The Man in the Parallel Universe

“The man in the parallel universe loves me. He’s tall and grey-haired and handsome still and looks just like Murtagh, but he’s not like him at all. He makes different decisions and chooses different things. And he doesn’t have Murtagh’s dilated eyes.”

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The October 2016 edition of Long Story, Short Journal is by award winning Irish writer Dolores Walshe. 'The Man in the Parallel Universe' is a portrait of a wife of a Vietnam veteran, who is soon to be a widow, but grieving a man she lost long ago. This tale is not only an exploration of grief, but of survival, and the moments of compassion that sustain us. READ 'THE MAN IN THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE'.

Mandy Taggart's 'Pride'

“Across the road, Laverty’s shop lies shuttered behind steel. Closed two years now, the neighbour told her, after Laverty retired and the sons weren’t interested. Some resourceful vandal has covered the spray-painted obscenities across the shutters with neat squares of white, each one topped with a smiling face in acid yellow. A van swishes past, and Laura feels something in the air shoot free, like the blockage in a straw. When she looks again at the opposite pavement, Laverty’s lion is waiting for her.”

What do you do when a lion follows you home? February 2016's edition of Long Story, Short Journal unique short story, 'Pride', answers the question. Author Mandy Taggart, previous winner of the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award, gives readers a window on a life marked in equal measures by vulnerability and strength. Accompanying photo by American photographer Austin Granger. READ 'PRIDE'. 

Gyurd by Shane Strachan

“It had been nearly six years since Diane had last seen the Lerwick postmark on a letter addressed to her. When she picked the letter up off her welcome mat she felt her body stiffen and her hand grip tight on the cream envelope. In a daze, she walked through her lobby to the kitchen and put her mail down on the table next to the other envelopes she’d been given throughout the week: her birthday cards. She started opening them. Most so far had ‘40’ on the front but some gave her other names like ‘Cousin’ and ‘Friend’. She knew fine well what the one in the cream envelope would name her.”

The November 2015 edition of Long Story, Short Journal is an image from German photographer Alina Hartwig and a story, 'Gyurd', from Scottish writer Shane Strachan. 'Gyurd' is a Shetlandic Scots word meaning 'gift', referring to the many offerings, complex in their attachments and consequences, which are given within the tale. READ SHANE STRACHAN'S 'GYURD'.

Limbos by Stuart Snelson

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Photo © Jenni Adamitis

"Contemplating the amassed seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months of irretrievable time wasted in this way, he wondered how they might better be served. He imagined time’s off-cuts, almost insignificant in themselves, pieced together, a patchwork of time passed uneventfully. The awkward lulls between events, every finger tapping, foot pacing, clock watching moment stitched together: an assemblage of salvaged time."

Long Story, Short Journal's May 2015 edition is 'Limbos' : a tale of fathers, daughters, tattoos, and time. Stuart Snelson's tightly woven, poetic prose makes for enjoyable reading, heightening very familiar scenarios of anxieties and loss to experiences of transcendent beauty. CLICK HERE TO READ 'LIMBOS'.

Sheela-na-Gig by Susan Burke-Trehy

She settled into her seat near the back of the bus, grateful that her dishevelled appearance would discourage the other passengers from sitting close to her. She had, in the last few weeks taken to dressing in dungarees, fleeces and wellies. Added to this were a few well chosen gardening titles from the library and a straw basket so that she just about passed for an organic farmer-type, the kind that would not look out of place on a bus bound for West Cork. As she peered out of the grimy bus window, she allowed the last glimpses of Cork to slip out of sight, pushing away any feelings of regret or fear. All is as it should be, she whispered under her breath...

The March 2015 edition of Long Story, Short Journal leads readers into the darker heart of spring with emerging writer Susan Burke-Trehy's 'Sheela-na-Gig'; photo by Alan McCord. Rose Hawthorn is on the verge of a new life, returning to her childhood home to settle an old debt in a tale that merges a contemporary narrative of estrangement with an undercurrent of Irish mythology. CLICK HERE TO READ 'SHEELA-NA-GIG'. 

Forests of Antarctica

“That's it. Three weeks worth of stuff packed in twenty minutes. It might be a personal best,” Sam said, hovering in the doorway. It was after midnight when Sam walked into the kitchen of their cottage, where Diana liked to do her work at the massive butcher block table, and he looked tired but there was a warm glow in his cheeks. Diana stared at the screen, typing things that she would have to erase later and making notes that meant nothing.

'The Forests of Antarctica' by Courtney Watson takes place in Ushuaia, Argentina--the last stop before Antarctica--where the motto is the end of the world, the beginning of everything. Here we find a couple coping with the strain of distance as the husband ventures off on long-term scientific expeditions, leaving his wife to welcome a visitor from his past. Watson's work is understated and moving, accompanied by a photo by Russian photographer Dimitrii Smirnov. CLICK HERE TO READ FORESTS OF ANTARCTICA.

Sundown

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Photo © Ola Zackrisson

Angela wondered how far from home Pearl actually was, and what kind of trouble she’d found. Accustomed to shielding her mother from Pearl’s problems, Angela shoved this fear to the back of her mind and steeled herself for this encounter, not sure what she’d find: a self-pitying decline or a ramped-up snit.

 'Sundown' is the story of a woman struggling to keep contacts with both her estranged daughter, and her mother who is unhappy with life in a nursing home. It is an exploration of grief, punctuated by moments of transcendent beauty, encouraging the reader to find solace in patience and hope. Writer Jan English Leary's short-story collection manuscript, Frequent Losers, was named a finalist in the Flannery O’Connor Award. CLICK HERE TO READ 'SUNDOWN'.   

The Underground

Photo © David Griffin

‘We don’t really know. We haven’t had time yet to think it through properly.’ That’s what Grace said. JJ and herself had just come back into the room. Half an hour earlier they’d snaked off somewhere else in the Pope’s house for a ride. What I’d asked was ‘what the hell are you two doing here seeing as you’ve both been dead for years’.  

The Underground--November's story, like Halloween which has just passed, marks a liminal space between the living and the dead. The darkest of satire, Dave Lordan's story takes us through the struggle of a homeless father to make a life for himself and his daughter on the streets of Rome. Think Jonathan Swift meets Christopher Marlowe.