perfect; music was in his bones. Weird to think that would soon be the only thing left of him.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Relentless Pickle by David Henson

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I look out our window at the crowd — men and women with their shirts and blouses untucked on one side, some holding up sneakers onto which they’ve written obscenities. The people chant my name and that of my wife, Monica. A few also cheer for our daughter, Lori, who runs up to her bedroom and slams the door.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Claw  by Mark Czanik

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Everyone was scared of it, although it was just a hand I found in the gutter. Not even a gripping one. ‘The Claw! Beware the Claw! Son of Claw!’ I cried as I chased them up and down the garages.

Pamela and Trudy ran screaming into the sanctuary of Trudy’s back garden. Harry flapped his arms like a wounded bird. Windy somehow heaved himself up by the drainpipe onto the asbestos garage roof and sat there hunched like a gargoyle, while Pods was so terrified he ran into Ted’s empty garage and pulled both doors shut on himself. I couldn’t catch any of them.

‘Revenge of the Claw!’

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All Stories, General Fiction

Baby’s Breath by Leanne Simmons

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Peggy Garrett must have been glad that Geary’s had given up on the old way and got a ramp fitted. For years I’d watched her lump poor Jim up the step, the wheels catching on the threshold, before she’d lean forward to see to him, like a magpie claiming a crust. She, always in black with her wispy hair that had turned white the night of the accident.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Second Husband by Cris Aboobaker

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If I’m born again as a man instead of as a woman, I will aim the silly-looking mushroom waggling between my legs and shoot my stream so it splashes dead center in the toilet bowl. Bullseye! Bango! How hard can that be?

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All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever:- Skid Row Wine an Essay by Dale Williams Barrigar

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Every great writer, if they want to be a great writer, needs to be able to break it all down into the simplest thing.

For Shakespeare, it’s “To be, or…” and one, or a few, of the sonnets, as well as Juliet on her balcony.

For Cervantes, it’s Don Quixote, his horse Rocinante, and the windmill they think is a giant.

For Goethe, it’s Faust making a deal with the Devil.

For Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road (1957), it’s SKID ROW WINE.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Judge Me by Ace Boggess

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I have no music in my soul. A man told me that once, full of conviction. No real anger in him, but definitely judgment. I sentenced him to twenty-five years in the penitentiary, and he was back before me on a Rule 35 (b) motion for reconsideration, which I denied. He stood at the defense table in his baggy orange prison-transport jumper, his wrists and ankles shackled, and he grinned at me, biting and cold, a man with nothing left to lose.

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