Miguel
Miguel sat on the shelf, admiring Lola the way he always did. He was in love from the moment he first laid eyes on her. Because he was a simple farmer, being in the presence of such beauty tied his tongue. Her face, Miguel would say to himself, must be what angels look like.
Continue reading “Miguel, Lola and Ted – A Love Story by Jon Beight”
We invited Literally Stories author and friend, June Griffin, to be Editor for a day and choose three great short stories from the site. Here is what June had to say about the three stories she chose and why she felt they were special.
The forces of nature, human and otherwise, are at work in my three top picks, which I heartily recommend to every LS reader and writer, past and future.
Without a shade of murkiness, each story reveals these forces in their own distinctive way and pays tribute to the human comedy with clarity and precision. Each of the writers has perfected a beautiful writing style, and their intriguing plots and characters keep us engrossed from start to finish.
Another week of fantastic stories from some old faces and a new one in JB Mulligan.
Welcome JB.
It’s not always easy to find a common thread linking five stories together. This week has seen us travelling through several continents. Graveyards, hospitals, tattoo parlours, lost in the woods. We even found time to go to the pub.
Five very different stories from five very different writers.
And the common thread? High quality writing.
Yeah, it’s a new blind, built it last week. Saturday. Out all day. Phyl made me a sandwich for dinner. Ham and swiss. Said she was tired. She gets tired a lot lately.
Yeah. I heard you stopped by.
You could have kept that longer, if you needed it. But thanks for bringing it back.
Yeah, you take something of somebody’s, you return it the way it was when you took it. I know, sometimes you can’t, but still…
This is without a shadow of a doubt the most disgusting, pig sty of a tattoo shop I have ever had the displeasure of visiting. It’s in the bathroom of an abandoned Shell station about ten miles off Highway 99 just south of Fresno. It reeks of urine and feces and is littered with used condoms and equally used sanitary napkins.
The walls are smeared with what looks like dried feces and graffiti written in the same substance. I hold my breath as I address the two thin, bearded white men in immaculate white doctor jackets with name tags reading, Alphonse and Dupree. Despite the doctor jackets, they are somewhat lacking in bedside manner.
I was baaaawwwwn. In a one way cul DE saaaaaac.
“Is that actually possible?”
“Is what possible?”
“A cul-de-sac being one way. How would you ever leave?”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what?”
I set my beer on the bar and give Frank the look.
Jack drives and I give direction. He stops at a smaller war grave cemetery in the countryside around Ypres. Large trees grow here and there, two by the entrance. He puts his hand on one of them and looks up along the trunk. He caresses the bark and repeats it on the other tree. Once in a while a car drives by, bird song comes from the tree tops and if you listen carefully you can hear the canal behind the bunker. We pass a few graves on the way to the bunker. Despite the daylight the inside darkens quickly, after only a few meters. Four small rooms, too small for Jack to stand up. He strokes the smooth mold. I also do. He closes his eyes towards the inner wall and breathes in and out. In and out. I step outside. A small brook flows below, not deep at all and it probably risks freezing every winter. Jack still kneels in the darkness. I call for him and he gets to his feet. He stops by the bulletin board outside. In Flanders Fields. Jack reads the poem by John McCrae and stands silent in front of it for a minute. He looks out over the thousands of poppies and says:
It is an opinion held by many that there are no new stories in the world. There are merely endless variations on a set of themes. New ways of making them felt.
We reinvent. We deceive. We tell stories.
That was a person, right? That was a man.
Minka’s knee is already way too close to the steering wheel as she brakes hard. The car stops just short of a short tree. She knows that tree. Coca.
Shit.
She looks forward, not into the rear-view, because behind her is the curve. There’s no seeing around curves.
She hears thumping, dull, rhythmic. It’s her right hand smacking the map next to her, again-again, crinkling all of Colombia down into the seat cushion.
Shit.
Continue reading “You Don’t Say No to Ituango by Amanda McTigue”
“We’re really so sorry Craig. She was an amazing woman.”
“The best of the best.”
“She was so sweet, so gentle. We all loved her.”
“Amy was one of a kind, she didn’t deserve for this to…”
“I broke your pie dish.”
literally stories 