Most discussed stories

left handed

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under your skin the moon is alive

Lover's Spat

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“You haven’t been listening, have you.”

Homecoming King

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John Lipkin took a drag off his cigarette and rummaged through his desk drawer looking for pot. There wasn't any. He remembered looking last night, but he looked again now. There wasn't a damn thing, just some stems…

Jury Duty in the West

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My wife says you can tell the crooks from the cops from the cowboys at the taco truck across the street.

WE TURNED THE SAFETY OFF

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It’s not like I could tell anyone. I hum a song my mother sang to me as a child. A dressed-up soprano to calm the tail I’ve grown.

The World Explained

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This is why the earth revolves around the sun: refrigerator magnets.

Tinnitus Story

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I went to see an audiologist this afternoon. He specialized in tinnitus. Good news for me. I've been plagued with tinnitus for 55 years. It started the morning after a catastrophic experience with LSD. It was there when I awoke in a padded room in a hospital in San José,…

We Threw These At Each Other

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Jimmy wore a tie to top that torn green tee he toted every day, every other. He smelled of dirt, said he had a feeling we had watermelon somewhere since he caught a whiff from his room inside his house across the street.

Uncle Harlequin

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My Aunt's husband liked to dress up like a clown

The Small Blue House

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She allowed him to wash her hair. Touching it in a wet state, running his hands through it in a soapy state, wringing the water out when he was finished—he was ecstatic.

I Liquidate My Assets

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My businessman does as his nature allows him. He is so cute. All day long he makes deals. He is on his phone most of the time. He raises his voice. “Fuck those fuckers, just do it,” is what he says. My businessman hedges risk on his investments by keeping…

The Summer Reading Program -- A Librarian Tells All!

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It's July, which, if you work in a public library, means that the Summer Reading Club is in full swing. The SRC used to be just for kids, to motivate them to read when school wasn't in session. But in recent years many libraries have expanded the program to include…

We Poor Splendid to Look On

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Leave us to hide our sundials in our caves— / discard our scrolls that guide no more, / to time our nights to learn if we can grieve / —we’ve too much noise or less than we can hear . . .

Divinatrix

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Hooking up.

Killing Bin Laden: The Television Series

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Certain basic realities have escaped us. This is a good time to remember.

Holding Hands in Public

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Take my hand. Take my hand and we will sail through the atmosphere leaving trails of rainbow speckled life written in musical notes behind us. We can go anywhere you want, whenever you wish. The moon in 1974. I hear the earth looks gorgeous during the seventies.…

The Photo of the Bulletproof Man

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He was corporate then, young, his wife gorgeous, the collar flipped up on his twill overcoat, a lit cigarette in one hand, the other around his wife’s waist. They stood outside. It looked chilly. She wore a hat. He looked bulletproof.

Where'd Those Teeth Go?

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He gets her voicemail. Maureen calls back. “Where are you, Tom? I hear cars.” Where is he? Here he is. Cars, yes, and sidewalk, stores, faces topping bodies. Night again. A bad place. He sees a park – an empty set of swings and troughs of

What's Wrong with the World

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Everything's inflatable. Here we go. It's all plastic. Give it a rest, kid.You could say that I just want to enjoy nothing for now. But. Let's go ahead and buy into its precisely sealed with a rubber stamped kiss kind of survival rate statistic for…

Swimming Lessons

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We spend our days on the beach, working on our tans. My pale wife hides under a big floppy hat. The water is crystal clear.

Friends

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The boy stared out his window, noting the suns slow and eventual passing behind the distant mountains. He saw his face reflected in the window pane and turned away. His shadow loomed…

77 Words About Saturday

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Another Saturday in April. Another set of scars.

The Chihuahua Cure

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It came from the animal shelter, seizing and shivering, with eyes almost bigger than its head. Eyes that followed Pearl like it couldn’t stuff the whole picture of her in its tiny skull.

Exchange Rates for Zynga

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As with the trouble with gambling, I managed to spend beyond my self-suggested limit at the farm while wanting to do little else. It became a chase for "money" (numbers like rubles) ...

a mouth in motion tends to stay in motion

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I remember a big Walgreen’s Drug store (maybe in Elmhurst, or Oakbrook Center?) and this shopping expedition we went on. That’s where you bought your first Dust Buster, I believe (or was this another man?) Anyway, you made me carry everything. We didn’t

Just Do It

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He is sitting in his bedroom trying to decide what to wear. He has an appointment at five. If he wants to make it he has to either catch the bus, which comes in about fifteen minutes, or drive in. If he wants to drive in he needs to put petrol in his car,

Cry Baby Cry

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The baby will not stop crying. He’s been crying for three hours straight. I’m the worst mother ever. What kind of mother can’t soothe her own baby? The bad kind.

The Judge's Wife Part 2

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"Do you kiss all of your models?"

Passing A Kidney Stone In The Twilight Zone

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A few weeks ago I was sitting at my desk when I began feeling a sharp pain in the area of ​​my back just above the hip. I got down on the floor and lied on my side to alleviate the pain however I could. It lasted about ten minutes and slowly dissipated. Is this a kidney…

JOSEPH YOUNG

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JOSEPH YOUNG Joseph Young You might start with the top of the head, where the heat goes. This is first, first from the womb, the first word. Joseph Young There might have been a faith that placed it in the mouth, not the…