Here we are at Week 511.
I hate this time of year.
I hate the greed of the supermarkets – Just look at any dangling clip-strips, dump bins and every piece of space that is occupied by some shite or another.
Continue reading “Week 511 – Don’t Let Them kid You, Go Out For A Regular Beer and Inappropriate Ink.”
Cass had been on the Cold Case Time Travel squad eight years when I replaced her partner, Hoss. We’d done things differently in Present-Day Homicide so I shut up and listened. Cass was a pro, by the book mostly–she could even fix the damn machine! And since no other towns could afford the traveler fees, we’d be in ’60s Harlem one day and ’30s Greenwich the next. I’m guessing they brought me in for the Harlem cases. Brothers don’t tend to open up to two pale folks from the future. Of course, they weren’t supposed to know we were from the future, but occasionally our Era Lingo implants malfunctioned.
Continue reading “Baby Blues by Jack Powers”
A cross-country move is a big change, I get that, but no way I deserve this nightmare I’ve landed in. The relocation wasn’t even my idea. Doctor’s orders, right? The doc said I needed a drier climate and less stress. And the move did lower my stress level, at least initially. Putting three thousand miles between me and the cops, that’s a hidden bonus. Needless to say, I didn’t mention that to the good doctor.
Continue reading “The Horrible Relocation by Marco & Liam Etheridge”
Sammy was often mistaken for being younger than he actually was. He was short for his age, and skinny, and wore black-rimmed glasses and white shirts buttoned up to the very top. He had a high, broad forehead and his face narrowed down to a pointed chin; his big, dark eyes were set very far apart, halfway between the brow line and his chin, and his mouth often appeared little more than a dot beneath a small, sharp nose. His hair was black, long, and unstyled; it just hung from his crown like a toupee that had been put on wrong. With a pair of pointy ears, he would have made the perfect cartoon space alien.
Continue reading “War Games by Alan Rice”
Reader Alert – Please refer to tabs
So I’m yankin’ this thing out the drainpipe, getting’ blood up me cuffs, while those little twats are creasin’ up in the car park. They’ve proper mashed it up, n’all: it’s comin’ out in handfuls; I can feel its guts through me rubber gloves.
Continue reading “Jesu-Vape by Robin Dennis”
Author’s Note
Orville Baumgardner is the chattiest of men. He grew up in an Indiana farm town, graduated from a small rural college with gentlemen’s Cs, and used his gift of gab to get elected to the Indiana House of Representatives. Orville prides himself on having read over two hundred books, including most of the classics, yet sustained a career as a populist politician by promoting deep state conspiracy theories to his constituents. After twenty years, Orville gave up politics because he had a crisis of conscience. He has since lectured on numerous topics, including abortion, book banning, and corporate corruption, and his spiels have appeared in many literary journals. Although he has recently left this world, he continues to lecture in the afterlife.
Continue reading “Orville Baumgardner and the Morning Glories byJames Hanna”
Birdie was the strongest, bravest, most determined girl in her neighborhood. Everyone knew it; her big sister Charlotte said so. Birdie loved her home. She loved the way the honeysuckle perfumed the sidewalk outside her apartment. She loved the plant’s delicate flowers, the tiny explosions of pink and red. She even loved the cooler months, when flowers lose their bloom and fall, and paint the ground in Technicolor. Most of all she loved her sister. Charlotte was so beautiful. Her hair curled and zig-zagged, and her eyes reminded Birdie of Momma’s homemade caramel.
Continue reading “Charlotte by Jeremy Akel”
On Saturday night, Leon and his friend Max “The Rhythm Wonders,” played guitar and sang at Tom Kosk’s stag party. Tom was engaged to Samantha Ciaccia, the wedding scheduled in one week. He was already living with her, in a double wide trailer in the bush under Mount Baldy.
Continue reading “Leon’s Magic Love by Harrison Kim”
You’re wondering about that? That old jar, yeah, that’s somethin’ I got years ago…
Continue reading “A Good Hen by T.G. Roettiger”
The hole was definitely growing.
Jonty could tell, having just woken from a nap, face tingling with grass imprints and a half-crushed flailing ladybird stuck on his eyelashes, to find the hole bigger and nearer.
Jonty was seen as a shabby, acceptable kind of aristo who loitered in gardens on dewy mornings, drunk or whimsical, misquoting Homer and asking for a crustless sandwich while he sat, as squat as a stone rounded by a forgiving sea, marvelling at the stains on his tie.
Continue reading “Personal Growth by Ben Fitton”
