Category Archives: Amusing

MOUSTACHE MEMOIRS: Peter Li-Ping – Gloop of the Day

Amusing, Moustache Memoirs, , ,

This guy in the restaurant had actually drunk straight from his soup bowl, leaving a neat pea-green soup moustache. Rolling up his sleeves to attack the main course, he’d splattered food up to his elbows. Watching him in the mirror, I supposed I really should address his lack of manners.

Peter Li-ping has yet to see an attractive moustache. He feels, however, that they are better than tattoos because they can be shaved off. Except when someone tattoos a moustache on themselves, which is really weird.

DIANA WAGNER: The Hard Talk With My Gut

Amusing, Submissions, , , , ,

I’ve always been told to trust you. But you only entice me to make bad decisions, like eating Taco Bell after midnight. Then you spend hours punishing me!

And now you’re telling me to quit my job to become a novelist?

This isn’t working. I’m leaving you for my Head.

Diana Wagner loves to write and read and watch and think about stories.

CATHERINE MATHEWS: Brothers

Amusing, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

Georgi, by 15 months the older brother, would say, “Bori, bring the toys,” and Bori, heeding authority’s voice, hastened to comply.

Now, in their eighties, their relationship has not changed.

When Georgi thinks it’s time for lunch, Bori, though slowed by age, limps to the kitchen to bring the sandwiches.

Catherine Mathews is a State Department retiree formerly stationed overseas in Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv, Athens, Frankfurt, and Istanbul. She is now living in Northern Virginia and writing about her life.

ANTON ROSE: Commuting

Amusing, Odd, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

A chap started speaking to me on the train this morning. He told me he had just killed his wife, shot her twice in the head, and was off to Bristol to kill again.

I turned to the sports section in the newspaper.

England Lose By Six Wickets.

Bloody typical.

Anton lives in Durham, U.K. He writes fiction and poetry while trying to finish a PhD, all fueled by numerous cups of tea. Find him at antonrose.com or @antonjrose.

FRANK SOLOMON: The Heirloom

Amusing, Submissions, Touching, , , , , ,

The white gold, worn thin by years, cut her grandmother’s cold finger as Julia removed it. Her tears caught the diamond’s fire.

“She wanted you to have it,” Pops said.

“I miss her already.”

“Me too, Babe.” He held Julia close and kissed her head.

“…How much is it worth?”

Frank Solomon retired from the University of Kentucky after 30 years as a Systems Programmer and now pursues his many passions from his home in Kentucky. http://www.franksolomon.com.

RUBY RAY: A Flick of the Wrist

Amusing, Submissions

I’d seen all the tricks. I’d been a magician, conjuror, illusionist for over thirty years. But this guy, I couldn’t figure it out.

“How do you do it?” I asked.

“Don’t you know who I am?”

“No.”

“God, you people drive me nuts.”

Then he walked off across the lake.

Ruby Ray has been a Jill of many trades and mistress of some of them. Anyway, she hopes to have mastered (mistressed?) a few more before she takes it easy for good.

BOB THURBER: After the Honeymoon’s Over

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

I woke from my nap soaked in sweat, shivering. I felt chest pain.

In the kitchen my wife had my heart on a cutting board. I watched as she jabbed a fork in and sawed with a steak knife.

“Whoa,” I said. “Easy there.”

The whole marriage was like that.

Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and appeared in 30 anthologies. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled Nothing But Trouble. Visit BobThurber.net.

DANIEL SLATEN: Moment of Truth

Amusing, Submissions, ,

There’s a gulf between what Chris wants to say and what he actually does say to Andi.

Without this last bit of truth, he’s afraid they will never be able to live the life he can envision them living together.

Unfortunately, secrets come with the territory when you’re a superhero.

Daniel Slaten writes short stories and poetry in small notebooks and on sticky notes.

PERRY MCDAID: Inspiration

Adventure, Amusing, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

The spider spun her web, studiously ignoring the brooding human so intent upon her labours.

Suddenly resolute, the figure raced away, his wake almost dislodging her.

“What was that all about?”

“Nothing, Wallace,” she responded casually, dispatching her mate in an act of post-coital whimsy, unaware of the ironic parallel.

Derry man Perry McDaid is currently fiction editor with Liquid Imagination and on the board of silverpen.org. Widely published, his poems, stories, reviews, and articles have appeared in diverse and international magazines, anthologies, and websites. A prize-winner with short stories, poetry and articles, the Irishman’s work can be found both in hard copy and online. Eschewing demands for one “voice”, and spanning genres, he writes from many perspectives on subjects from the comic to the profound. He lives with his family beneath the mostly misty Donegal Hills, walking back roads where he can inhale the mystic inspiration of long-dead bards and druids to concoct the weird, wonderful, and downright disturbing.

JOHN H DROMEY: Transcript of a Thriller Writer’s Last Live Podcast

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

Limited point of view poses a challenge for writers.

Ouch! I just experienced a sharp pain in my shoulder.

I need your help—you, the viewers.

I’m dying to know who stabbed me in the back.

I’m exaggerating, I hope. Should the wound be fatal, I’ll stop my narration immed—

John H. Dromey has had short fiction published in Black Denim Lit #7, Gumshoe Review, Plan B Magazine, and elsewhere.