Tag: writing

All Stories, Humour

Car Crash Television by Nik Eveleigh

Nik

“…you can actually taste the friction Dimitri.”

Stu shook his head and stared, unnoticed at his iPad surfing wife. “Did you hear that Jen? They can actually taste the friction.”

“Hmm…that’s nice love.”

“I suppose they’d know that sort of thing what with it being a cooking show and all, but actually tasting friction? I can’t even begin to contemplate what friction would taste like. OK that’s not true, I imagine it tastes pretty similar to sticking one of those nine volt Duracells on your tongue when you were nine and stupid but that isn’t the point.”

“I expect so love.”

“You’re not even listening to me are you? I could say whatever I wanted right now and you wouldn’t hear a word of…come to think of it it’s probably more like sucking on wet wool.”

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All Stories, Fantasy, Humour

And A Crow In A Pear Tree by Nik Eveleigh

Nik

‘Twas the night before Christmas
And in the alehouse below
A creature was stirring
A miserable old crow…

“Stirring’s a bit strong a word for it to be fair Nug, but I admire your cheery optimism.”

Nugget shook his lumpy, misshapen and somewhat yellow head. “You know me Bresst. Ever cheery.”

“Been meaning to ask you something though, Nug. What’s this Christmas thing you keep singing about?”

“That? The celebration of Christopher Thomas?”

“Eh?”

“Christopher Thomas? You’ve heard the tale of Old Chris surely?” Nugget laughed goldenly as Bresst shook his head. “In that case I propose the same again to lubricate the tale. And,” he continued, poking the form slumped over the table beneath a black feathered cloak, “We’d better get another ale into him if we’ve got any chance of him functioning. Now where’s my favourite…ah! There she is! Menna! Three ales please darlin’. And a couple of those otters on a stick if you’d be so kind.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

This is the End by Adam Kluger

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When it came it was sudden.

There had been a bunch of false alarms and near misses.

Paul Buckington had avoided the inevitable for as long as he could and at some points he thought perhaps, Providence played a part, and at others he credited himself with simply persevering against daunting odds.

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All Stories, Latest News

Week 104 – Interest, Promotion And Mrs Claus’s Disappointment.

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It has been a strange week for me this week folks. I met a guy I went through secondary school with. I reckon I hadn’t seen him for around thirty years. I was very surprised when he asked about my writing. He had seen an article regarding the anthology over a year ago and had remembered. It was nice to be asked. Not many people ask, but to be truthful, not many people know or realise what this all means to me.

I mentioned last week about me writing poetry and I’ll admit, I am the most un-poetic person ever! I’m even surprised that I do it! I have always kept all my writing a bit hidden. I am not as guarded now as I once was and if anyone asks what I do in my spare time, I champion this site and all our stories.

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All Stories, Horror

Jakantha by Amiel Rossin

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Jake drove his convertible Mustang up Highway 1, the Pacific Ocean stretching into oblivion on his left, his girlfriend Samantha sitting far to his right, as if she planned to throw the door open and roll onto the blacktop at any moment.  They were on their way to a little B&B that Sam had discovered online (one Yelp reviewer called it ‘kitschy but tolerable’), and although neither of them said so out loud, they both knew that if this weekend was a disaster, their relationship would never recover.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Body in the Bay by James Hanna

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Nietzsche’s cutting quote, “If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you,” is by now a redundancy.  And so, when I became a San Francisco probation officer, I prepared myself to keep company with the abyss.  But I had not quite realized how extensive the abyss was.  I saw it in the eyes of the senior probation officers, so exhausted by massive caseloads that they were counting the months to retirement.  I saw it in the faces of deputy jailors, disaffected shift workers who were all but deaf to the human clamor of the cell ranges.  And, of course, I saw it in my clientele: hollow-cheeked crack heads, asocial gang bangers, vagrants with thousand mile stares.  But at least the abyss could be mellow where probationers were concerned.  It was mellow in the case of Joseph Shepherd, a middle-age drug peddler on probation for choking his girlfriend.  Entering my office for his intake interview, he glanced at the tower of case files on my desk and chuckled.  “I know you have it rough,” he remarked in a voice that could be poured over waffles.  “So I plan to make it easy on you, sir.”  He smiled with the insular charm of a sociopath then shook my hand with a python grip.  He seemed to be a man of elemental strength—a brawn with a life of its own—yet his broad open face and puppy dog eyes set me completely at ease.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Frozen Tag by Mitchell Toews

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SHE HAD ONCE BEEN A SHOW PONY, sleek of shank and withers. Now she walked the pool deck, eyes forward and a neutral look on her face. I watched her for a moment and noticed that her head described a perfectly level line as she strode along, barefoot and bikini-clad.

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All Stories, Science Fiction

Towers of Grass and Clay by Kip Hanson

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Li Tsai stood beside the groundship and studied the ruins of the ancient city. She’d learned in school that the inhabitants of that unhappy place called it Denver, in honor of some forgotten politician. Today those people were naught but dust and troubled memories, she thought, shifting her glance towards the new city standing alongside the bones of the old: Deng Xiaoping, city of the people.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Unsynchronized Death By Titus Green

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typewriterSeptember 24th, 2014 10.15am

He sits on the comfortable sofa and assesses his surroundings. He is in a spartan, minimally furnished room on the second floor of a nondescript Syrian apartment.  There is a lamp-shade to his left, and a small coffee table in front of him, on which there is a bowl containing some dates. Somebody has tried to insert some signs of civilization, and he appreciates this. Outside, staccato gunfire is the false fire-cracker sporadically popping in the distance.  The automatic bursts have an industrial sound quality, as if the trigger-happy fanatics shouting their devotions are contractors hired to destroy the city incrementally by hosing it with their bullets, and their RPG rounds.

“You want?” asks one of his swarthy captors unable to develop the question any further, because of limited English.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Celebrity Unconscious by Paul Thompson

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typewriterA laptop illuminates the otherwise darkened room. On the screen is a website that she is all too familiar with, the one that has been taunting her for months. A new photo has been uploaded within the past couple of hours. She pulls out a chair but chooses not to sit – the surfaces are damp and the whole apartment smells of bleach and lemon.

The website is seemingly old fashioned by design. Page backgrounds are dark with a watermark logo. Fonts are bright and dated. Items jerk around the page whenever a window is resized or moved. An animated under construction image rotates and hovers in view at all times.

The homepage shows fourteen captionless photographs. The image quality is poor and they appear to be scanned copies of original prints. Each image shows a minor celebrity in a state of undress, always draped across an object or a piece of furniture. The pictures are unflattering and raw. The first image shows a reality star splayed across a four poster bed. The next is an ex-soap star lying face down into a giant beanbag. A television presenter slumps backwards over a pile of cardboard boxes.

And so on.

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