All Stories, General Fiction

Some Animals by Alexander Franks – Adult content

Underneath a billboard beside the highway, an imperious impression of a gorilla spun a banana-shaped sign which read “Free cable & HBO & air conditioning.” It was early spring and the air cool and crisp, but the gorilla had been at it for several hours—throwing the sign up in the air, swirling it around his limbs, passing it around his back—the man underneath undoubtedly hot from the body heat trapped in his fake polyester furs. Cars filled with people on their way to work would occasionally honk hello, and the gorilla man would wave and point at the sign. The cars would then slowly pass, the occupants smiling and nodding but not looking directly at him.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Dreampurple Light by Leila Allison

Whatever happened to the power-chord?
To which my boyfriend lit a bowl

Was A Stairway to Heaven really the greatest song?
Think it over as you pass that on

Said he’d love me till the end of time;
Forever came to stay in 1989

Still, he was never all so great;
For me that bell had tolled in ‘88

Thirty years go by in the glaze of an eye;
Can it be it’s always the promising future that lies?
 

*******

When my sister Tess and I were girls we’d often visit our father’s grave in New Town Cemetery. Although he had died suddenly when I was two and Tess an infant (thus destined to be little more to us than a face in the family photo album and a grave in the cemetery), we’d make time for “Dear Father” because we had agreed that it was the sort of thing daughters should do. I would recite a psalm memorized from Granna Ivy’s Bible, and Tess would lay a hastily clapped-together bouquet of daisies, buttercups and bluebells on his headstone. I recall admonishing her for the frequent inclusion of dandelions to the arrangement, “Those are weeds, numbskull.” Tess would defend the addition of dandelions on the grounds that “Nobody grows daisies, buttercups or bluebells on purpose, either, bonehead.”

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All Stories, Latest News

Week 164 – Lots Of Words, Lots Of Stories And All Tom Sheehan

We had a cracking conversation, well type, over the last week or so and it was regarding drying up. Now I am not talking about ladies of a certain age. But when I think on it, since they most likely put up with gentlemen of a certain age, no wonder sandpaper can form where you would least expect it. That was nice of me for the ladies, so here’s a balance. *Being semi-erect when you see her is not a compliment if you were fully erect before…

…Couples of a certain age…Discuss!!!

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Half Century Come and Gone by Tom Sheehan

 I could picture what it would be like if we met again all these years later. It might go down like this: After 670 miles of a pretty cross country haul, I’d see the meeting-place pub we’d picked sitting brown and ugly like a hovel at the side of the road, a meeting place for the century, out there in some square, hard country setting. And I’d brace myself for comrades, the long stretch between get-togethers, wondering what the hard stuff would do to me this time. Undoubtedly it would leave tracks again.

I closed my eyes, wondering all over again. I hoped Balbo would be in there and Diaz. I hoped Archie’d be in there, red in the face, after his fifth visit, his third wife, his second hospital stay, counting his visits, keeping the tab at his elbow, paying it with no fanfare at all, sometimes embarrassed by his own quick acceptance of it, owing somebody, always owing somebody in this crazy life.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Dead People on Facebook by Roger Ley

“Seven o’clock, Martin, time to get up,” said Siri from the bedside table.

“Alarm off,” he said.

“Today is Estella’s birthday, would you like to send her a greeting?” asked the cheery voice.

“I’d love to send her a greeting but she died a week ago so it seems a little pointless.”

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction, Writing

Supply And Demand by Hugh Cron – Strong Adult Content

“Just keep following this road Donna, it’ll be about another ten minutes.”

Claire stared at her. She could see worry, apprehension and fear. Her younger sister had the same look when she had first told her what she did.

Claire’s thoughts went back to where this had began.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Low Pressure Terracotta by Robert P. Kaye

The wind stopped blowing on Friday afternoon. Unexpected, since it had never happened before, the problem usually too much wind versus too little. The army of giant turbines stopped rotating in unison. An eerie view from Wayne’s perch in the control tower.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Humour, Short Fiction

Blessed are the Little Things by Leila Allison

There were only four tables in the cafe, and I saw that my date was already seated at one of them. I had figured this out by the process of elimination (there was nobody else in the cafe except her and the young woman behind the counter), and the stretched possibility that my date bore a slight resemblance to the younger, fitter, and brighter-looking person in her profile gallery. A “helpful hint” on the lonely hearts’ site says that you can judge your match’s interest level by the amount of preparation she has invested in meeting you. Interestingly, the lady had gussied herself up to a point which lay between rushing to the convenience store at five in the morning for coffee filters and awakening in a dumpster. And she seemed oblivious to every atom in the universe that wasn’t displayed on her iphone.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Family Traditions by L’Erin Ogle

“I have a headache,” I told Clark, and came upstairs.

It was nine o clock and the kids were asleep, and I didn’t have a headache.  But I didn’t want to sit downstairs and watch Clark get drunk on screwdrivers while watching old Seinfeld episodes, and then have to come upstairs and try to have sex while his penis stands at half mast no matter what I do.
It isn’t me.  I have no doubts about that.  It’s the booze.  We aren’t as young as we used to be and after the kids are out, Clark can’t put the glass in his hand down.  I guess I don’t care much anyway, anymore.  I just don’t want to spend twenty minutes flogging and sucking a soft penis then trying to stuff it in while it wilts and bends.  Then the excuses and the pity party. Having to make him feel good about himself while my vagina crawls up into my uterus.  Might as well skip the whole shebang, and head upstairs with a book, and escape.

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All Stories, Latest News

Week 161 – Feeding Ducks, Showing Us Yours And Shamar English

Our regular readers will know that every now and then we post something on a Saturday that is a bit beyond what we would normally class as a story. We have another one for you this week after the round-up.

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