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Literally Stories The best and brightest fiction on the web. High quality short stories.

If you wish to submit a story please read the Submission Guidelines and email your story to us at [email protected].

“Killing a snake is the same as having a snake” – Joan Didion A large, clay and plaster likeness of Saint Patrick, holdi...
09/07/2025

“Killing a snake is the same as having a snake” – Joan Didion A large, clay and plaster likeness of Saint Patrick, holding a crook and pointing at writhing snakes on the statue’s base, dominated the right side of our church. He was wheeled in face up on a donkey-cart, wenched upright by strong men when St. Patrick’s Church on Ninety-Fifth Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was built in 1847....

“Killing a snake is the same as having a snake” – Joan Didion A large, clay and plaster likeness of Saint Patrick, holding a crook and pointing at writhing snakes on the statue’s base, dominated th…

Ginny was raised on violin lessons and minimal parental supervision. The combination very nearly landed her in a window...
08/07/2025

Ginny was raised on violin lessons and minimal parental supervision. The combination very nearly landed her in a windowless room in the detention center in Brooklyn, and if Callum hadn’t gotten away with the dogs just when he did, even his street smarts might not have saved her....

Ginny was raised on violin lessons and minimal parental supervision. The combination very nearly landed her in a windowless room in the detention center in Brooklyn, and if Callum hadn’t gotten aw…

She sat up, prim and proper, as if in counterpoint to her casually draped robes and the haphazardly pillowed sedan chair...
07/07/2025

She sat up, prim and proper, as if in counterpoint to her casually draped robes and the haphazardly pillowed sedan chair. Like for her previous sittings, she was artfully arranged in Laurent’s beautiful courtyard, the scent of flowers filling her nose. Her lover looked up from his canvas to offer a conspiratorial wink, as her loosely wrapped coverings rippled in the breeze and brushed against her skin....

She sat up, prim and proper, as if in counterpoint to her casually draped robes and the haphazardly pillowed sedan chair. Like for her previous sittings, she was artfully arranged in Laurent’s beau…

Regular visitors to the site will be aware of Tom. He has had more stories published than any other author. Much of his ...
06/07/2025

Regular visitors to the site will be aware of Tom. He has had more stories published than any other author. Much of his work is republished writing but though he is now in his 97th year and struggling with vision loss he is still submitting new work. This is his latest submission to Literally Stories. Proof if it were needed that the soul of the writer burns brightly regardless of the passing years....

Regular visitors to the site will be aware of Tom. He has had more stories published than any other author. Much of his work is republished writing but though he is now in his 97th year and struggl…

Super-Selling the Taste of Irritation I don’t watch TV anymore, but I like to have it on retro MeTV in the other room, o...
05/07/2025

Super-Selling the Taste of Irritation I don’t watch TV anymore, but I like to have it on retro MeTV in the other room, overnight. Mannix comes on at 2 AM (currently circa 1973; I’m where I can tell the year by Joe’s coif). Of course the specifics only make sense in America, but I have a feeling that similar channels exist all over the world....

Super-Selling the Taste of Irritation I don’t watch TV anymore, but I like to have it on retro MeTV in the other room, overnight. Mannix comes on at 2 AM (currently circa 1973; I’m where I can tell…

The day Didi realised her husband had curated a nice little world of half-naked digital women for himself, it was almost...
04/07/2025

The day Didi realised her husband had curated a nice little world of half-naked digital women for himself, it was almost time for her to attend her weekly lunch with her girlfriends. She was unable to progress towards the front gate. Instead, she stared at her reflection on the surface of their garden pond, built by him and for ten years, her delusional confirmation he was happy....

The day Didi realised her husband had curated a nice little world of half-naked digital women for himself, it was almost time for her to attend her weekly lunch with her girlfriends. She was unable…

A short story by T.C. Barrerafrom the on-going series yet-to-find-a-home,“Counting the Birds” “Eli... Listen... Long as ...
03/07/2025

A short story by T.C. Barrerafrom the on-going series yet-to-find-a-home,“Counting the Birds” “Eli... Listen... Long as the vents blow cold and the wine stays colder, these motherf**kers don’t give a f**k, alright? How much are ya thinkin’?”...

