With a bang not a whimper, that’s what they said. At the end it’ll be a fierce cataclysmic implosion and all will be gone in seconds.
But it’s wasn’t, it’s not.
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Tag: short story
Direct Democracy by Tobias Haglund
Arnold Dupree, the right-hand man and the representative of President Smith, shook hands with Oscar Bojanovic, the head of the voting facility. Oscar gave him a keycard and a badge and led the way.
“If you direct your attention to the screen, we can observe which question the voter is currently answering.”
114.B-222.
You witness a fight between two equally strong men. Do you;
- Call the Police
- Run away
- Wait until one of them is victorious, and then attack from behind.
- Jump in and throw punches in every direction
- Tell them to stop fighting from a safe distance
The Aviator by Frederick K. Foote
God help me. God help me be patient. God help me harness my anger and control my paranoia. I don’t want to go off on Carol again. Night Hawk completing weather analysis for scheduled high-speed run in forty-six hours, twenty-seven minutes. Alright, I take a deep breath, and I clear myself for take-off for a fifty-minute flight in the turgid air of psychobabble.
I open the door and start to greet Carol, Major Greer, but there is a linebacker looking white dude with blond hair and a neat little beard. Where the hell is Carol? This is her office. Did I get the time wrong or maybe the wrong day?
“Major Harris, I’m Doctor Clark. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
A Miracle on Granville Street by dm gillis
It was said that the Grove Café was so cheap that the Health Department had to bring its own cockroaches. It occupied an abandoned Bank of BC storefront on Denman Street in the west end of Vancouver, a mixed neighbourhood of the snotty middle class and the grubby poor. The café is gone now. The lease ran out, the landlord raised the rent and the Grove ceased to exist. The storefront sits empty now, and though he’d never admit it, the greedy landlord laments the loss.
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Still Working by Tobias Haglund
December sweeps her dead hand around my throat. My capuche swooshes open and I come to life in the morning hour rush. A beggar scratches the furrows between the cobblestones outside the metro station. When I get close to him, the automatic doors open and the warm breath of the subway hits me. He looks up at me, then back down again to the cobblestones.
I walk out on to the escalator, a boy runs past me, then a girl, then another boy. The latter boy shoves the girl when he rushes by her, down the escalator. She yells, but keeps going. Yesterday the fungus to the right was green, but today it’s covered in white foam.
The subway train comes in and I get on. It’s full, so I stand. I can always tell which state the country is in by looking at the adverts. Education, insurances, job seminars and cheap groceries. I’m reminded of what the prime minister said; the lowest unemployment rate in Europe by 2020.
Promises aren’t worth much to the poor. That’s why the adverts look the way they do, and why the beggar scratches the furrows of the cobblestone.
Neverland by Jono Naito
I gave him what was left of my hand because he asked for it with such a kindness; he even called me miss. It was the kindness you forget about when you run out of family and end up in a home off the soggy edge of the Everglades. Rosecliff, they called it, to make it sound less like swamp muck. I didn’t know how well I could stand anymore until that man, the father of the head doctor, told me we were leaving for somewhere better. You don’t get feet to disintegrate like mine unless you traveled, and traveled I did, and travel I would. All that man had to say was please, you know, before I remembered how to walk again.
This Face by Diane M Dickson
Today I know this face. I stare into the mirror and I know this face. It is me, not the me that it was when we bought my mirror all those years ago. Down in the antique market, Martin and I trawling for treasures to make our home and we found it dusty and forlorn, how pleased we were. No it doesn’t show me that person, but it is the me of now and of just yesterday.
Literally Stories – Week 36
There is a well-known truism you can take a horse to water but a pencil must be lead. I have waited an aeon to find a suitable juncture to slot this witticism into a profound piece of writing, but alas, had to stick it in here instead.
Whilst this observation might seem bizarre, regular readers will know instantly it is merely a shameless contrivance by which to segue seamlessly into the first of this week’s homages to the short story.
How to Have Broken Her Heart by Nate Rush
tulations! You have successfully traveled backwards in time!
Do you have qualms about killing a rare and mystical beast? Do you fear the DMV and other institutions like it? If so, read no further; if not, read on. Throughout the course of this guide you will learn the secrets of time travel. To travel back in time it is necessary to collect your supplies, construct your machine, and then, finally, to make your jump. This is no easy process. Many men and women far smarter than you have failed while attempting to turn back the hands of the clock.
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The Troubadour by Tobias Haglund
”Hello, sir.”
”Yea?”
”Uhm. I’m here to see Pam.”
“My daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You the kid?”
“Uhm…”
“I mean the kid she’s been sneaking off with. The … No, let me think. The Williams boy, right?”
literally stories 