Tag: Short Fiction

All Stories, Fantasy

Wailing Guitar by Steve Sibra 

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I was barely thirteen when my big brother Jimmy came home from school with a wailing guitar.  We were two kids caught up in an ongoing dispute between our parents over things we could not really understand, and we feared they were going to split up and we would become casualties of a broken home.   As a byproduct of this trauma the two of us had bonded over a budding and mutual love of rock music.  Somehow our mutual interest in rock guitar music had given us something to hang onto as our parents became more and more involved in petty bickering and outright bursts of anger.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Like Lightning by Evangeline Golden

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It’s a fine day for a game. Though the sky is dreary– columns of smoke rise from the building above– the weather is just chilly enough to motivate us to stay moving, focused. We arrived at Mauthausen earlier this afternoon. One of the men had been waiting for us at the station. Our walk to the field was short, the town small but warm– comfortable. The people are nice here. The fuẞballfield is conveniently placed at the end of the main street– the bottom of the hill.

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Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 556 – Two Questions, Oocha, Ooocha, Oocha Ooooo!! And Serial Killers Are Much more Interesting Than Your Kids.

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Something has been playing on my mind this week after eating some Japanese crackers – Do fish taste the way that they do due to the seaweed? Or does seaweed taste the way that it does due to the fish?

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All Stories, Fantasy

Rescue by Michelle Stoll

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I got the idea to resurrect Paul because eleven years had passed since we’d spoken, including the year he’d been dead, and I wanted to tie up loose ends. I never liked the way things with us ended. Exploded is a better term. I blamed him, even changed details of our story to make myself feel better when I told it. Now, I wanted to do better and set things straight.

When I say bring Paul back, I mean in a loving way. “Jesus wept,” is the shortest verse in the Bible. It’s just before he calls his friend, Lazarus, out of the tomb. Nobody called Lazarus a zombie that I know of. I think he was happy to be back. Maybe a little disoriented, but happy to see his friends and family. Although my history with the church was no love affair, I had a fondness for things like compassion and hope. Lazarus was a hopeful story, and I believe in second chances.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Just Tired by Wayne Exton

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The port had the kind of heat that clung. It didn’t shine so much as settle — in the pavement cracks, the seams of café terraces, the folds of collars, behind the knees.

The air quivered above the cobbles like it was trying to rise but couldn’t find the strength.

From inside the arcade, David watched the light outside bleach everything to the same soft-edged white. Sunhats. Pigeons. The bone-pale wall of the farmacia.

The smell was a mix of sugar, oil, and the sea — sweet one second, briny the next. Somewhere nearby, a slushie machine whirred like it was dying slowly.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Restless Souls by Alice Baburek

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No one really knows why restoration stopped on the abandoned St. Julian hotel, where commoners and kings once came to relax in luxury.But Bernie Yocum and her brother George Winton had their suspicions. The renovation/construction company they shared had been in their family for decades.

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All Stories, Historical

Shakespeare Meets the Macbeths by Michael Bloor

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In 1601, James VI of Scotland (soon to be crowned James I of England) summoned Shakespeare’s company, The Lord Chancellor’s Men, to give performances of their plays in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. In Aberdeen at least, the visit seems to have been highly successful: on October 9th, the registers of the Town Council show that the company were awarded ‘the svme of threttie tua merkis’ and Laurence Fletcher, a shareholder in the company, was elected an honorary burgess of the town. It is not known for certain whether Shakespeare was with the company, but as a shareholder and owner of the company’s stage properties, it seems quite likely that he travelled North with the rest.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Humour, Short Fiction

Week 555: Controlling Enthusiasm

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I have decided to cut down on my use of the exclamation mark. I have often used it as a shortcut to fake a sense of goodwill that I do not usually feel–or at not least up to the degree implied by an exclamation mark. There’s a stink on an exclamation mark, for me it reeks of perkiness and whatever potion lurks in Kathy Lee Gifford’s coffee cup. (You’ll probably have to be an American of a certain age to get that last bit. If not, lucky day: something to google.)

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All Stories, Horror

Aeris by Zachary Schwartz

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They broke through the jungle canopy at midmorning, damp with sweat and soft declarations of wonder. The jungle made everything softer. The air, the light. Even thoughts, if left untethered long enough. The air was thick with that sweet, vegetal stillness that only comes miles from roads, wires, and clocks. Every breath tasted green.

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