The train was empty with the exception of a couple in the autumn of their days: not many about on a Sunday. We left the familiar

Zentrum and trundled through the outskirts of Munich. I was the only passenger on the bus. The driver did not initiate a conversation, a gaunt Charon ferrying me across the thin waves of fog. Dark glasses shielded him from the sunless day. His bald pate, taut as if it could barely contain the contents of his head, had a familiar look to it; a doppelg of the American Beat-writer William Burroughs who, pumped up on whatever substance took his fancy that day, would climb to the rooftops and roar:

 

            

 

      -Hospital-Medicare, good morning. How can I assist you? 

      For a while there is total silence. Because of his impediment; a very drawling voice his choice of words is very limited and spoken in a very slow manner. 

Two men say DNA will prove that the frozen creature is legendary beast

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advise, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.

Imagine there is a Bank that credits your account every morning with $86,400.

However, it carries over no balance from day to day and every night the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.

What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course!

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME.

A little boy about 10 years old was standing before a shoe store on the roadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with cold. A lady approached the boy and said, "My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?" "I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes," was the boy's reply. The lady took him by the hand and went into the store and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her. She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with a towel. By this time the clerk had returned with the socks.

One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his books. I thought to myself, "Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd." I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friend tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.

As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes. My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him and as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw a tear in his eye.

My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package. "This," he said, "is not a slip. This is lingerie." He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite; silk, handmade and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached. "Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion." He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me. "Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're alive is a special occasion."

It was autumn. Although still afternoon the journey had been spent peering at slowly moving red lights through clouds of condensing exhaust and the intermittent slip-slip of wipers. Now as she turned off the ignition darkness gathered silently around her. She walked head down, hood up, feeling plastic handles moulding themselves around her fingers, the carrier bag spinning one way then the next as it clipped against her leg. The pavement was thick with the slippery brown mulch of fallen leaves and the smell of bonfires wafted across the common. A thin mist clung around the streetlights producing a shifting yellow gas. Sounds were muffled and movements lethargic. Cars slipped slowly by on a film of dirty water. At her gate she delayed, unwilling to break the stillness with squeaking hinges; not yet teatime and the city was being put to sleep.
     The terrace before her hugged the curve of the road tumbling erratically down the hill and into the gloom. Bending around the edges of her vision she was conscious of curtains being swished closed, stone faces bathed by the grey light of televisions, broken roof tiles, satellite dishes, bay windows, the whole higgledy-piggledy collection of guttering and skylights. For a moment her home was a stranger, a simple compartment in this huge connected structure.
     She rattled the key into the lock, tilting it to the particular angle that would allow it to catch. She stepped inside, her hand brushing the light switch as she closed the door behind her. The softly lit warmth of the interior walls were a welcome contrast to the dark slimy surfaces of the outside. Two elderly neighbours warmed the house from the sides and soon she would hear the comforting noises of the boiler rousing itself into life.

     Heather O'Neill wasn't prepared for the sultry heat of a South Carolina August. She was thirsty, sweating and lost. The needle on the fuel gauge of her rented compact car was nudging 'empty.'
     On a whim, she'd headed for this remote county, searching for a country music legend known only as 'Spider Lee.' His songs had been recorded by rock bands from Los Angeles to London, but the reclusive artist himself hadn't been seen for years.
     Heather slowed her car to a crawl. The leaves on the moss-covered trees barely rustled in the dead, humid air. Was that a crossroads up ahead? She glanced nervously at the fuel gauge. A crossroads meant a gas station - maybe. And, just maybe, somebody there would know about Spider Lee.
     She stopped at a gleaming gas pump beside a rambling wooden building. No attendant appeared. She hopped out of the car to peer into the open door. Inside was a general store packed with everything from candy bars to motor oil to whisk brooms, but not a soul was in sight.

