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Latest Stories

July 24, 2024
Fantasy Stories Mario Kumi

The Hunter's Lament

"Damn it!!! I cannot believe it..." said Stellan, hanging upside down from an old tree. His senses had not fully returned, and his arms were numb, caused by a lesion in his head. However, he began to focus and could see that he was hanging upside down, from…
July 24, 2024
Horror Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

A Scanner Darkly

It's darkly. And it's booming. The machines and the helicopters are the precursors of this sinister boom. The Omega virus has wiped two-third of the world, turning victims into shish (jellylike monsters that move like unicellular amoebas). It seems like the…
July 24, 2024
General Stories Paula Bernstein

Generations

“Before you were born, I had an important job at City Hall,” my mother says. I sit at the kitchen table eating Oreos with milk and watch her iron my white middy blouse with its blue tie for tomorrow’s school assembly. I have heard this tale before, but I…
July 17, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Nelly Shulman

Elle

Beneath his feet lay the warm wood of the walkways. Mosquitoes buzzed around the yellow swamp flowers and spindly birch trees. The hills, overgrown with ancient pines, obscured the lake where Michael went, following a path strewn with fallen needles and…
July 17, 2024
Poetry Paweł Markiewicz

The Dreameries With Egyptian Cats

I looked at the window of my villa and it was midnight. The brown cat meowed. He is the guardian of many blissful melancholies. He is the crimson memory of philosophers. He is a signpost for golden-hearted poets. I am tender ancient sage. I am the poet of…
July 17, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Ocelotlzin

The Battle Of Cerberus Plains

“Todd, Down, now!” The soldier just moved his head a couple of millimeters when an energy flash passed where his head was an instant before. Todd rolled immediately and took cover behind one of the boulders hidden below the Martian soil. “We need to keep…
July 17, 2024
Horror Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

The Haunting Of Glass House

Nobody knew for sure how the Glass House came to be. Even the native Americans who have known the area like forever. At least, so it seemed. When the Stones, a Black-American family, were relocating to the area little did they know they would live close to a…
July 17, 2024
Fantasy Stories Paula Bernstein

The Secondhand Store

Sarah and Annabelle finished their ahi tuna salads, sipped their iced teas, and asked for the check. “Feel like browsing?” Annabelle asked. Annabelle was always in the mood for browsing and Montana was their favorite street, with its charming high-end…
July 02, 2024
Fantasy Stories Paweł Markiewicz

The Birdies Part VI

Alps. Way back to the guesthouses. July 3, 2014 Thursday. Night Mary and Paweł decided to return to the guesthouse. They had to complete a section in the forest. There was another danger waiting for them there. They were both very scared when they heard the…
July 02, 2024
Crime Stories Paula Bernstein

Moonlighting

None of this would have happened if the Medical School of Manhattan hadn’t decided to raise tuition by $5000 at the start of my junior year. There I was, thinking I’d saved just enough cash to get me and Beryl through, when all my careful calculations were…
July 02, 2024
Mystery Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

The Hitchhiker

You were born on a train, a product of miscegenation. Nineteen-seventy-five it was. You have a hair thick as the cumulus clouds. Not cauliflower-shaped, but thick enough. Your mom used to be a footloose traveler who lived most of her life in Australia. Gone…
July 02, 2024
Poetry Alejandro Casas

Cipher I

Two tomorrows and one afternoon. That is what was given and removed. One evening, zero incantations added. Three mornings, infinite regressions subtracted. Four, junctures, free will Tallied. What is forgiven and what Is not renewed. What is a preamble, If…

It was supposed to just be a joke.  Really…

Josh, Pat and Casey drove over to the house of Rachel Vessing with the intent of play a bit of a joke on her 17th birthday.  The “mooning” of the attractive redhead while singing “happy birthday” was intended to in fun.   They were sure that Rachel won’t be offended and would take the gesture in the manner intended.

Hey, it was just a joke, right?  But unbeknownst to the boys, Rachel’s father, the Reverend Josiah Vessing, was at home that night and not at bible study as was usually the case for a Wednesday evening in the fall.  The widower was protective of his only daughter so what happened was not totally unexpected.  So the boys were surprised when both Rachel and Reverend Vessing opened the door.  Turned around and bent over, the boys thought that just Rachel was there when she gasped “oh my god” at the sight of their bare buttocks.  But they quickly realized their mistake when they heard a male voice boom out “what the hell??”

Fleeing off the porch while simultaneously trying to buckle their pants, boys might have been a bit too distracted to hear the reverend’s final comment to them as they ran off his property.

 

“That is not what I was talking about last week when I said that we all need to turn the other cheek…”

 

 

The End

 

Author’s Bio:   Tom Schmidt is a Chemical Engineer working in medical diagnostics in upstate New York.  He enjoys creative writing and has been published on www.short-story.me as well as on www.fartherstars.com and in www.overmydeadbody.com in the past.  He is currently working on the “Paul Garigan Crime Mysteries”, a collection of short stories centered around a Malibu based police detective which he hopes to publish in the future.  Tom can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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