They let Ted Bundy out of jail the other day. You heard me right: THE Ted Bundy. I know, you thought he was deep fried long ago like so many pimento-stuffed corn dogs. That’s just what they wanted you to think. But if serial-killer movies have taught us anything, it’s that they don’t just go…
Read John Hughes’ Original National Lampoon Vacation Story That Started the Movie Franchise … In 1979, National Lampoon magazine published the future director’s fictitious tale of a family trip gone horribly awry. THR reprints the tale that launched an iconic movie series … “If Dad hadn’t shot Walt Disney in the leg, it would have…
Well everybody, it finally happened: We’re in! We finally got published in The Satirist. God help ’em. What they want to do with the likes of us, I’ll never know. But it’s up and LIVE, the satiric piece #MeToo!!!, by your humble narrator. Let’s just hope they fare better than those poor schlubs over at…
by Serengeti Philly… The events in this story are true. I have written them down here almost verbatim, just as my good friend Zeudi Araya explained them to me. Whether you believe that a real-life, American hippopotamus could be found rampaging through the terminal at New York’s JFK Airport or not—or that there even is…
Here is a great little passage from one of our favorite little books, A Short History of a Small Place by TR Pearson. My good friend Graham Kraker sent the book to me years ago and I have read it at least a dozen times since. For all of you out there, this is one…
Come check out one of our favorite excerpts from one of our favorite novels, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace… It turned out that there was something terribly stressful about visual telephone interfaces that hadn’t been stressful at all about voice-only interfaces. Videophone consumers seemed suddenly to realize that they’d been subject to an insidious…
Please welcome the Godfather of Satire, Jonathan Swift. A Modest Proposal is his short masterpiece. Full title: A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick. Published anonymously by Swift in 1729, the essay is widely held…
by Born Again Philly… I’ll never forget how I came to find Jesus, and just how close I came to meeting my maker. The year was 1974 and I was living in Salt Lake City, right smack dab in the middle of Mormon country. I was a wanna-be Buddhist who had come for the George…
by Front Row Philly… It was the old gang together again. What was left of it, at least. It was Graham Kraker, Ted Danson and me. I was going to have to make this trip without my attorney, always a dicey affair. And who is Rockin’ Rodney? That’s the question we find ourselves still asking,…
by Sinophobia Philly… “You know who’s to blame for global warming, right?” said my friend Nathan Niederhoffer. I had a pretty good idea who he had in mind. “The Chinese.” Bingo. Nathan works in the insurance game. He’s a front man for the Pillars of Hercules Life Insurance Company, otherwise known as: The Herc. Read…
by Formerly Philly… This is the story of Ricky Rude. Or maybe it’s the story of Benyomen Fishenshitz. Either way, it all starts with Ricky. You see, Ricky was this six-year old I knew way back in Kindergarten. Ricky was one of those kids who had a nickname for everyone. He was the kind of…
by Smiling Philly… All I remember is that the sign above the door said MASSAGE—plain as day—and boy was I ever in need of one. I had a crick in my neck so bad, my head felt like it was screwed on sideways. So I plopped down my $200 (a little pricey for a massage,…
First published in Norway in 1890, Hunger probes the depths of consciousness with frightening and gripping power. Contemptuous of novels of his time and what he saw as their stereotypical plots and empty characters, Knut Hamsun embarked on “an attempt to describe the strange, peculiar life of the mind, the mysteries of the nerves in…
by Crying in His Beer Philly… I first saw him sitting there at the bar all alone. He was handsome: clean cut, sporting a turtle neck and blazer, looking very much like the all-American boy. I would soon find out that wasn’t the case at all. The year was 1978. Happy Days was the top-rated…
Looking to submit a short story? Flashbytes is open to all works 1500 words or less. Come join us on the Flashbytes site. Got something longer, or just want to get out there? Come check out our Magazines page with over 400 online and print magazines, everything from the big boys like Harper’s and the…
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