Tag: short story

All Stories, General Fiction, Science Fiction

When Planets Miss by Doug Hawley

literallystories2014

typewriterAn Homage To 1951 Movie “When Worlds Collide”

The astronomers first noticed the approaching star and its one planet on February 10, 2043.  How this caught them by surprise was never explained to anyone’s satisfaction, because we were told that it would ruin our whole solar system within a year.  I don’t know if the conspiracy theories about giving more lead time to important people to prepare, while leaving the unwashed masses at the mercy of a shattered earth, were true.  I’m an agnostic on the various stories.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Knickers on the Loose by Tom Sheehan

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typewriterJackie Cushing was fighting it all the way, wearing knickers, him, twelve going on thirty it felt some days, dreams about Ginnie Grayson practically every night now, the morning dew being the vague remnants his father spoke about with a smile on his face, new hairs in his crotch, his mother wanting her boy to look neat, his father looking at the horizon almost saying aloud this too will pass. It was his one-shoulder shrug that carried verb and noun in its arsenal. Jackie had early discovered that his father did not need a lot of words.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Savage Country by Anderson Ryle

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typewriter“Do you want to play guns?” he asked me.

This was a complicated question, and while I stood not knowing what to say, the summer heat beat down through the cloudless Virginia sky. Twenty years has gone by now, and each summer heat wave brings back this vivid memory. It will forever be with me, as clear as it was that day when I was eight.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Ruby by Simon Barker

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In the chaos following the nightclub bombing the story of Ruby’s disappearance never travelled beyond her immediate community. Ruby had been the daughter of one of the ill paid native porters at the American hotel and during the year in which she turned sixteen two local men had begun fighting over her. One happened to be the chief of police while the other was the chief’s former friend and associate, the organiser of an illegal lottery. This pair had vied in their ambition to have Ruby as a mistress. Ruby’s father, insignificant as he was, did his best to fob them off by spinning some yarn about his daughter’s betrothal to her cousin, the son of the headman back in his home village on the slopes of the volcano. He did this not so much to spare Ruby the policeman or the lottery owner—they weren’t such terrible fellows—but to leverage his daughter’s position. In response the lottery fellow threatened to have the head of the son of the village headman separated from his body and the policemen threated to have the next volcanic incineration of the man’s village brought considerably forward. Ruby’s father sensed they weren’t joking. Certainly not the policeman. So the bombing came as a welcome diversion. But once Ruby’s father had seen off the airport minibuses evacuating the expats and returned to the snarl of shanties at the rear of the now deserted hotel he discovered Ruby had vamoosed. When she hadn’t returned by the next day he guessed either the policeman or the lottery owner had taken advantage of the chaos to make off with their prize.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Rain Washed Him Clean by Adam Kluger

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typewriterEstaban deTullis may not have been the most beloved man on the small island of Azure De Ponce De Leon, 57 miles south of Caracas, but that was only because of the sometimes venomous feelings harbored toward him by his often-times put upon wife and busy-body mother-in-law.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Superman meets Hitler by Julie Howard

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typewriterJoy’s eyes were stinging from the stench of urine. She was hoping it was from her mother’s three tiny dogs, but suspected the mutts weren’t the only ones who’d been incontinent.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Lessons by Carole Glasser Langille

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Setsuko was twenty years older than me but she looked my age or younger. When I was first at university my brother came by and started talking to me when Setsuko was giving me a violin lesson in my practice room. He thought I was performing in front of a friend.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Unprecedented by Adam Kluger

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typewriterF. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote,” if you are strong there are no precedents.”

Manfred Gogol lived “off the grid” and was a person of many small mysteries, like Gatsby.  Gogol’s wealth wasn’t money, though he somehow had acquired plenty of it from a mysterious trust fund that was established very early in his life. It was, in fact, his enviable ability to be completely mobile, free, unattached and without any marked responsibility whatsoever that was most singular.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Silas Tully, Mechanized by Tom Sheehan

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Silas Tully, enjoying early sun and early coffee, heading into another quiet and lonely day, dropped his newspaper and picked up the phone on the first ring. Old pal Jud Haley said, “Si, something screwy down here at Butch and Tony’s. I think my car’s been stolen but nobody wants to believe me. Damn it all, Si, the car they’re about to fix is not my car.”

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