Tag: war

General Fiction, Short Fiction

 The Quiet, Empty Bedrooms of Saugus by Tom Sheehan 

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As all of earth once growled and gnarled its way to an instant conflagration, a calamitous roar, all its gears beginning to shift, in the near-middle of the last century, Saugus, Massachusetts, a small town just north of Boston, started to empty its bedrooms… the ones in the attic, in the space out over the garage, third floor second door on the left, the bedrooms facing on the pond or the cemetery or those looking broadly down on the wide marshes or quickly down on quiet Cliftondale Square. The bedrooms where boys cruised into manhood, almost overnight at that.

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All Stories, General Fiction

All My Darlings Waiting by Antony Osgood

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I caught her eye. Recognised a kindred spirit. Her head then converted into cruor popcorn. Colour of grey nail varnish, millet porridge. Scarlet white and woeful.

I feared I’d lose my lonesome bench for good.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Once Screamed to Drunks at the Vets Bar, Memorial Day Evening by Tom Sheehan

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Sixty-six years now and they come at me, in Chicago, Crown Point, Indiana, by phone from Las Vegas.

I tell them how it happened, long after parting, one night when I was in a bar, thinking of them all.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Last Light of the Library by Jennie Boyes

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In silence, we drew back the curtains and watched the bombs explode. Josef leaned his head against the wall, cigarette limp in his mouth, his round glasses askew. He didn’t look afraid, and he wasn’t curious like me, not any more.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Writing

Residual Grief of The Dead Soldiers Mother by S.A. Cavanagh

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When we received this work we were undecided what to do with it. We knew that we wanted to publish such a powerful and emotional piece of writing but, in fairness, it isn’t what we would normally class as a story. I will be honest and say that it moved me to tears.
Anyway, fate took a hand. We were scheduling this week at the time and when better to publish this than Remembrance Day. 

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General Fiction, Short Fiction

Paperboat by Kenrick Pinto

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The last paper boat. At least Herman hoped it was, watching it float away. Transported by the Danube to a world far from his own. A world without weapons and bombs. Without destruction. Where dreams didn’t die, where they weren’t shattered. Where men lived. He watched as it carried a tale of love, of loss, of grief and of war. Is that why they call it the Black sea, he wondered. All emotions coalescing to form a black, murky mass. Was the sea black inside, hiding behind a shade of blue, flowing nonchalantly. Like the people around him, hiding their sadness behind a smile. It will all be alright, they said. To others, to themselves. That it was destiny. There was nothing they could do, and the world would return to normalcy. It had to. Someday.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Top Secret by Tom Sheehan

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His name was Maxwell Max Dugan and this is his story, but only covers those disturbing and warful years between 1941 to 1947, just seven years chockfull of battles, combat, explosions, heroic people, deadly people on a world-wide rampage, and means of salvage, at least of the souls, if nothing else.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Wingsy by Tom Sheehan

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Long and lanky and always of a dark eye, ever adept at study of any kind, Wingsy held a broad maple leaf aloft, with fine fingers at the end of one long thin arm, against an angle of penetrating August sunlight. To a young friend he pointed out the webbing of shadowed filaments. As he pointed out the leafy veins, he spoke in an instructive manner, yet indirectly, as if for the moment he had but half interest, which was somewhat unlike him. Interest was something he had a facility of generating, no matter the subject.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

A Change in Latitude by Terry Sanville

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Tan Son Nhut Airbase, South Vietnam, 1968: 10° 46’ 5.99” N

Sweat stained the underarms of his short-sleeved khakis and dripped from his upper lip. But after six months in Nam, surviving its hot-and-wet and hot-and-dry seasons, Jeremy didn’t notice. His mind still wandered the jungles of the Central Highlands, in the teak forests, hunting the enemy and sometimes finding them.

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