It happened because she was edgy and bursting. It was the first day you could really feel Spring approaching. It was that brief time in between seasons that she could feel something new happening, and it made her anxious and excited. It was like new air, or sweeping cobwebs. There was a light rain outside and Madeleine wanted to throw open her two little windows to her small apartment space and let the warm mist fill the room. But the noise from the traffic would've been too much, and she was worried for the bird. As it was, the hiss of the scratchy needle was barely audible. She crouched down beside the heating vent to listen. The music was low and tired. Something like Billie Holiday. It was Billie Holiday, but for the two weeks she had looked, she hadn't been able to find it in any of the record shops. She leaned against her raggedy old reading chair and stared at the stack of books and odd art supplies next to her. Too much time spent inside reading and dreaming, she worried.

   The wife loves reading a bA couple visit a cottage by Lake Thingvellir in their vacation. 

 

  The husband loves fishing at the break of dawn.

  A couple visit a cottage by Lake Thingvellir in their vacation. 

 

  The husband loves fishing at the break of dawn.

 

  The wife loves reading a book.

 

ook.

 

Author:

Jonas Helgi Eyjolfsson

Translator:

Olafur Thor Eiriksson

 

          

 

It was a habit of mine and actually mine and my ex-wife´s, to take on miscellanous jobs in our summer vacations. We were offered the chance to rent and run a restaurant and a gas station by Isafjordur. The place is called Djupmannabud (deepmens'-store), a restaurant with seats for about 60 people and a service station. We did this three summers in a row, 1981, 1982 and 1983.

A lot of packing goes ...

 

 

(Friends of India)

Translator: Olafur Thor Eiriksson

 

At half past six on Christmas Eve´s morning I awoke by a peep from the

mobile-phone, in this part of the country it only served the role of an alarm-clock. I was staying at a hotel in Rongo, a small town in East-Kenya, me and my companions Ken Amittou's last stop, on our road from Kisumu, Ken's hometown, to Sindo, a small town by Lake Victoria. From there the plan was to cruise out to the island of Remba. The purpose of the trip was to visit groups of volunteers from the Humanist-movement ...

 

 

 

(The author is a geology doctor from Finland living in Iceland at the moment.)

 

 Good morning!

Good morning.

 Hey...

 Ye?

 Can I ask you something?

---

 

                

 

 

A:

      Wanna know something?   Today at work Didda in Dispatch told me about a girlfriend of hers who´d just met a guy who´d recently divorced his wife.  I really found quite amazing its resemblance to the treatment that you had to go through in your divorce. 

       His ex used to hang out all the time ...

                   

A white-haired old man begged us for alms. My companion, Joseph Davranche, gave him five francs. Noticing my surprised look, he said:
     "That poor unfortunate reminds me of a story which I shall tell you, the memory of which continually pursues me. Here it is:
     "My family, which came originally from Havre, was not rich. We just managed to make both ends meet. My father worked hard, came home late from the office, and earned very little. I had two sisters.
     "My mother suffered a good deal from our reduced circumstances, and she often had harsh words for her husband, veiled and sly reproaches. The poor man then made a gesture which used to distress me. He would pass his open hand over his forehead, as if to wipe away perspiration which did not exist, and he would answer nothing. I felt his helpless suffering. We economized on everything, and never would accept an invitation to dinner, so as not to have to return the courtesy. All our provisions were bought at bargain sales. My sisters made their own gowns, and long discussions would arise on the price of a piece of braid worth fifteen centimes a yard. Our meals usually consisted cf soup and beef, prepared with every kind of sauce...

Advert for Alice

Alice would not normally read the free paper.

"Just full of adverts no use to anybody," she would say to herself and toss it in the pile under the sink ready for recycling.

But this ad caught her eye. It was different and sort of intriguing. So she patted her short, fair curly hair, settled herself down tidily at the kitchen table - and read on.

'A woman - wanted for short term assignment. Good rates of pay (satisfies National Minimum Wage). Possibility of personal danger. Imclearbluemediate start.'

Then there was a PO box number for replies.

 

The Christmas Story - 2004

Tom loved stories. He would sit in the old storytelling chair by the fire, his pale blue eyes glinting in the light from the flickering candles on the tables all around. His chuckles would drift from lips that were weather beaten like the old oak beams above his head. Contentedly, he made himself comfortable in the oak chair that had heard thousands of stories over hundreds of years in this small West of England Inn that nestled between the dark hills of Exmoor.

