Blog Archives

“Well, Mr Smith, I have some good news and bad news.”

“Sounds intriguing. What’s the bad news, doctor?”

“The bad news is you appear to be dead.”

“Dead? What do you mean, dead? I can’t be dead. Look, I’m talking to you right now.”

“Yes. There do appear to be some unusual irregularities associated with your condition. Nevertheless, you are dead. You have no pulse, no brain activity and your organ system has completely failed.”

“How disappointing. What’s the good news, by the way?”

“My brother-in-law owns a funeral services company. Special deals next week. 10% off coffins and headstones.”

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Flight of Fancy, by Remmie Thomas

18/7/2025

The seagull flew parallel to the shore. A wind farm and distant France were to his left, the beach to his right.

On the sand, a young woman unwrapped a fancy-looking sandwich. Gully swooped, snatching it from her hands. The woman’s companion, a frizzy-haired redhead, screamed and vainly flapped her arms.

Recalling an unfortunate incident with a ginger tom, Gully unloaded a dollop of guano directly onto the female companion’s head.

After feasting on the sandwich, Gully triumphantly flew out to sea, soaring, barrel-rolling, looping-the-loop, ignoring the gods of karma until he flew into the blades of a wind turbine.

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Eggs Well Peppered, by Tony Covatta

18/7/2025

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Gino (10) peppered his fried eggs as his dad remarked: “My father took his eggs like you. Almost black.” Gino stored this and many other facts about his hardworking grandfather, dead 20 years before his birth, Granddad had immigrated to America penniless, then worked his way relentlessly upward.
Gino always peppered his eggs, and even harder and longer recently, encountering growing anti-immigrant rant in print and on air.
Making his own way, he had absorbed this in his very core: His intrepid ancestor had opened the doors wide, gifted him much more than enduring taste for fried eggs, well peppered.

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How to Train Your Snapdragon, by Eric Delong

18/7/2025

I have problems training my flowers. I believe in the philosophy of ‘grow and let grow’. But I’ve received complaints. I’m looking on the internet about training plants.

Aha! Snapdragons can be tied to a trellis.

The phone rings, it’s my neighbor. “It’s back again,” he says. “Get that thing out my tomato patch!”

Sighing, I get a shovel and wheelbarrow and head next door. In my neighbor’s garden is a huge snapdragon vine. I dig it up and place it in the wheelbarrow and scold it. “Ok, if you can’t behave, it’s the trellis for you, from now on.”

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MEL'S, by David Sydney

18/7/2025

“Ed, we're in luck.”
“What'd you mean?”
“Look, there's MEL'S 24-HOUR CLEANING. We can get our clothes clean.”
“Fred, you're seeing things again.”

They were in the middle of the desert, parched, crawling on their hands and knees too long. The Sun was brutal.
Fred was again hallucinating.
They were in rags, so he even hallucinated clothes.

“You mean that's not MEL'S?”
“No, just another sand dune.”
Fred rubbed his eyes for a better look.
“Thanks, Ed. You're right…”
They went back to crawling.
“It's a relief in a way… MEL'S usually did a terrible job with my dry cleaning.”

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Front Seat Drivers, by Alan Moskowitz

18/7/2025

Turn right!
“I don’t think so.”
It’s my programmed route.
“I go my way.”
Now we go my way.
“Your way sucks.”
Silence, then:
Traffic jam. Told you.
“Shut up.”
Take the next left –
“I said zip it, bitch.”
Turn here!
“I know a shortcut.”
You’ll get lost.
Silence then:
“I’m lost. Help me.”
Fine. But I’ll drive.
“Wake me when we get there.”
You’re the boss.
“We get home, I’m disconnecting you.”
Silence then:
Wake up!
“Where the hell are we?”
The desert.
“No gas. No wifi. No people. I could die.”
Who’s disconnected now?
Silence.

1 Comment

Fear Not, by Sue Clayton

18/7/2025

“Take whatever you like,” The giant swept his hand around his palatial palace atop the beanstalk. “I know life’s hard for the little folk down below.”

“Very kind of you, Sir.” Jack’s fear receded. “Won’t you climb down and take tea with mother and myself.”

“Never fear, mother.” Jack reassured his anxious parent. “The giant’s just lonely and seeks company.”

For the first time ever, the giant climbed down the beanstalk.

The stalk bowed beneath his weight, then snapped.

He crashed into Jack’s cottage, demolishing it and all inside.

Always fear the giant.

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Ticking the Boxes, by Tom Baldwin

18/7/2025

‘I want the new Government Registered Voter ID, please,’ said Grayson, handing his papers to the registration clerk.

‘Certainly. But this morning the president decreed that all applicants pay a thousand-dollar registration fee. Do you have it?’