A short story by T.C. Barrerafrom the on-going series yet-to-find-a-home,“Counting the Birds” “Eli… Listen… Long as the vents blow cold and the wine stays colder, these motherf**kers do…

My brother parks the car opposite the house with the red door that used to be grey. The treeless street looks even grimm...
02/07/2025

My brother parks the car opposite the house with the red door that used to be grey. The treeless street looks even grimmer than I recall. I glance at the rows of identical houses with the grey pebble-dash walls, trying to remember the neighbours who once occupied them. Women in pinnies and headscarves scrubbing their front steps. Sweeping their concrete paths....

My brother parks the car opposite the house with the red door that used to be grey. The treeless street looks even grimmer than I recall. I glance at the rows of identical houses with the grey pebb…

The beetles live in the stump out back, festering beneath the rotting remnants of an old dule tree. I call them, and the...
01/07/2025

The beetles live in the stump out back, festering beneath the rotting remnants of an old dule tree. I call them, and they rise—the black coil of death—thousands of them climbing up, up, up and over each other, hissing and clicking, putting her together like sentient fog. Black fog. Only sometimes, especially when they’re hungry, they don’t quite get her shape right; I appreciate their efforts and reward them dearly, but when they get her wrong, I want to scream....

The beetles live in the stump out back, festering beneath the rotting remnants of an old dule tree. I call them, and they rise—the black coil of death—thousands of them climbing up, up, up and over…

“You are not here to become a man, because to become a man you must first learn the rules of love,” Vikram Paya, the bes...
30/06/2025

“You are not here to become a man, because to become a man you must first learn the rules of love,” Vikram Paya, the best of us, began on the first day of the Dhoon School Weekly Newspaper class. “No, my old sons of Bombay, my riotous banchods of Delhi, you fish-eating Bengalis, and the rest of you celestial bodies, suburbanites, the few villagers—you are here to go to better places, because, after all, The Dhoon School is but a waiting-place for Cambridge, for Oxford… for the lucky few of you—here, you will not learn to be great men but exemplary boys…”...

“You are not here to become a man, because to become a man you must first learn the rules of love,” Vikram Paya, the best of us, began on the first day of the Dhoon School Weekly Newspaper class. “…

Apparently, in the Russian original, Dostoevsky is a very funny writer, his novels rich in comic turns, witty wordplay a...
29/06/2025

Apparently, in the Russian original, Dostoevsky is a very funny writer, his novels rich in comic turns, witty wordplay and, not infrequently, downright farce. That this may be lost in translation is often all too evident from the many English translations to date. (For some reason, as David Foster Wallace somewhere points out, Dostoevsky’s characters are still made to say things like “The devil take it!”, rather than, say, “To hell with it!”; such archaic expressions abound, lending a stiffnecked quality to even the most anarchic of situations described.) That said, however, there’s barely an English translation of Dostoevsky’s 1862 novella, …...

Apparently, in the Russian original, Dostoevsky is a very funny writer, his novels rich in comic turns, witty wordplay and, not infrequently, downright farce. That this may be lost in translation i…

Well hello there China’s!! (See Rikki Fulton – I’ve mentioned him before) Here we are at Week 538 – These posts are fair...
28/06/2025

Well hello there China’s!! (See Rikki Fulton – I’ve mentioned him before) Here we are at Week 538 – These posts are fair drawin’ in. As it is after the 21st of June, which was the Summer Solstice here, that means that the days are getting shorter which really has f**k all to do with the post!! I just like the phrase!!...

Well hello there China’s!! (See Rikki Fulton – I’ve mentioned him before) Here we are at Week 538 – These posts are fair drawin’ in. As it is after the 21st of June, which was the Summer Solstice h…

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