Most discussed stories

Violet Hour

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“My name is Violet,” I add. I am trying to stop lying. Going without cigarettes has been easier.

Smart

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"A little knowledge truly is a dangerous thing."

Art exploits

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Against// the mysteries and the dark/ it illuminates and shapes

The Book You'll Never Read

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THE BOOK YOU'LL NEVER READ CONTENTS This Is Not A Test In The Event Of A Nuclear Attack, This Message Will Be Followed By A Message From Your Local Civilian Defense Authority Fuck, The Radio Doesn't Work Trouble Shooting Radios The Top 40…

Red Left Hand

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"I see a child's bicycle swarmed by bees. A stolen oil painting of a helicopter...no, no, that ain't it. Wait. A high school basketball coach will hang himself from a bridge you often think about. This man, now, he's a Navajo Indian.

How to Take a Meeting, for the Woman Who Fell to Earth

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1) be awake2) wear clothes1a) get out of beda1) go to bed the night before6) put a smile on her face, but not too smiley6a) maintain precisely calculated level of irony and derision in a just kidding (not kidding!) manner suited to responses of the enemy6aia) normal words,…

air

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i flew

My Hot Rod and the Redhead

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I think the Air Force Colonel must have known, from the flushed looks on our faces, that I had just fucked his daughter in a roadside patch of ragweed on the way to their house somewhere outside Danville. I remember looking back and forth between him and

Four Days before Thanksgiving, Boston to Colorado

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The daughter's trip, a travail, cross country; the painkillers were not the finisher mom needed—and the white sheets of the institution were too thin to provide her any comfort as she dreamt of swimming; a backstroke suspended over a waterless pool.Her father…

Whenever I am

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alone and soaring in your eyesanother new journey for mebegins; my lifewants to make sense ofitself only for you, goingdeeper, hand youthe keys to that kingdom'srare maps and say,here,"fly, dream, fall to love'slake." You deserve it all.I swear…

Roy and Ray

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Roy Carver owned a big tire retreading outfit over on the Mississippi.

Sisyphus

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I build pedestals.It's hard workHeld together by sweat, love, and lofty thoughts - an unsound foundation.The tiniest bit of heartbreak,and it comes crashing down. Always, I blame the builder and not the vandal. The next one will be…

The Lonely Gaze of Men in Nightclubs

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Quarts of philosophy may be transacted by semantic obstetrics.

No Nows Now

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. . . did you notice yesterday afternoon how for an entire quarter hour five o’clock itself looked for a few minutes as if it would never arrive?

Fish Stew

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It made a satisfying ‘pop’ when Donnie’s nose crushed under my knuckle-scared right. I threw another to his jaw, and then a left into his gut. It had forced the air out and Donnie crumpled to the floor gasping, half sitting, gurgling through his nose.

Christmas Email from an Aging Wicked Stepmother

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Your stepsisters send their love. All three are still on the wagon.

Talking Balls and Strikes

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I don’t see the problem. In the country I come from, language is the best part of the game.

Blood Brother

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Treasonous brother

A Record of Wrongs

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A dead deer on the side of the road and the older boys not listening to her as they stab its eye with a stick.

Girl Ajar

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Mother saw and swung. It was a talented slap. The kind which left white welts and then dissolved to venom in your veins. The inside of your cheek puckered and bloated.

Siblings

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It seems the people of this house were a happy family – The smiling faces, the children’s enthusiasm tells me as much. I wonder what happened to them.

Denis Johnson

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How strangely perfect it is To see this man memorializedAn author, so I'll always cheerThough I haven't yet read his worksA secret perhaps best keptThe shame of an English major, the shame of a friendHow strangely perfect it is To read even the names paying…

More Corpses

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(I would cite here “corpse plumbers”, but I fear being misconstrued.)

Tofino

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They giggled at me when they thought I was asleep, giggled at the size of my balls, which had never been a problem before her. Said it was because of my tiny balls that we only had two children.

The Bob Delusion

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It couldn’t be a worse time for failed novelist Robert Grayson. He’s 40 and falling apart. He’s balding and accumulating a gut. His job writing technical manuals for software looks like it might get cut. Then his wife does the unthinkable and files

The Burglar's Golden Rule

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Undies before jewelry!

Genesis Serpent’s Skin Found

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This may be too religious for you, as at first it was so with me. But I assure you, on my scholarly integrity, I have found the Genesis Serpent’s skin! Yes, that Genesis Serpent--though just a leftover piece of him,

Relic

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While space and time opened up for us, the ground accelerated its attempts to devour the astronaut. Grasses grew up around his edges. Seeds propagated in the folds of his suit, tendrils found their way into the mysterious holes for the missing hoses that

A Journal of the Plague Year: Day 237: A pandemic miscellany

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Wheel turning, round and round again

Reverse Order

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Robert wants so badly after reading a book where a man wakes up as a bug to wake up as a bug. He researches the avenues of metamorphosis where science has been where it is going. He is disappointed that of all things science has turned into other things, none…