dreamszilla

Linda, feeling abandoned by her husband and children, flees for a holiday in Ecuador, where she has an unexpected encounter; by Phyllis Houseman. Well, Linda, you've gone four thousand miles south, and sixteen years into the past - pretty good for a novice fugitive. The tall, slender woman smiled at the wry thought as she stepped off the plane's ramp onto tropically hot concrete. Breathing deeply in the thin air, Linda instantly identified pine, a mix of exotic flowers, and dust. Even if she had been blindfolded, her nose would have told her she had landed in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, the symbol of her carefree youth. As she looked toward the city, Linda felt a stab of dismay. Quito had changed. There were high-rise buildings everywhere, almost obliterating the umber-tiled roofs and white-capped volcanoes she had captured on slides so long ago. Dampening down her sense of disappointment, Linda walked into the terminal. When her turn came in the Aduana , the Custom

In Mennonite Manitoba, hard-up teenager Diedrich Deutsch is getting bullied at school, and tries his hand at basketball; by Mitchell Toews. Part 1 - The New Shoes "I am a true sea-dog with balls the size of cantaloupes!" Diedrich shouted, slashing at a snowy tree branch with a cutlass made from a broken broom handle. "Diedrich! Diedrich Deutsch!" Doctor Rempel shouted from an open window. His breath turned to frozen vapour as soon as the words left the warm sedan. "Do you want a ride to school?" Diedrich dropped his weapon but not his swagger. He walked towards the waiting car that sat idling on the rutted ice of the street. A plume rose from the tailpipe, fouling the blue of the Manitoba sky, and when the engine backfired a perfect white smoke ring shot out, twirling with delight. "Hurry up, swashbuckler!" Doctor Rempel said with a friendly smile. He hawked and spat, then tossed out a cigar remnant and rolled up the window with a pump

via American Short Fiction https://ift.tt/2HnOkGF

Wilson Koewing's story of a doomed American couple touring Europe. Two weeks into a six-week jaunt around Europe, I grew concerned about my relationship with Rae when we spent a weekend in Tuscany and didn't have sex. I wrecked the rented moped with her on the back. That could have been part of it. The idyllic setting convinced me I could operate machinery I'd never operated. To my credit, I got us to the ninth-generation family vineyard, with only a slight topple, where we learned the finer points of tasting wine. I almost returned us unscathed, but after stopping at a petrol station outside the walled city of San Gimignano, I tried to enter a steady stream of traffic, over-throttled and drove straight across the street into the stone wall. Three old Italian men sitting in foldout chairs watched with expressions unchanging. The moped was mangled. Rae's feet were cut up. I was ego-bruised and embarrassed. "You really are stupid, aren't you?" Rae

Chuck Bianchi wakes up missing a finger, with no memory of how it happened; by William Quincy Belle. Chuck blinked and stared at the ceiling. He turned his head to one side and looked at the dresser across the room. That was his dresser. This was his bedroom. How did he get here? He remembered dinner, cleaning up the dishes, and watching TV. Then nothing. The digital display of the clock on the side table showed 7:28am. Twelve hours had passed. Had he blacked out? There had been no alcohol, so he couldn't have gotten drunk and passed out. Had he suffered some health event like a stroke? What the hell had happened? The clock-radio sounded. Chuck slapped the top of the device, and quiet returned. He lay there, arm outstretched, feeling dazed. Something didn't seem right. He rubbed his forehead, squinting as he concentrated. Try as he might, nothing came to mind. He turned his hand back and forth and examined it. He shifted position. The left leg moved, and the right leg