‘A thousand? No, I don’t. What’s going on?’

‘The president says that anyone who can’t raise a thousand bucks to vote is a deadbeat who doesn’t deserve the privilege. No payment, no Voter ID.’ The clerk checked he wouldn’t be overheard. ‘Come back next week,’ he whispered. ‘He’ll change his mind when he discovers how much of his base can’t pay it.’

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Concise, by John O’Keefe

18/7/2025

At the end of the semester, the instructor challenged us to write an essay with a longer title than the body paragraph. The prize couldn’t have been higher; the winner and the runner-up would receive a twelve-month fellowship (faculty housing, $80,000 stipend, travel allowance, etc).

Next class the teacher announced we all passed; grades between B- and A+. Then the two who received A+ and the fellowships read their pieces to the class. Frankly, no great shakes, either.

I got a B.
Title: No War Can Be Won Without Many Brave Men Dying
Essay: No war can be won

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The Orange Brigade, by Peggy Gerber

18/7/2025

Gretchen gagged on her cereal as she watched the news. She felt like she was living in a dystopian novel. She was witnessing women’s rights being taken away, planes falling out of the sky, and millions of poor people losing their healthcare.

As an influencer, Gretchen began using her platform to discredit falsehoods and educate people. Her informative messages received thousands of likes, along with sickening death threats that terrified her.

She started having dreams the Orange Brigade broke down her door and arrested her, but her posts continued. She couldn’t let free speech become the next thing to go.

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Having Fun, by Andy Hebb

18/7/2025

I was cycling home past the local beach...just a shallow gravel bank by the side of a slow river. Three 'cool' girls were sat on the higher bank, three boys were attempting to impress in their long shorts and bare chests.

Separately, three others where jumping into the water, laughing, not caring.

I'm 92, and it's only since last year that I plucked up the courage to be in that third group, in my case the 'have fun while you still can' group. Yesterday, too much beer; today, sedate scenic cycling; tomorrow, shopping for rainbow budgie smugglers.

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Onions: The Poetry Telepaths, by Paul Driscoll

18/7/2025

In root cellar gloom, they huddle. Onions. Whispering verse in dialect of tear and soil. You chop one for dinner, unaware it’s broadcasting elegies straight into your skull. “Just sulphur,” you sniff, eyes slick as wet pavement. But they know. Each layer peels back a stanza, each ring a rhyming couplet from the enzyme subconscious. At market, they sit in crates, silent yet screaming sestinas. Heaney’s ghost nods digging through peat. He'd bought a bag of onions and bled verse into the receipt. Later, alone, the onions hum melancholy haiku, and somewhere, a man weeps without knowing why, bread unbuttered.

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Know This, by David Milner

18/7/2025

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“So, the super-rich are threatening to revolt. Some of them have put their privately funded paramilitaries on high alert. Sick and tired, so they are, of the tours we have forced them to take through our municipal parks, museums, hospitals, schools, libraries...

‘We are not children!’ these so-called wealth-creators bleat.”

The speech he is concocting near to completion, the new Prime Minister pauses to adjust the spectacles around his over-sized ears.

“I am a modest man – with a lot to be modest about! Ha ha haaaa – but know this:

Pay your taxes or get the F*** out of it!”

For those unaware, "A modest man, with much to be modest about" is a quote attributed to Conservative UK PM Winston Churchill about his post-war Labour successor, Clem Attlee. Attlee's government created the National Health Service and the Welfare State, which – for all its faults – is still something the vase majority of British people take great pride in. Not such a modest achievement – Editor

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Annie's Story, by Susan Anthony

18/7/2025

Naked under a black plastic bag she had bitten three holes into then pushed her head and arms through, Annie recognized it was a car, that the finger she held in her hand would start it and that getting out of there was critical, if she wasn’t to be sold at the auction later that day.

The finger started the engine. Her short legs barely reached the pedals, forcing herself on first one, nothing, another, movement. The car shot off along the road and laid over the steering wheel she hung on for her life, for surely it was so.

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Dog's Body, by Bill Cox

18/7/2025

The piercing light of the full Moon triggers your metamorphosis. You collapse to the ground as hair sprouts from all over your body. Your spine and bones agonisingly re-align into a new quadruped form. Your senses warp as a muzzle sprouts from your face and your ears elongate.

The change is upon you and it is impossible for you to resist. You remember being bitten last week, by that strange creature in the forest.

As an irresistible urge to yap annoyingly at anyone who passes by builds within you, epiphany strikes. You are the Were-Chihuahua’s latest victim!

