All Stories, Horror

The Executor by Tobias Haglund

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There is – I wouldn’t call it a hole, rather a hollow – in the ground outside my house. When it rains it fills up to form a puddle and when the sun shines it evaporates, back to a hollow. The last few summers the puddle hasn’t dried away. Perhaps the sun shone less or perhaps the branches of the tree just above it grew a little thicker, but the puddle remained throughout the season. I can see the puddle from my bedroom window. The puddle, the tree and the green area around it, the little playground outside a kindergarten and a convenience store.

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All Stories, Science Fiction

The Culex Experiment by Nik Eveleigh

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The thin penetrating whine dragged him from the warm recesses of sleep. He pawed at the air as he sank back into slumber but his swipe was ineffectual and the incessant drone continued. He turned on to his side. The insect followed. He sat up in bed, groaned and shook his head.

“Light”

The bedside globe reacted to his command painting the room a dusky yellow.

Where are you, you little…

He rubbed his eyes and scanned the ceiling. No sign of the intruder and no sound to track it by. Resigned to have to start hunting he stretched a lazy arm across his body to pull back the covers.

Ahh…there you are.

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In conversation with...

Hugh in Conversation with Hugh by Hugh Cron – Adult Content – very strong language – do not read if offended

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Right! The story is done.  A long stand in the pissing rain waiting for that bird. Fecking camera in the fecking phone pish. What twat thought of that? I bet it was some weirdo with an ear fetish!

OK now the easy bit…Oh fuck I do make myself laugh.

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Background
Latest News

Literally Stories – Week 38

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When I visited the back door portal to Literally Stories Friday morning charged with the task of ordering random words into something a little less random my first thought on typing Week 38 was; Is there any significance to the number 38?

In short. No significance.

The best ‘fact’ I came up with was it is the probable year of the marriage of Claudius and Messalina.

Fascinating.

However if you add ‘th’ to 38 and then parallel, too, the plot thickens into something almost but not quite significant, as you now have the 38th parallel. The demarcation between North and South Korea. An imaginary line that also passes just north of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan, all of which makes one wonder how newspaper columnists survived before the advent of the internet search engine? None of which leads me to this week’s litany of literary marvels that began with The Aviator.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Romance

Still Working by Tobias Haglund

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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.

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All Stories, Writing

A Writing Piece by Tobias Haglund

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Tobias sat down, put his cup of cinnamon coffee beside the keyboard and stretched out his fingers. He moved his neck from side to side making a cracking sound and spoke to himself, but only in his own head.

“Alright, here we go!”

The first couple of sentences were clunky, it took him a while to get into the rhythm. Very much like the first couple of steps of jogging. Not that he ever jogged, whom is he fooling? But the analogy could stay. For now. Maybe he’ll come back to it, like a revisit of- No. No more analogies. On with the story. A setting and a problem. What did he want to say? Ah, he remembered. His girlfriend told him about a tourist guide who literally got into a fist fight with another tourist guide. Oh, but he didn’t like that last sentence. Why didn’t he just write ‘a story about two tourist guides who fought’? Well, it was necessary to part the two since one of them initiated the fight, that’s why.

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Latest News

Literally Stories Week 34

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Sunday used to be the day LS maintained radio-silence. Well not any longer baby. We sexed up Sunday weeks ago. Anything goes on a Sunday. Well almost. Witness In Conversation with…and Editor Picks and now something outrageously entitled A Writing Piece.

A Writing Piece indeed!

Imagine how long we sat around in blue-sky think-tank style working parties debating the ins and outs of various off-the-wall titles before arriving at that humdinger.

Sunday – A Writing Piece – Tobias Haglund.

But first, Story of the Week. No. A different first before that.

The week that was, began incredibly, yet again, on Monday.

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Editor Picks, Writing

Editor Picks by Dave Louden

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We invited Literally Stories author and friend, Dave Louden, to be Editor for a day and choose his three favourite stories from the site. Here is what Dave had to say about the three stories he chose and why he felt they were special…

If there was ever a task that was as enjoyable as it was difficult it’s this one. On the one hand I got to re-read some of my favourite stories this site has offered up but on the other I had to narrow down months of great reading to three stories. Three titles across a cornucopia of genres. How do you compare a Noir to a light-hearted comic fable? A piece of science fiction to a poignant piece of personal history? In the end I had to simply say “F*ck it! Which stories made me wish to Christ I wrote them?”

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Latest News

Literally Stories Week 33

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Sunday sees another LS author take the helm as Editor (for a day) to choose their three favourite stories from the site in Editor Picks.

Step forward Dave Louden.

Week 33…

Not satisfied with two new authors in one week, Literally Stories pushed the boat out and made it four in a row Monday through Thursday as we welcomed Elizabeth Swann Lewis, Bill Runyan, Michael C. Keith and Jeffrey Miller.

dm gillis who took this week’s Friday berth, needs no introduction.

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