short-story

Domestickery by Geraint Jonathan

I did not, of course, get round to building the table, any more than I got round to fixing the faucet on the kitchen tap. The wood was ordered, paid for, but remained in a heap in the corner of what Libby laughingly called my “workshop”. The faucet, on the other hand, proved resistant to every effort I made, and there was no lack of effort. But drip on is what the tap did, and continued to do for the duration. A dishrag or sponge sufficed to cushion the sound but this in itself proved remedy enough to acquire the trappings of parable. So Libby saw it. The table, after all, would have been just that, another table, one to replace the table we already had; or an extra table. Not so the tap. The tap was something else entirely. A leaking faucet, no matter how silenced by dishrag or sponge the drip of water, tells a story all its own, a fathomable one, muted, terrifying in its lack of promise. There was every getting away from it; two ways about everything. That Libby laughed on saying a word like “workshop” is testament to her endurance, and much else besides.

Geraint Jonathan

Alice in the Undyrwold by Geraint Jonathan

(Editor’s note: Geraint is one of the truly intelligent and productively enigmatic writers at work today. Further proof of that statement comes your way now–Leila)

According to Alice there are more things in Leavenworth than are dreamt of in your winsome motley of osophies and ologies, not to mention the sundry little isms such ologies and osophies spawn. Saying which, Alice departed, leaving me to deal with what was known in the circles I was going round and round in as “everything”. The everything in this instance comprised all that remained of Alice’s recent descent into the Undyrwold – from which she had emerged not only unscathed but triumphant. Her unfurrowed brow was a wonder to behold. Indeed she radiated the rare calm of one who has seen the very dregs of h.sap up close and lived to half-smile at the memory. She had conversed with some of the world’s worst criminals – let alone worst conversationalists. She had gazed on Dead Persons’ Tree in Slabtown’s Crowbar district and spoken with those whose names were on said Tree. Persons or persons unknown were known to her personally. Indeed the roll-call of miscreants encountered might suggest that a Very Large Rock had been moved, leaving all that lived under it free to crawl out into what passed for light.

Geraint Jonathan

(Image is of Miss Izzy who divides her time being lovely and driving me out of my mind with annoyances; such being definitive of the Feline species–Leila)

Menopausal Male Bombshell by Michael Bloor

Alan had won second prize in a writers’ magazine poetry competition for his ‘Ballad of the Menopausal Male.’ The postman had just delivered the prize, a copy of The Chambers Thesaurus (5th edition).

As Alan hefted the thesaurus in his hand, he recalled that, in what used to be termed The Dark Ages, poets were feted and richly cosseted in the courts of Kings and Great Lords. When Gunnlaug the Worm-Tongue* (‘worm’ as in snake), the great Icelandic skald (= poet) was presented to the English king, Ethelred the Unready, Gunnlaug chanted four lines in praise of the king and was rewarded with a gold-thread-embroided, fur-lined cloak and was invited to spend the entire winter at the royal court.

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Life with Angie by DC Diamondopolous

My sister Angie gives me outrageous material for my standup comedy. She’s a bona fide nut case, a paranoid schizophrenic, bipolar, manic depressive—you name it—Angie fits every disorder that isn’t wired to reality.

The voices inside her head tell her to run from anyone trying to help her—except me. I take my sister’s sorry existence, find the humor in it—in the loonies of my own mind—and make people laugh. Do I feel guilty? I’m half Jewish, half Catholic. Humor is my way of coping. Hell, I’m a female stand-up comic, and there’s no higher hurdle in show business.

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Christmas To-Do List, Nick Botkin Edition by Yashar Seyedbagheri

(Editor note–We like to welcome Yash to the Springs. He holds the record for most stories published in one year at what I like to think of as , if not sister, but our cousin publication of Literally Stories UK. One read will tell you why he is so successful–Leila)

The to-do list stares at me, letters running across the page, like railroad tracks of responsibility.

Pick up sisters’ favorite wines. Nan likes Sauvignon Blanc. Colette worships Merlot; Nan is not drinking any fucking Merlot (sorry, Paul Giamatti, I know I plagiarized Sideways, but original words are stuck in my throat).

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