Most discussed stories

Exercises in the A of B

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poem?

We Wore Our Hair Long

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You don't have to push back so hard. We wore our hair long. We wanted the animals to trust us in their wild open spaces. Everything will come undone. We wore our hair long because we wanted to Be able to find our way home in the dark…

The lightbulb explodes

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$5 K a Day

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We are all in big trouble. Here's some fiction to let your soul experience the beast.

Leaky Guts

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One day, Dasha confessed to Igor that she had an incurable illness: Purple emptiness.

Sorting It All Out

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To understand how and when things have gone wrong, it works best to proceed from the beginning and put them in order.

John Doe's Jeans

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In the panic following news of my motorcycle crash, my honey fled the house without coat or wallet, and now, nearly midnight, we don’t even have cab fare home.

Village Life Brochure

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I live in a small fishing village where small people fish and others gossip or invent bizarre methods by which to irritate each other. During our weekly power cuts I go outside and cross the street, sitting on the pharmacy steps to watch myself not be at home in the…

Be Afraid

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Everything conspires to kill you:

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 21

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Francesco needed a magnifying glass to read her little missives.

Nine Elephants and an Ass

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Nine sated elephants and an ass sit around a decimated Thanksgiving table discussing the state of the union over the hacked to bits carcass of a twenty-three pound turkey. Two years in to The Great Communicator's Lame Duck term and the nine elephants, whose…

Deadly duel: Blow v. Teach

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At last, we learn if Blow has the cojones to fight.

The Scavenger

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I am a scavenger. I sit on the telephone wire, a ravenous vulture watching a man and a woman arguing across the street. The clouds remind me of ashy marshmallows I found in a fire pit yesterday. The woman starts violently shoving the man; he stumbles…

You Can't Always Get What You Want

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I was tired and lonesome when I checked into another insufferable, shop-worn Holiday Inn. It was the only motel around with the internet — dial up only — in that little jerkwater town, Notmuch, Alabama. It was too late for a nap, so I jumped in the shower,…

Poison

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The High Priest Psychiatrist at Orwellian Industries Medical Center where I used to work loved to hear himself say the following, to my horror, at every staff meeting: "We psychiatrists prescribe the poisons to the patients and the…

The Figured Surface

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Number the herd. Number/ the baskets after harvest./ Note the reappearance of the moon/ after its short absence.

His house

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His house incubates memories. As he sleeps, they hatch.His house is neither here nor there. It occupies a space between watchfulness and insomnia. Grey birds nest on its roof.His house is a refuge from everything except himself. The floor, walls, roof are fat with him.…

Snow Angels (after Sandy Hook)

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The weatherman can't predict accumulation. He can only tell you it will be cold. Expect ice, wind, snow, expect delays. Your daughters play outside, dancing around the Evergreen, its branches bearing the weight of snow, its branches

Hot Rocks

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We go to the spa on my wife’s day off and get a manipedi. A swarm of little women pounces and works on our fingers and toes.

Scene One

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Mountain godfather

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“Look them straight in the eye, keep your mouth shut unless spoken to, and make no sudden moves.”

Voltaire Drinks Thirty Cups of Coffee

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Voltaire drinks his coffee standing up in front of the microwave and he likes to hold one hand on his chest where his heart is while he drinks. He likes to feel his heartbeat quicken and then he imagines that he is a machine or something mechanical.

Children

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This was a dream in which I didn’t know fear.

Freedom

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She tossed the big bird into the air. It wobbled, then flew away.

The Making of Mermaids

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You ran so quickly for a while no one could find you. Finally, you sent us a report. You had retreated to the sea, you had your legs stitched together, you became a mermaid and were applying to join the school.

Better

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My father-in-law is drunk. This is something only my husband and I know: the old man does not stagger or flail, he is not vacant; neither too-friendly nor hostile to the woman who shows us to a table and sets down three bundles of silverware wrapped in paper…

Raymond Chandler and His Wife

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One day it was boring / to be alive.

Roanne's Dream

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Roanne banged the chiva, turned tricks, and ran out of road.

The Budweiser Sign and the Ghosts of Saturday Night

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It waited and witnessed the seasons complete a grouping and form a year. Then it watched them do it again. Winter, spring, summer, fall. It watched from the inside of course. But it could see. Big sliding glass doors and long and wide windows stayed the course also, way…

Misplaced Emotions

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I spent most of those days in my car. Stashed in the trunk was a cache of precious stones, neatly sorted and separated, bound in smooth black velvet inside a smooth black briefcase.