Great new(ish) stories from around the Web. Forget work for a minute and read a story. It’s good for you.
– He was in Soho, leaning against the counter at the French House, waiting for his benefactor to show for a celebratory glass of red (‘it’s a darling place,’ Leonard had enthused, ‘but as crowded as a dictionary’). Fiddling with a beer mat, Ben’s mood darkened. Were his relationships doomed like his parents’? Was that the reason he had cheated on Daniel? After all, his dad had done the same twenty years earlier (with a colleague too). Maybe neither of them was capable of love. — Stephen Emms in Happiness Is An Option
– Remember how our horses shined? At the restaurant I’d look you over through my horse’s eyes. Swivel my gaze to a small white flower with its fallen petal, the unlit candle, that laconic waiter in his tawny stallion. The bartender lined glasses with a light hoof, filled them with a waterfall from her shaker. That bartender! I dreamed of getting in her horse, of being together where we barely fit. I guess you might have slipped inside that waiter’s horse a time or two. Some things I’ll never know. — Mark Neely in decomP
– There is such a thing as the Four Seasons, especially in a financial district. When they kick at her front door (that’s across the muddy river, that place), she chooses the barrel, projectile, + propellent. The hotel is shiny, + the musical venue is seedy, 5 km from there, too. She walks, because the flash car that she employs—oh! She recoils at her own indulgence. — Jennifer Greidus in Storyglossia
– I was supposed to go to dugout number three, except I didn’t know which one it was. They had been handing out a paper with the map on it, but I forgot to pick one up, and I missed all the other purple jersey kids because I had to go to the bathroom. I walked in the direction of the closest dugout. A seventeen-looking guy with bleached hair and a blue lanyard that meant he was a counselor walked past me. – Tom Kelly in Eclectica
– I put on one of my mother’s night gowns. Somehow we ended up with a whole box of these when we moved. Everything else is in a basket by the door waiting for the laundromat. It is cold, and it feels like my husband doesn’t love me anymore. I place a tea kettle in my son’s room to help his breathing while he sleeps. Today we made diamonds with our fingers and black birds with our thumbs. We ate lentils and French fries. My son talked a long time about fish, which he calls “bish.” — Lydia Copeland in Twelve Stories
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Thanks for sharing these. I really appreciate the opportunity to find out about new things to read.