Tag: short story

All Stories, General Fiction, Humour

Goodbye Wall Street by Edward S Barkin

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A few years ago – actually a few more than a few – I was ever so close to becoming a full-fledged drone in the beehive of modern-day America.  During that time, I was still merely an apprentice — one of many youthful human resource units at the disposal of a large and powerful Wall Street corporation.  My job was to sit at a desk ten hours a day and do various unimportant things.  In return, I received money.  Not that much of it, but just enough so that I didn’t have to worry constantly about how much I was spending.  Forty thousand a year, let’s call it, though it was probably only thirty-eight at best.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Historical

Plumbeck the Fiddler by Tom Sheehan

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Watching every move about the campfire, studying each face lit up by the flickering flames, the fiddler Sam Plumbeck idly held onto his instrument, waiting for the proper moment. Time, he could feel, was pressing down on him; it had different parts that moved in different ways. The stars all the way to the horizon dip were many and miraculous, the horses silent for the most part even though a coyote cry filtered in now and then, and the darkness beyond wrapped them like a giant robe spread under those stars. He had ridden in, apparently aimlessly to all the trail hands, and joined up with them on their way back to their ranch, the promise of music being hailed by all the hands who had delivered the herd, were through with the drive. He alone, out of all these trail hands who had hit the jackpot, knew what was coming down on them. Nothing is supposed to be perfect or fair; at least this side of heaven, or the mass of a blue sky, or the dash of sunlight on a rainy day. And he, just a picker of strings, with not a coin of the gold in the lot having his name on it, could only wait it all out, hoping for the best and only seeing the worst coming up.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Tupperware Party by Rebecca Lee

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typewriterIt started right after college graduation when I ate my degree.  I spent four years working on my bachelors. In a second I had devoured it whole.  Okay, maybe not whole. I took the diploma back to my dorm room, climbed under the covers, and with a fork and knife, cut up the piece of paper into tiny square bites. In a matter of minutes I had successfully done what all the popular girls told me to do in seventh grade.  Like Weird Al, I ate it. I ate all of it.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Hail Caesar! by David Louden

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typewriterI had been at University six months when I got the call to tell me my old school friend Eamon Donovan had died.  Drug overdose.  He wasn’t the partying kind; it was a different kind of drug overdose.  An entirely intentional one.  Eamon was from the north of the city, like me; The Bone.  That particular stretch of hopeless home-front had given rise to a nasty habit of suicide.  In the years I had been out of my working class no-man’s-land I’d stopped counting the amount of associates who had taken the off-ramp.  It had become so frequent that it had been dubbed the North Belfast Green Card.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Elves by Frederick K Foote (contains sexual content)

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typewriterIt’s 2:30 am and Charlotte and I are wide awake holding hands in our new bed in our new house. This is our third sleepless night in our new home in the West Virginia wilderness.  It’s the howling, hooting, chirping, scraping, squealing night noises that keep us from sleeping. There’s a sudden scraping sound on the roof and the sounds of a cavalcade of creatures marching above our heads.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Last Look by Tom Sheehan

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Shots had been fired in Black Limb, a town in the Dakota territory, a bank teller and a bystander wounded, the thief caught in the middle of the robbery, knocked down by, of all things, a woman sheriff with a badge worn on a most prominent chest, dark and beautiful eyes seemingly full of pity and something else the unsuccessful robber managed to draw from her, him the handsome dog, handsome robber George Crown brought to his dusty knees by a woman sheriff, a knock-out sheriff.

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All Stories, Writing

Week 74 – Homer Or Rankin?

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typewriterI’m not a hundred percent sure why I thought on my topic for this week but I wanted to have a wee look at book snobbery.

Should Ian Rankin have less status than Homer? The character of ‘Rebus’ is fascinating and he’s the star of twenty novels. (So many crackers but ‘The Falls’ was superb). And what does it say about popular culture when there are more results for Rebus than Homer in Amazon. And the icing on the comparison cake, if you type into the internet the word ‘Homer’, it is Mr Simpson who pops up before ‘The Iliad’?

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All Stories, General Fiction

Go Time by Josie Myers

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typewriterFrank tried to flag down his instructor using a beauty queen wave for the fifth time that day.

“Excuse me, Sergeant Airborne.”

A glare radiated beneath the brim of the instructor’s black cap as he led the troops to the open doors of the Curtiss C-46 Commando.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Dead Man’s Last Home by Michael Glazner

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Clint’s sleeping body takes a breath, stretches and rolls over. The large man wearing a white coat scribbles notes on his pad while the dim sunrise light peeks through the window. Clint’s body rolls back to its original position. The white coat checks his watch and then checks off a box on his notepad.

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