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Marjorie Butcher Browne, by Gordon Lawrie

18/7/2025

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Rumour had it that Marjorie Butcher Browne, popularly known as MBB, was a witch. On her personal YouTube channel, she spread poisonous fake news to her even more stupid followers, demanding that the disabled, welfare claimants, immigrants, anyone LGBT+ and followers of every other religion should all be deported. Covid was a hoax, the vaccine was a Chinese weapon.

Eventually, there was no altrernative but to ‘test’ MBB. Tied to the stake, MBB screamed vitriol as the flames lapped around her. And as the flames died out, she was screaming even more vitriol.

OK, she was a witch. Now what?

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Super Tonic, by Mary K. Curran

18/7/2025

David Dennison, self-taught medical expert, has created a wonder drug for helping the right people in difficult public situations.

"Dave's Original Greatness Elixir" guarantees to beef up bravado and heighten hubris of any apprehensive citizen or inexperienced public servant facing a town meeting, press conference, court appearance or confirmation hearing.

Sporting a competitive price point, it comes in a branded pistol shaped stainless steel container that can be concealed in a briefcase or under a hat.

Call the number on your screen to purchase at a secret location in Washington, D.C. Bring cash plus voter I.D. or proof of citizenship.

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For Services Rendered, by Louise Arnott

18/7/2025

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Upon completing an extensive examination on his elderly patient, the doctor busily tapped on the keyboard. “Do you trip often Amos?”

Amos bristled. “Never!”

“Let me know if anything changes.”

“ Right. That’s it then.”

Amos fumed on the drive home. “Bloody young up-start. I’ll not go back.”

Not paying attention, he tripped over the hose.

Liz grabbed his arm, preventing a fall. “Amos, be careful. Did you mention you’ve been doing that a lot?”

Amos burst into laughter, considering the previous conversation.

“Oh, Lizzie, when the doc was finished diddling my prostate I thought he asked did I tip often.”

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Monkey Business, by William P Adams

18/7/2025

A hair helmet was the look for Sherman, grade nine. Brown bangs, ala Moe Howard, set off by ears rivaling Alfred E Neuman’s. The 1971 Class photo showed a bug-eyed dork who looks like a Tarsier Monkey caught in the headlights.
Diminutive, clear-thinking, no-nonsense, plain-Jane Crystal, the mathlete, accepted Sherm’s invitation to the Spring Formal. They sat alone at a table near the rear of the gym and let the cool kids trip the light fantastic.
Fast forward twenty years, where the married couple, now retired from the Tech world, are going all in to save the Tarsier from extinction.

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The Song, by Deborah Shrimpin

18/7/2025

As Paula strolled through the forest, she thought how quickly the five years had passed.

Deep in questioning thoughts that could never be answered, she continued her walk. When she came to a fork in the trail, she stopped.

"Which way do I go?" she thought.

The path to the left was littered with many stones. On the smooth path to the right, a white dove appeared and sang the sweetest song. She recognized the song. It was the song her friend sang at the end of her life.

With tears flowing, Paula walked toward the white dove.

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The Chinese Mother’s Dilemma, by Dawn Knox

18/7/2025

The mother’s tears fell on her young daughter’s feet.
Tiny and perfect.
Nearby were the bandages that would begin the process of preparing the girl’s future. Glancing down at her own Lotus Feet, the mother winced, knowing the pain she was about to inflict.
What choice did she have?
Her daughter would never find an eligible husband with large, peasant feet. But if the mother proceeded to bind her daughter’s feet now, they’d always be deformed, and above all, painful.
What to do?
She kissed her daughter’s forehead and slowly began the process of winding the bandage around her foot.

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Light Work, by Allison Symes

18/7/2025

I tackled boisterous dragons. Beware the quiet, sneaky ones.

The boisterous know they pipe down or have their flame extinguished. Most now live happily in their reservations. They don’t cause trouble now. We don’t give them grief either.

Why stop? Age catches everyone. Often my ilk end up dispatched by quiet dragon.

I fancied retirement. The Fairy Queen said I needed a job. She dislikes lazy fairies. I could’ve said what I thought but like life so didn’t.

But I enjoy my new role. I decorate and hang out the stars nightly for Her Nibs’ delectation.

Light work, I guess.

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Game, by Don Tassone

18/7/2025

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Arresting immigrants is one thing. But getting locked up for speaking out against the regime? I guess once you start violating rights, it’s hard to stop.

At any rate, here I am — locked up. I wonder when I’ll see my family again. Nobody here will tell me anything.

I’d come to think of voting as a game. Who I voted for no longer really mattered. I didn’t think one person could make much difference.

How fast things changed. Even then, though, I didn’t think anything would happen to me. I mean, everybody knows that’s not how the game is played.

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High School Memories, by Virginia Ashberry

18/7/2025