People came to see Tom from all around the world. How they heard about him nobody knew but the hostelry had welcomed travellers for as long as anyone could remember.

A Christmas Surprise for Grandma

Grandma lived on Sugar Creek Mountain all alone. It was a beautiful mountain, with tall cedar trees all over the mountain top. In the middle of the mountain was a crystal clear lake. The water in the lake was the prettiest blue you've ever seen. When the water was calm, you could see the fish swimming around in the lake.

I loved sitting by the lake when I was a little girl. Grandma would pack us a lunch, and we would sit at the lake for hours on end. Hour after hour, grandma would tell me stories about her life on the mountain.

The Color of Christmas Joy

My childhood memories of kindergarten consist of several things: cold concrete walls, little coats and boots, pencils which didn't fit in the hand, lined paper, desks, a blackboard and the alphabet in black and white.

Recess only meant that I had to be outside, dressed in coat and hat. Aimlessly, I circled the school grounds while children around me played.

Years later, my mother told me that she went to my teacher with the question, "Tell me what is going on at school? My daughter was a happy kid, until I sent her to school. She's depressed and I don't know why."

The Night Before Christmas
An African Christmas Story

It was the night before Christmas and I was very sad because my family life had been severely disrupted and I was sure that Christmas would never come. There was none of the usual joy and anticipation that I always felt during the Christmas season. I was eight years old but in the past few months I had grown a great deal. Before this year, I thought Christmas in my village came with many things. Christmas had always been for me one of the joyous religious festivals. It was the time for beautiful Christmas music on the streets, on radio, television, and every where. Christmas had always been a religious celebration and the church started preparing way back in November.

The Farmer's Story

 

Cool waters glisten enticingly under a diamond blue sky.

My time on this earth in this moment seems to hang balanced between the ebb and flow of the tide that rocks against our tiny beach ... and the scream of the herring gull.

The evening breeze is warm upon my face and brings with it through my open window the aroma of seaweed and heather. But soon darkness like my feelings will sweep across the bay. It will creep into every crevice and coppice until it hides the moorland from the cottages and buildings that for centuries our family of farmers have called home.

Temptations
- a tale with a twist

   'How unfaithful is your partner?

   Alice frowned as the advert in Homemaker Weekly grabbed her attention. Self consciously she patted her tightly curled fair hair then seated her diminutive figure primly at the kitchen table of her three bedroom semi-detached - and read on. 

   'Finding out is so easy for members of Fidelity Investigation Club (FIC). Just send us brief details about your partners likes, dislikes and leisure movements plus an undertaking that you will occasionally give just half a day of your time to helping other club members. Then sit back and enjoy the reassurance of having questions answered that may have niggled you for years.

Reunion 

 

 

Reunion - is a London adventure story about a pre-school reunion reunion and continues Rob Hopcott's online weekly RSS updated free short stories

In a remote valley, nestling beneath the Exmoor hills, an olde worlde inn still carried on it's tradition of telling stories by the fire.

Tom was in charge of the storytelling because he'd always done that job for as long as anyone could remember. His whiskers, receding hairline and gnarled face was as much a fixture of the bar as the stuffed animals, oak beams and roaring wood fire.

Christmas (Xmas) Wishes

 

is Rob's 2005 Christmas Story from Rob Hopcott's Online Christmas Stories and part of his weekly RSS free stories update - all story lovers welcome!

Tom was looking shifty. He sat in the corner of the bar in his favourite position, shuffled in his seat, occasionally sipping from his pint of cider and pulling on his long white beard. The conversation in the crowded small bar buzzed busily around him. Pre-recorded Christmas music in the background blended with the pungeant drifting aroma of cranberry and venison pie and woodsmoke from the open fire. Outside the snow lay brown and clumped by the tiny country road edges but brilliant white in a crisp sheet across the open fields with their high hedges and winding country paths.

 

        

 

      -Hospital-Medicare, good morning. How can I assist you? 

      For a while there is total silence. Because of his impediment; a very drawling voice his choice of words is very limited and spoken in a very slow manner. 

