William stands on the upper level of a parkade leaning on a shopping cart some employee had forgotten to rack up with the others. He’s waiting for a friend to pick up a jug of organic milk. He knows his friend will be forever and come up the elevator loaded with ‘two-for-one’s’ and any specials he can find on pasta, ice cream and pineapple juice, not to mention a stack of car magazines. William doesn’t mind waiting. It’s two in the morning and a beautiful night in San Francisco, the concrete rooftop a checker board of symmetrical parking spaces, the only vehicle on the horizon his friend’s sky blue Dodge Caravan, clean and American in its loneliness.
Continue reading “Man With a Shopping Cart by Tom Bentley-Fisher”Tag: Short Fiction
Sunday Whatever: Eliot Behind the Mask – An Essay by Dale Williams Barrigar
“Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” – The First Letter of John
T.S. Eliot was not who we think of him as.
Far from dying his hair green, instead he sometimes wore green face powder (very faintly) to dinner parties in order to shock, discomfit, and confound his cultured, highfalutin, aristocratic hosts and their hoity-toity guests.
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever: Eliot Behind the Mask – An Essay by Dale Williams Barrigar”Week 544 -More Blocking, Plasticine Creativity And Turn Away From The Rat.
Another week has come and gone!
I was interested to read Leila’s take on having nothing to write but having to write something.
I think the best tip I can give is, don’t think and then type, just type and then hopefully you will begin to think!
To be fair though, not thinking is my comfort zone!!
Continue reading “Week 544 -More Blocking, Plasticine Creativity And Turn Away From The Rat.”Epilogue by Jeremy Bader
The guy standing in the middle of the road is a writer, and he’s getting away with it too.
He can get away with it because he has been published but not self-published, and also because there’s no longer anybody around to give much of a shit anyway.
He’s also, to a comparable degree, getting away with standing in the middle of the road.
Continue reading “Epilogue by Jeremy Bader”Keeper of the Snowy Owls? by Michael Bloor
Alan stepped out of the shower, singing that he wasn’t going to work on Maggie’s farm no more. He threw on some clothes and headed off to the baker’s for a couple of Aberdeen Rolls (‘rowies’), well-fired. En route, he picked up a copy of the Saturday edition of the Press & Journal (‘Start the Day with the P&J’).
Continue reading “Keeper of the Snowy Owls? by Michael Bloor”Our Lunatic Uniform by Christopher Ananias
There was always a touched soul on the mental ward who thought they were God. Jonathan Clark was one such soul. He lingered in white pajamas offering consul and comfort, even the nurses came to speak with him. I met him on the 4th floor of the Behaviour of Medicine at a hospital in Elkhart Indiana. His departure, as spectacular as it was, affected Greg the most.
Continue reading “Our Lunatic Uniform by Christopher Ananias”The Voice of the Poor- A Cry for Justice by Torsaa Emmanuel Oryiman
For the first time in our lives, we have come to know true terror, the kind that turns human beings into prey, hunted like chickens in the bush. The air in our village is thick with fear, the nights are filled with silence, broken only by muffled sobs and the hurried whispers of those who dare to speak of the evil that has gripped us. The weight of despair sits heavily upon our chests, making each breath feel stolen, each step feels uncertain. Every passing second is a countdown to an unknown fate, and every heartbeat is a reminder of our helplessness.
Continue reading “The Voice of the Poor- A Cry for Justice by Torsaa Emmanuel Oryiman “The Natural Man by T.A. Young
It was no one’s fault: a catch and a lurch as he sat in the back of the truck, legs dangling, half asleep. The planet stopped him or he would still be falling. No cars came by, but evening did – softly -as he lay there. A maple tree grew at the side of the road. The moon grew from a branch of the tree, detached itself and floated up to clouds where it became embedded in the misty horizontal filaments. But this was all a dream to him as he lay in the middle of the road.
Continue reading “The Natural Man by T.A. Young”At the Barn in Winter by Michael Barrington
She was asleep now, her head leaning on his outstretched arm, her delicate, dainty fingers finally relaxing their grip on his huge, calloused hand. The musky scent of her beautiful, long hair, she was so proud of it, stirred up old memories of happier times. He knew every inch of her face, her lovely, big brown eyes that always seemed so full of wonderment, her delicate lips…. He was afraid to move for fear of awakening her, but he needed to relieve his numbing arm. And to do so quickly before being forced to make some abrupt movement that might disturb her. It was pitch black…. He mustn’t turn on the light.
Continue reading “At the Barn in Winter by Michael Barrington”The Dog Who Could Draw by Stephen J Kimber
The dog never speaks without a pencil in his paw. On good days he may draw for you a line, a rectangle, a box, a room that becomes; what do you want? Might it be a bodega in some Latin American country, a taverna, a shack where drinks and mescal are served, a room where women also give away their forgetfulness potions. He is never quite precise as to which, and the voice that accompanies the blossoming picture is merely shading pencil.
Continue reading “The Dog Who Could Draw by Stephen J Kimber”