I try to learn one interesting fact a day. It’s best when this happens naturally. A dollop of Fairy Liquid ingested over a period of a few weeks will cause serious sickness. Dollop was Melanie’s word. It was unlike Melanie. Almost onomatopoeic.
Continue reading “Orders of Magnitude by Kieran Wyatt”
A Word is Born
Human friction is often caused by a powerful negative response to something another person says is true. An exchange of loud exchanges of not listening to the other person occurs. You see it in bars all the time. Words spill from mouths, fists fill the temporarily emptied maws and loosened teeth are the innocent victims. Dentists prosper. Yet the situation is usually considered resolved.
Continue reading “Week 530: Tuncking; A Warning From Diane About More Corporate Slime Trails; Six Gems and Some High End Funny Bizness”
Big Benny Brailsford was slumped on the couch with a can of lager. More in hope than expectation, he was zapping the TV channels with the remote, it being The Early Evening Viewing Desert. He eventually settled on one of those antiques programmes. The expert on the TV was riffling through some old duffer’s collection of football memorabilia. The collection included an early F.A. Cup Final programme, which the expert reckoned was worth five hundred to eight hundred quid.
Continue reading “Family Heirlooms by Michael Bloor”
Disclaimer: This story is an entirely fictional reimagining loosely based on a true case from the ER. Names, characters, and details surrounding the case are entirely products of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to real persons. Any similarities to true events are purely coincidental.
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Red lights cut through the night as the old man gazed ahead. He sat in his truck, staring, stopped at a traffic light. He sighed. The weight of the world lay on his shoulders. Exhausted, the man was at wits’ end. The preceding weeks were unrelenting. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it all. He was tired. His bones were dust, and delicate mind warped with hardly a coherent thought remaining.
Continue reading “The Boy by Clayton Korson MD”
A single strand of hair drooped from Katherine’s thumb and forefinger as she held it in front of the waitress’s face, a tiny droplet of sauce or grease still hanging from the end where she’d plucked it from her plate.
“I’m really sorry, I can get you a fresh plate,” said the waitress, backing away.
Continue reading “Snakes everywhere by Alex Kellet”
Every woman was best dressed, shining, and swanlike in elegance when Wayne married Lydia in April. The men wore linen shirts with canvas texture, and high-waisted pants, giving the appearance of something strong, something of the fighter or the ballroom dancer. George wore trainers and loose slacks in a vain hope of comfort.
Continue reading “Shame by Mechant Deaux”
Phineas Ford was an astronomer of remarkable skill and vision. He was also a bachelor with meticulous habits from which he never wavered. For breakfast, he always ate a soft-boiled egg and two pieces of lightly-buttered toast. For lunch, he routinely devoured a cucumber sandwich and six potato chips. At precisely three p.m. each afternoon, he took his exercise, which consisted of a three-lap stroll around a local park—never more nor less. His dinner always consisted of corned beef and cabbage with bread pudding for dessert, and on Sunday he permitted himself a single glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. At precisely six p.m. each evening, he watched two episodes of Downton Abbey, and when he had finished the series, he watched it over again. At exactly ten p.m., Phineas retired to his bed, but not before reading a chapter of Anna Karenina while puffing on his pipe. He had read Anna Karenina fifty times because he never read anything else, and the book was so worn from handling that the pages were falling out. When his housekeeper one day asked him why he never changed his routine, he said, “You can’t improve on perfection, kiddo, so why would I bother to try?”
Continue reading “Putting the Galaxies in Their Place by James Hanna”
Crossing the city for a night shift was the last thing Luna wanted to do. The temperature was dropping, and a biting wind whipped through the dark streets, driving a fierce snowstorm, turning pavements white. Luna huddled in the broken shelter, but the bus- always late- was nowhere in sight.
Continue reading “Lions in Winter by Neil James”
The kid sneaks in here every day, which is crazy because I’ve done my best to keep him out of my store. It wouldn’t be the first time a guitar, fiddle or banjo walked off. Kid likes to slide in while I’m with a customer talking trade or repair, head straight for the vintage instruments in the back room, get down the 1924 Gibson A-4 and start messing around.
Continue reading “McKenzie and Sons by Ed Davis”
An autumn evening, 1950
Along the Grand River, Ontario, Canada
Yes, sir, she’s a mighty fine mansion. And an unusual style for this neck of the woods. Looks a bit like a bank to me with that porch and pillars. The first owner built her back in 1845. She doesn’t get the attention she deserves these days. You can see that by the peeling paint and the boarded-up window. The brothers don’t live here full time now, but they do come down on occasion. Separately, always. That’s why they have the wife and me looking after the place as caretakers. We live in the house and keep an eye on things. The two brothers don’t speak to each other anymore. They send messages through me. They haven’t talked since the blowup they had over the repairs to the roof.
Continue reading “Not For Sale by Guylaine Spencer”
literally stories 