Prologue: A case of the heebie-jeebies.
In a determined effort to spread inefficiency and uselessness throughout all possible universes, the Amalgamated Union of Pennames and Imaginary Friends(of which I am a reluctant member) has expanded like a toxic spill, and now includes the clientele of the recently defunct Guild of Fictional Characters. The mess has been “rebranded” the UPIFFC.
Continue reading “Meanwhile, Back at the UPIFFC… by Leila Allison”
I
Every house has this book tucked away somewhere, father tells me. Some keep it locked in the attic, while others hide it in the depths of bookcases or submerged under dusty bowls in forgotten boxes. My father, however, makes a point of reading it to us. Just as he has read it to my brothers and sisters, so he will read it to me. It’s an old leather bound book and inside is written my whole life.
I know that this may be a bit ironic but I would like to mention some inane witterings and questions. Not so much in stories but in real life. So if you are going to inanely witter, then make it about real life and you will be forgiven due to realism!
Continue reading “Week 86 – Mobiles, Inane Comments, Repetition And Comments.”
An Homage To 1951 Movie “When Worlds Collide”
The astronomers first noticed the approaching star and its one planet on February 10, 2043. How this caught them by surprise was never explained to anyone’s satisfaction, because we were told that it would ruin our whole solar system within a year. I don’t know if the conspiracy theories about giving more lead time to important people to prepare, while leaving the unwashed masses at the mercy of a shattered earth, were true. I’m an agnostic on the various stories.
Jackie Cushing was fighting it all the way, wearing knickers, him, twelve going on thirty it felt some days, dreams about Ginnie Grayson practically every night now, the morning dew being the vague remnants his father spoke about with a smile on his face, new hairs in his crotch, his mother wanting her boy to look neat, his father looking at the horizon almost saying aloud this too will pass. It was his one-shoulder shrug that carried verb and noun in its arsenal. Jackie had early discovered that his father did not need a lot of words.
“Do you want to play guns?” he asked me.
This was a complicated question, and while I stood not knowing what to say, the summer heat beat down through the cloudless Virginia sky. Twenty years has gone by now, and each summer heat wave brings back this vivid memory. It will forever be with me, as clear as it was that day when I was eight.
In the chaos following the nightclub bombing the story of Ruby’s disappearance never travelled beyond her immediate community. Ruby had been the daughter of one of the ill paid native porters at the American hotel and during the year in which she turned sixteen two local men had begun fighting over her. One happened to be the chief of police while the other was the chief’s former friend and associate, the organiser of an illegal lottery. This pair had vied in their ambition to have Ruby as a mistress. Ruby’s father, insignificant as he was, did his best to fob them off by spinning some yarn about his daughter’s betrothal to her cousin, the son of the headman back in his home village on the slopes of the volcano. He did this not so much to spare Ruby the policeman or the lottery owner—they weren’t such terrible fellows—but to leverage his daughter’s position. In response the lottery fellow threatened to have the head of the son of the village headman separated from his body and the policemen threated to have the next volcanic incineration of the man’s village brought considerably forward. Ruby’s father sensed they weren’t joking. Certainly not the policeman. So the bombing came as a welcome diversion. But once Ruby’s father had seen off the airport minibuses evacuating the expats and returned to the snarl of shanties at the rear of the now deserted hotel he discovered Ruby had vamoosed. When she hadn’t returned by the next day he guessed either the policeman or the lottery owner had taken advantage of the chaos to make off with their prize.
Estaban deTullis may not have been the most beloved man on the small island of Azure De Ponce De Leon, 57 miles south of Caracas, but that was only because of the sometimes venomous feelings harbored toward him by his often-times put upon wife and busy-body mother-in-law.
Joy’s eyes were stinging from the stench of urine. She was hoping it was from her mother’s three tiny dogs, but suspected the mutts weren’t the only ones who’d been incontinent.
Pahuac rested his head on the sacrificial stone. He would have to go through this if he wanted to find his way back home. Why couldn’t he remember?
literally stories 