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Latest Stories

March 19, 2024
Fantasy Stories Wondering Monk

Just My Imagination

The alarm clock went off and started playing an awful tune. Tom opened his eyes and closed them back, squinting. He reopened one eye and stood up to stop the torture. The phone was on the desk, in the furthest spot from the bed. Although he changed his way of…
March 19, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Ocelotlzin

Earth Is Dead

Recording… It doesn't matter who I was; I probably lived a long time ago, and I am now just a voice someone added to the audio-visual records. What is essential is the recollection of events that lead to the current state. So, a little history needs to be…
March 08, 2024
Flash Fiction Benoit

Some Enchanted Evening

It was a rugby tackle with tears: Chrissy burst in, sobbing and babbling, hugging James. Her face was all wet, eyes wild. What…? My parents split up, Dad has moved in with his boyfriend and I cannot join them. I am shut out. I have lost my dad. Torrent of…
March 08, 2024
Horror Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

In The Hands Of My Legs

The car pulled up in front of the large salon. The neon sign, that sexy broad thing, on the salon'sroof read "Mr. Gil's All-night Salon". The exhaust pipe of the car was pumping solid smoke, theswirls moving from the car and towards the salon.…
March 07, 2024
Mystery Stories Vanessa Leigh Giles

Casualty of Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Chapter 1 Until Death do us Part ‘Ring, ring!’. I answered the telephone and asked, “Hello, good evening. Who’s this? “Hello.” This is Dr. Smith from Red Cross hospital. “Is this Mr. Locke, John?”, he asked, hesitantly scratching his bald head. “Yes, doctor.…
March 07, 2024
Crime Stories Robert Pook

Bar Room Trigger

Another return journey on footpaths so familiar. He strides across each crack in each paving stone. Regular loose drain covers sidestepped. Mapping long ago mapped in Richard’s desolate mind. His pace hastened by the sight of the oncoming storm. Quickening…
March 04, 2024
Horror Stories Ano Chinemerem

Sanctity

Where should I begin? I could begin by telling you about this comely boy, whom every notable person around the streets agrees his smile could charm the bills off one. Between one smile, there was his goodness, his dreams and humanity—a little far ahead?— but…
March 04, 2024
Flash Fiction Emanuel Diaz

Et Mortui Partium

As Rafael stepped out into the rain, it wasn't the ordinary drops that fell from the sky. Instead, it was a storm of souls, each one taking the form of shimmering jewelry as it cascaded toward the ground. Rubies, diamonds, and sapphires twinkled amidst the…
February 29, 2024
Poetry Jing Li Ava

London

‘Am I in London?’ "I am." Where is Elizabeth? Happy living story All of your chapter Bounlance joy Please my heart Power hand Wise mind Our baby Vow vow Love all love Miss I miss Endless wonder Bring us together Love all love Miss I miss For everything My…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Rob Pook

Life Sentence of The Smith

Born nine months after his country won the World Cup.A child prodigy.Cast off at age twenty-four.Husband, father, emigree, away on the other side of the world.The blue-collar life.The dreams of success.The search for fulfillment.The long years of empty…
February 29, 2024
Mystery Stories Joshua Lowther

The Operator

Jason looked over to his right, his eyes barely able to focus themselves on the subject of his attention. His neck ached terribly from the strenuous movement. He was tired. The captain’s gaze came to rest on the rookie sonar operator sitting tense at his…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Salvatore Difalco

The Chute

At dusk, we left our unit with a soft pink bundle. I carried it through the wet streets and into the black woods. I said I’d take it all the way, the bundle, but that we had to drop it in together. My wife’s green eyes flashed. “Don’t make me do that.” I…

Doug thought he bore no responsibility for getting Carl run over and killed.

Doug pulled with one hand the handle of the cart jammed with clothes from the

Laundromat in the flimsy wired shopping cart he had ineptly assembled long ago.

The huge load forced loose five thin wires from the thick metal frame, slipping from

holes on the side nearest his legs. Bored with this monthly chore, before realizing it the

tilted two wheels had run over a crooked trail of laundry spilled on the sidewalk.

