Hey Sully:
Hoping all is well atop the literary world. I told you if I got really bored I would write a story about you but instead of a story– all that you inspired was a tiny little poem. Check it out!
Tag: short story
Soldier of Fortune by Sharon Frame Gay
She boarded the bus in a good-bye city, roots shallow as a water lily, a few coins to rub together, sites set back on simpler times.
Past the maze of town, the buildings stretched out and faded away, giving in to twilight, a few weary stars freckling the top of her dirty window. People settled into the dimness, part of a kindred clan, hurtling towards whatever dreams waited to disembark.
The Noble Shelley and Her Fat Belly by H.T. Garton
Ade stared at the ceiling and sighed. In a dim corner at the very edge of his field of vision, a spider was spinning its web. He shuddered. Shelley’s cleaning skills meant that too often he had inadvertently thrust his hand into barely visible cobwebs — nasty, sticky nests of what felt like old man’s hair. He hated spiders: the way they ran out of nowhere at speed, changed direction randomly without warning and fell out of unexpected places where they had no business being – bath towels, dressing gowns, slippers.
Continue reading “The Noble Shelley and Her Fat Belly by H.T. Garton”
Body Art by Daniel LaPonsie
The human body is undoubtedly the greatest work of art in the entire universe. This is my sincere conviction as I silently spring, hop and even moonwalk. Swirling with grace through the city street, I place the human form on nude display while keeping my mind expertly focused, eyes calm and and dispassionate.
The Chocolate Kid by Tom Sheehan
Today it all came back. Once again, on another brilliant dawning, the Western Yetness still calling me, I woke with a toothache. A stupendous one! In half an hour, despite quick brushing, the stimulator poked here and there, gargling, all proving useless, the ache remained in force. It was, without a doubt, the chocolate again, or the mere thought of chocolate. I knew I was weak to most any candy, and to chocolate in particular, right from the beginning.
Guilty by Frederick K. Foote
I, the most hated and reviled, the duly convicted mass murdering, monster calls and he, the newly anointed great red, white, and blue America white hope, comes to me like I knew he would. He enters with a mouthful of self-serving, homogenized bullshit.
“You’re just one insignificant member of a tiny, marginalized extremist group. You stockpiled weapons and hid in the shadows of normalcy and plotted your cowardly attacks. Death is a reward for your kind. Life without parole is a more fitting punishment, and it robs you of your martyr status.”
After Evening Benediction by Bill Vernon
At nine years of age I met Monsignor Karavich up close when he invited me onto the altar during benediction alongside Michael Dolanski, the heroic high school halfback. Until then, the priest had been an other-worldly figure, an unreal actor on stage, looming above and orating as I knelt silently at a pew, trapped in place by my mother’s piety.
Literally Stories – Week 55 – Allergens not in BOLD: strong language, dodgy humour.
Hurrah!
Santa was back on form this year. He clearly read the message I left him, very carefully unlike last year when some incompetent stand-in or faux Mr. Claus totally f***** up.
Dear Santa I wrote — as you do — I would be most grateful if you could kindly arrange it that your elves assist you in the delivery of a number of…
Now conjure up a long list of ‘literary books’ by the likes of Orwell, Dostoevsky and other suitably heavyweight names including Albert Camus.
NB: To avoid severe embarrassment as once suffered by yours truly, please note that Mr. Camus was born in Algeria (then French Algeria) and his name is pronounced, not unsurprisingly for the French, Al-Bear Ca-Moo.
Not Al-But Ca-Mus.
Any road, as we say round these parts, you can imagine the puzzlement, nay sinking feeling that besieged me, when unwrapping many book-shaped packages I came across The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and did not subsequently discover The Outsider by said Algerian.
YA fiction is not, as you would no doubt hazard a guess, top of my must-read genre list, but to be fair to S.E.Hinton I read The Outsiders (published 1967), which was written by her when she was still in junior high school, and it is indeed a fine book of its type.
Mr. Pascal’s Funeral Parlor by Nikki Macahon
Mrs. Pascal’s first rule, no sweets in the parlor.
My fingers dig into the folds of my gloomy clothes, clawing at the satin that piles under my fingertips. It does not do to indulge yourself in front of the grieving, Genevieve. Her voice scratches against the walls of my head. Not when there is work to be done.
Perhaps not, Mrs. Pascal, but to deny one their sweets in time of such pain does not do as well.
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Our Smiley Face of Darkness by Irene Allison
Walking Boss Cooper wanted to show me a cask of Amontillado she had stored deep in the bowels of Our Smiley Face of Darkness. An elevator located in the recently abandoned Human Resources Department is the only conveyance that sinks to the bowels, and it is said that every chamber “Down There” is a “two go in, one comes out” sort of place.
“Swell,” I said. “How ‘bout we do that at three? I’ve got nothing going then,” I added upon consulting a jumbo pad of sticky-notes in which I had spent two hours sketching likenesses of Fred Flintstone in slightly altered poses. The object there, if I ever get back to it, is a flipbook that shows Fred making an obscene gesture. I call it Yabba Dabba Screw You.
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