      -Hospital-Medicare. How might I assist you?

 

       Suddenly he comes around, empties his mouth of saliva and starts his speech. 

       -Yes -good -morning-I-have -to -see-a-doctorrr.... 

 

     

     -Why are you so bloody frigid woman, asks the beefy man his long-legged and sexy wife. You are hardly ever ready to enjoy my hard-on. I can´t comprehend why in the name of wonder you wanted to become my wife. You never seem to enjoy being with me like those other women I´ve been with.

       -I don´t understand why I can´t enjoy sex with you considering how much I do love you from the deepest roots of my heart, replies the coffee-brown beauty with tears in her eyes and a lump in the neck. I just don´t find sex as great as my girlfriends have so often told me it is, the circumsized girl carries on, and to top it I´m more tired and indifferent tonight, than usually.  Perhabs I´ll become more attracted to you if you´ll allow me to rest a short while enjoying the warmth of your presence, and thus said she turns toward a wall in their circular strawshed

 

 

      The chilly gust crawled into every hiding place in his ramschackled tiny house, where it was standing as by an old habit close to the town's oldest peer at Hafnargata, the town's oldest street, bearing an appropriate name; harbour's street.

 

       In his old bed cuddled in threadbare sheets an old and decrepit man was sitting, while his mind went slowly to and fro in his simplicit memory bank, in and out.

 

       He stretched his right hand from under his old and dirty woolen-sheets and tried to turn up the heat on the only oven, that had given him any warmth for a long time.

 

An Easy Way to Lose Weight!

 

      Because I´m a writer, living alone there are no restrictions on how I spend my time, nothing holding me down but my lack of cash.    

 

 

          a story by Heidi Soosalu

  

  

      "Anyway, I love him very much.

And I think marriages between different species are not illegal.

Nobody can lay the blame on me, at least; how should I have known beforehand.

I wonder if he knew it himself either in the beginning.

He made an impression on me already at the first time.

He was somehow so unlike all the others ?

Author-Jonas Helgi Eyjolfsson
Translator: Olafur Thor Eiriksson

 

 

 

 

Jonmundur Sigurdsson decided to visit a psychologist by his employer´s advice, having gone through a difficult divorce from the woman he´d been married to for about 20 years. Here´s a short summary of their dialogue: Jonmundur is M: and the psycho is S:

 

Jonmundur arrives at the right moment, 11.00 am, a clinic-girl shows him to the door she then opens, introducing him in quite a hurried manner: JONmundur is here and then Jonmundur enters the room.

 

 

Ari Trausti Guðmundsson

 

I met him in the jungle east of the mountains where

the rivers change from being capillaries to being arteries.

 

He greeted me in a clearing by the river as soon as I

set foot on land.

 

I was happy to get off the canoe, happy to escape

the stink of the droning outboard motor.

Author-Jonas Helgi Eyjolfsson
Translator-Olafur Thor Eiriksson

 

 

 

In July 1986 I was appointed police-sergeant by the State Police, stationed at Isafjordur from July first. The jurisdiction is versatile and many kilometers between one end to another.

During the trademen-holiday, the first weekend in August that year I told the local papers that the police would keep up strict control on the roads over the holidays and of course I had to abide by those words.

I decided to drive through the north district, Isafjardardjup with an assistant and up on Thorskafjardarheidi (codfiord-heath), but by my side was a young woman who had been hired as a summer-replacement. We were using police-car no. 2, a Masda 929 with a built in radar for speed indicating.

 

 

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly
One day a small opening appeared
He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours
It struggled to force its body through that little hole
Then it seemed to stop making any progress
It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could
And it could go no farther.

So the man decided to help the butterfly
He took a pair of scissors and snipped off
The remaining bit of the cocoon.

 

 

Aðalsteinn Jónsson

Raindrops in my face as I watch you
fade away

I know I won't get you back, but I pray

The pain has a mirror and is pointing
at me

Probably beause I've been blind and is
trying to make me see

That you and I were never ment to be

Author: Jonas Helgi Eyjolfsson

Translator: Olafur Thor Eiriksson

 

     

 

 

  In the autumn of 1983 I had transported or followed a prisoner to Reykjavik via Icelandair supposing to return alone back home to Isafjord the next morning, but in the morning the weather had changed to the worse on Isafjord.

