Most discussed stories

Civilization Marches On

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The redwood trees were taller than dreams

Yes, the End Time Is Near

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We’ll just choke on all our shit

The Island

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My muscles ached but I was awake. That night I didn’t sleep as soon as my body wanted to. I stared at the picture facing me, knowing the young man her father had been was behind it. I kept thinking of his eyes looking out, at the old man who eventu

Myra's Cigarettes

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I know from the experience of too many odd sideways glances that folks are seldom interested in my brand of observation. No one else seems to wonder how many commas there are in the library or how many other people own that exact shirt.

Letting Go

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Jerrod's lips and tongue were like slabs of bologna someone shook in Kirsten’s face as she hit the turn signal. Kirsten was proud of herself. She'd been taking it well and she was pretty sure her real feelings weren’t poking through.

Glossolalia

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Method of divination. Open a book to any section. Drop your hand onto the page. Read that there is an exorcism happening in the other room.

Margaret’s Mermaid

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When she was eleven, Margaret still believed in mermaids. She would fasten the neon diving rings that her mother gave her to her ankles and swim around in the pool for hours. By the end of the afternoon, with chlorine-swollen skin she would wince as she…

Timmy's Singularity

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Suddenly, the room was filled with a screaming vortex directed at a pinpoint in the corner. Timmy's bureau was gone and everything loose in the room was flying towards the spot it had occupied. Timmy stood up in horror. He tried to seal this rent by tossi

eritis sicut deus

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—but neither Lenin’s serenity nor Voron’s could last for long!

Black Friday Crime Scene

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Her name was Christine and she was nailed to the cross of their lust and their greed, and their vengeance

At a loss

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I used to charm you, hold you in my hand.

Black Children Learn Derivatives

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The white faces of the train look up in an attempt to satisfy presumption, smoothing out any interest into glassy eyed gestures toward looking but lacking the very important quality of sight.

Four Sieges

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Nicole knows that Deirdre is winding up for the weekly pitch, practicing the line in her mind.

Lost

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I can't find my way back to the library. I've heard of this happening, that if you leave even for just one day and for a very good reason, as good a reason as mine, you may not find your way back. Now why should this be so? I do not understand this library. It houses…

Josef, Boy from Brazil

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I noticed his pistol before his pissbag and I knew then that failure not only had a face but a balding head, too

Squirrel Boy, You Are My Toy

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unbury yourself from the silt and give me some seal love.

Tornado Diary

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The storm grew in might until it spawned the worst kind of tornado, an F-5 or Finger of God.

Peter's Office

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This is Peter’s office. The room is small, and the wood paneling is painted white. Light colors, Peter has been told, make a room appear larger.

Thirty Seconds

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Some guys get by on hope or hate or both. Some lose their minds, if they brought them in the first place.

Zapruder Film

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But there it was, amid the “junk” set to be thrown out with the rest of his childhood, opened accidentally to the page of his Indiana Jones Action Journal about his winter formal when he was sixteen.

You Knew It

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was only a small enough matter of time before you started to show up as new words like soft pink clues dropped inside tiny fingernail teacups to find their innermost meaning, then wishes, floating up near the top like…

A Horse Walks into a Bar

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I got this job where I sell snow cones from a cart in a petting zoo. Parents ask if their children can take pictures with me. I neigh and nod my big horse head. After my shifts, I go into the bar, still in my getup, as this horse, and the bartender says,

Reversal

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For reasons he couldn't fathom, his motorcycle only moved in reverse. He engaged the engine and lurched backward hard. He called a friend, a gear-head with perpetually dirty nails, asked him to look it over.

Addicts

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He didn't think there would be girlish confidences, hopes, dreams but he is shocked, appalled, by the little boys aging at ten-speed, already wizened old men ready for cancer and heart attacks with toy trucks in their hands, skeletal women beloved by men

Conviction

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“You’ve put all my anorexic friends on the table nearest the buffet,” I say. “And all my bulimic friends on the other side of the room away from the buffet and the toilets.”

The Right Kind of Magic

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1. During the outpouring of our newly discovered grief oh how we danced, electrical, into oblivion, maybe once, twice. It was toall to be expected, but not everything you feel is always real. After all the dust may settle, but it…

Going Organic

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I should probably make it clear up front that I am not in my right mind, which I quite understand compromises the credibility of what I'm about to say. Without going into the history of my minor and somewhat more major psychotic episodes, my psychiatrist, unsure how finally…

I used to think the sun was the moon

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I imagined the sun to be the moon and discovered it was not on a road trip in California where I noticed the sun on one side and the moon on the other.

A Look In the Mirror

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...That flash of horror as well as the lie that replaced it were mirrors of sorts and both told the truth.

Big Dipper

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“You’re not in Saigon anymore, Mai Bi'ch,” I said, craning to read her name badge. “They’ll need to be much better than that if you want to stay in this country.”