Western Style BL Stories

A Grating Calculus

By Jamie F. Bell

The asphalt, a dark, bruised ribbon, buckled under the relentless summer sun. Heat waves danced above its surface, distorting the already distant horizon into a liquid smear of ochre and dull green. A lone, aging sedan sat on the shoulder, its front driver-side wheel a deflated mockery of mobility, a flat, sad grin against the backdrop of a vast, indifferent sky. The air, thick with the scent of baked earth and exhaust residue, seemed to press down, stifling any impulse for swift action.

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A Liturgy for Small Corrosions

By Jamie F. Bell

The Tuesday morning air in the kitchen was thick with the smell of damp tea towels and Finn's burnt toast. Rain slicked the windowpane, blurring the grey stone of the tenement across the lane. Liam, needing coffee with a desperation that felt primal, found his path to the kettle blocked by his flatmate, who was standing guard over the cutlery drawer with the solemnity of a tomb sentinel.

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Salt and Severance

By Jamie F. Bell

The Brighton Beach sun, a brutalist lamp, hammered down on the concrete and the stretched-out bodies, bleaching the colour from everything but the ocean's bruised cerulean. The air tasted of fried dough and salt spray, thick with the distant, metallic clangour of the Cyclone's ascent. Two figures, barely more than boys, sat too close for strangers on the packed sand, their world shrinking to the space between them.

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Currents and Contact

By Jamie F. Bell

The ocean was a shifting, indifferent blue, stretching out under a relentless summer sun. Sand, warm and gritty, burrowed between toes still numb from the cold shock of the initial plunge. The air tasted of salt and distant sunscreen, a typical beach day, unremarkable until a flicker of movement caught the eye, pulling at something deep beneath the surface calm.

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Direction Measured in Poplar Bark

By Jamie F. Bell

The compass was a joke. Noah knew it before they even left the trailhead. The cheap plastic housing and the bubbly, sluggish needle felt wrong in his palm. But Mr. Davies, the gym-teacher-turned-outdoorsman for the week, had clapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Same model the army uses, son!' which Noah knew for a fact was a lie. Now, with the autumn sun bleeding out behind the dense wall of spruce and birch, the cheap plastic felt like a death sentence.

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The Tarmac Shimmer

By Jamie F. Bell

The coffee cup rattled in its saucer as a heavy body slammed into the side of their booth. James flinched, sloshing the black, bitter liquid onto the formica tabletop. Two truckers, beefy men with anger-contorted faces, were shouting, their voices a raw counterpoint to the bland pop music leaking from the diner's speakers. One shoved the other, a clumsy, powerful movement that sent a rack of blueberry muffins scattering across the worn linoleum floor. This was not the quiet, anonymous stop he had been hoping for.

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The Summer's Respite

By Leaf Richards

The oppressive weight of a Central Alberta summer bore down on the endless fields, the air thick with the smell of dry grass and the distant, metallic tang of the oil rigs dotting the horizon. A cloud of fine, ochre dust hung in the still air, kicked up by nothing more than a faint breeze that offered no cooling relief. Under the unforgiving glare, two figures wrestled with a silent, imposing machine, their grunts and the clink of metal the only sounds against the vast, indifferent landscape.

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A Gust of White Laughter

By Leaf Richards

The wind howled a raw, untamed symphony across the frozen landscape, tearing at the edges of everything, clawing at the flimsy barrier of the snowmobile's windshield. Snow, whipped into a frenzy of crystalline daggers, blurred the already fading light, painting the world in shades of blinding white and grey. Below the roar of the engine, the world felt like a suffocating, churning void, testing every sinew, every resolve.

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The First Unfurling

By Leaf Richards

The morning light, still thin and cool despite the late spring, spilled over the rolling acreage of the ranch. Dust motes, caught in the weak beams through the barn's open wide doors, danced a slow, indifferent ballet. The air carried the crisp scent of damp earth, hay, and the distant, metallic tang of rainfall from the night before, a promise of new growth struggling against the stubborn remnants of a long, cold winter.

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Burnt Sugar and Cold Coffee

By Jamie F. Bell

Julian, a cynical university freshman, has his orientation day literally ruined when another student, August, clumsily spills a tray of pasta bake all over him in the humid, institutional cafeteria. The ensuing awkward interaction sets the stage for an unexpected connection.

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The First Spill

By Jamie F. Bell

Caleb, a nervous first-year university student, accidentally spills a tray of chili all over Jimmy, a composed and theatrically-spoken second-year, during their first week in the bustling campus cafeteria.

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The First Spill

By Jamie F. Bell

Caleb, a nervous first-year university student, accidentally spills a tray of chili all over Jimmy, a composed and theatrically-spoken second-year, during their first week in the bustling campus cafeteria.

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