 

 For the reason Icelandair kept postponing their flights, every half an hour, I had to wait having arrived at the airpo...

OliThor Eiriks:

 

 

With this question the psychic Bjarni Kristjansson began a clairvoyance-meeting in a very crowded hall in The Oil Company´s building above the harbour in Keflavik near the end of the twentieth century. I happened to be one of numerous guests which were both taut and curious about seeing any signs or witnesses on whether there´s really life after their death. I was sitting near the front in the means of getting some proof for my sceptisism concerning these psychics whom I really thought were frauts.

"Does anyone recognize Hans?" was the first question of this jolly psychic when he had greeted the crowd and put himself in some kind of a trance with unexplicable grimaces on his face which very few of us amateurs knew anything about.

 

 

 

Solveig Einars

 

I. The Rainbow Girl

 

In the sunshine-country Australia, very far up in the country far away from the ocean there lives a little girl called Yuluwirree.

 

Yuluwirree is neither thin nor fat.

 

Her hair's chocolate-brown and the eyes black as coal.

 

In school she wears a light-blue, checkered

 

If you only knew

What you are giving me,

Darling little beautiful lovely boy.

You are the best I have

In this world of ours

You are giving me the delight

 

As told by Elizabeth to Sandy Fertman Ryan

 

It's hard to believe that Elizabeth*, a bright and cheerful 17 year-old, grew up homeless.

 

After her long, difficult journey with only a positive attitude to guide her, Elizabeth tells us how she's finally made it "home".

 

I was born in Mexico.

 

I don't remember much about my first few years

growing up there.

 

Just that life was really hard, my family

 

It was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog.

 

Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight at Yalta, and so was fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest in new arrivals.

 

Sitting in Verney's pavilion, he saw, walking on the sea-front, a fair-haired young lady of medium height, wearing a beret;

a white Pomeranian dog was running behind her.
 

 

Kennedy is a country doctor, and lives in Colebrook, on the shores of Eastbay.

 

The high ground rising abruptly behind the red roofs of the little town crowds the quaint High Street against the wall which defends it from the sea.

 

Beyond the sea-wall there curves for miles in a vast and regular sweep the barren beach of shingle, with the village of Brenzett standing out darkly across the water, a spire in a clump of trees;

and still further out the perpendicular column of a lighthouse, looking in the distance no bigger than a lead pencil, marks the vanishing-point of the land.

       

 

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.

 

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

 

Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

 

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are

 

 

 

Once upon a time there dwelt an old King in a palace.  In the center of a golden table in the main hall, there shone a large and magnificent jewel.  Each day of the King's life, the stone sparkled more resplendently.

One day a thief stole the jewel and ran from the palace, hiding in a forest.

 

As he stared with deep joy at the stone, to his amazement the image of the King appeared in it.

 

 

 

When William Marchmill had finished his inquiries for lodgings at the well-known watering-place of Solentsea in Upper Wessex, he returned to the hotel to find his wife.

 

She, with the children, had rambled along the shore, and Marchmill followed in the direction indicated by the military-looking hall-porter.

     "By Jove, how far you've gone! I am quite out of breath," Marchmill said, rather impatiently, when he came up with his wife, who was reading as she walked, the three children being considerably further ahead with the nurse.

     Mrs. Marchmill started out of the reverie into which the book had thrown her.

 

 

 

Tess was a precocious eight years old when she heard her Mom and Dad talking about her little brother, Andrew.

 

All she knew was that he was very sick and they were completely out of money.

 

They were moving to an apartment complex next month because Daddy didn't have the money for the doctor bills and our house.

 

Only a very costly surgery could save him now and it was looking like there was no-one to loan them the money.

 

 

 

 

A young man had been to Wednesday Night Bible Study.

The Pastor had shared about listening to God and

obeying the Lord's voice.

 

The young man couldn't help but wonder,

 

"Does God still speak to people?"