He saw the clean clothes lying there and this disrupted his compulsion for order. He

craved reality neither torn nor shredded. He had to draw the cart six blocks to his home.

He wanted to but didn’t go fetal on the sidewalk: a ruined routine only meant trouble.

A man touched Doug’s shoulder, and said, “You’ve dropped these,” handing Doug two

shirts, a towel and three socks. “It looks like you need help.”

Doug saw the man’s opaque glasses, his white cane, his big pot mostly covered by a

short sleeve shirt, his suspenders holding up white trousers.

“A matching set, pants and cane,” sneered Doug, but no reaction from the man. “Hell

happens fast in my life.”

“I can Braille the clothes even though I’m unsighted,” he said. “My name’s Carl.”

Doug told him his, Carl putting out his hand that Doug finally shook. Very funny,

Braille.

They stuffed clothes slowly into the half-empty cart. The unsighted man’s hands and

arms touched Doug’s as they stuck unfolded clothes helter shelter into the cart, unlike the

neat piles Doug made at the Laundromat.

“Has your sense of touch increased since you became blind?” Doug asked.

“I didn’t become anything. I was totally blind at birth,” Carl said, with a twist of anger.

The clothes taken from the sidewalk, Doug started to leave.

“Did your parents have syphilis?” Doug said. He wanted that to be his parting shot.

“I’m an orphan. Don’t assume anything about the unsighted.” Carl smiled when he

spoke, either to conceal hostility or because he was just another happy, i.e., stupid

man according to Doug.

“It’s nice of you to help. Maybe you can traipse behind me next time I do laundry.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Carl said, waving his cane like a bomb detector searching for

explosive devices. He walked point, Doug lagging behind. The traffic increased

since Doug entered the Laundromat; this distraction made pulling the cart harder.

“You sure know this route for a guy who can’t see. How come I haven’t seen you

around?” How come you don’t get the fuck away from me, you’ve served your purpose,

get lost before I snap your cane over my knee, Doug wanted to say.

“I’ve never been on this stretch before,” Carl said. “And enough with the ‘seen you

around’ stuff. That pisses me off.”

“Dammit, I can see that,” Doug said, spittle flying on Carl’s black glasses. “Life

pisses me off. It makes me want to sit alone in the dark.”

Carl pressed the walk button and waited for the green. Braille again?

They walked abreast on the now wider sidewalk.

“Shit, man, don’t ever say, ‘I can see that’. What are you, a bigot who hates the 
unsighted?” For a disabled man, in Doug’s eyes, Carl was not Kosher. The cart’s wire

came loose again and pushed into the back of his thighs.

“What are you, a vampire sucking up pity whenever possible?” Doug said. He turned

his head when he spoke, his neck contorted, bits of saliva wetting Carl’s ear. Doug

wanted to stop, fix the cart, stick his face into Carl’s and rip those glasses off.

“Pity sucks. I don’t need yours. Where would you be if I hadn’t helped you. You’re a

whiner. Us cane tappers sense defects people like you can’t.”

With that, Doug grabbed Carl’s arm, squeezing his fleshy bicep tighter as Carl resisted.

The cane slipped from Carl’s hand. Doug flung his glasses off and shoved him. Carl fell

into the dirt near a shrub.

“Dammit, you’re not blind. They’re bloodshot. You’re an insomniac is all,” Doug

said. “And a damn liar.”

Straddling Carl’s hips, Doug snapped his suspenders so many times until Carl yelled,

“Stop it. Let me go.” A bug crawled over Carl’s face. Traffic flowed, as usual.

Doug got up, grabbed the clothes, and tossed them out of the cart to use the end of one

wire to gouge Carl’s eyes. He hauled the nearby empty cart upon the chest of fallen Carl

and tried to poke a circular metal piece into his eyes but the handle got in the way. The

cart was no weapon. Carl heaved his chest many times until Doug flopped to one side,

much as a wrestler did to avoid getting pinned and lose the match. Doug rose.

Carl got up without his glasses. “I’ll get even, you dirty shit,” he said breathlessly,

his face red. Carl stepped into the gutter.

He jaywalked into the path of an eighteen-wheeler.

 

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