Most discussed stories

French Trains

845845 views44 comments66 favs

When I sit in the front-facing seat beside him, I feel him flinch a little and stiffen, not from fear but from aggression.

Kraków Correspondence

17021702 views44 comments11 fav

The SS and Gestapo began rounding us up, at least those who aren’t registered, those without yellow cards, today. Rumor has it they got at least 1,000 and took them to the camp, to the barracks. I tried not to watch and only listened, only heard some of t

Free

14671467 views44 comments33 favs

The print is not ideal, it's true.

The Child's Veil

13371337 views44 comments33 favs

You said yes

FRAT JERK (1960s)

702702 views44 comments44 favs

I threw my cards on the table. The jerk was playing his classical records again. I could hear that lousy music a mile away and he was the kind of kid that makes your skin crawl. But he had a CD sound system and it was up loud this time so that the house

Amen, Hallelujah

15281528 views44 comments11 fav

"Now, here daddy was on the back porch at night talking with some man about leaving."

I Used to Be a Literature Major

12791279 views44 comments33 favs

I remember reading poetry in the library / when I was in college, after skipping / Sociology, Psychology, or Theology. / I remember thinking: What is this nonsense? / I don’t want to waste my time on any of this.

Regrets du Noir

11081108 views44 comments33 favs

You want to be Teilhard de Chardin? You’re getting started way too late. There’s a better chance you’ll be tomorrow’s Peking Man if I bury you in the cellar.

Perdition

15331533 views44 comments22 favs

There existed within them the deeper perdition, of course, the perdition of culture, American culture, the 21st Century suburban version, made up of Strip Malls From Hell.

Fuck Yeah America

14681468 views44 comments00 favs

After sportscasters announced the assassination and while the reverberations of the words were still fading people were already shouting

The Tamarack Swamps

14661466 views44 comments33 favs

Last night, in a tavern called Wits End, we dropped quarters into a console, sized and shaped like an old TV.

Outpatient

34263426 views44 comments11 fav

"Both my parents were hypnotists. As were two of my grandparents."

Six Feet Over

22212221 views44 comments33 favs

I’ve paid my dues in this dimension/ so show me where the rest of them are

A Facebook Love Story

25982598 views44 comments11 fav

This is a story about Jim and Robin. They are strangers. Or at least they were. They are at the same party, but standing on opposite sides of the room. Robin is standing near the door thinking, “I wish there was someone here to talk to,” when she sees Jim. …

Third Shift

12581258 views44 comments22 favs

Some great, doubtless precious; some hollow, likely empty; some only shards, but you never know...

Hip-Hop Lit: New and Noteworthy

13281328 views44 comments33 favs

Her son was doubtless the biggest wanksta that ever went to Andrew Jackson in the whole crumby history of the school.

Sixty words or less

14951495 views44 comments00 favs

She wakes up sad. She can't shit. She spreads out the foil. no creases. folds it in half. She puts the stuff in the crease. holds a lighter under it. A zippo. then smokes it. Well smokes the smoke. It's like kissing god or the…

Conditions of a Narrator

14671467 views44 comments44 favs

Moore doubted, perhaps, that readers could sympathize with a man who had killed someone for a cause or a girlfriend who forgave him. Perhaps she felt that maiming is (not) worse than murder. Perhaps she decided that the story should be about that.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 30

13831383 views44 comments22 favs

Anatoly Gringovitch took a swallow of beer, thoughtfully put the cap on his Ferrari da Varese custom fountain pen, and launched into his story:

Ann, meet Bob

17011701 views44 comments00 favs

Ann finally got her eyes to focus, and there he was, her husband, looking better and happier than she'd seen him in ages, with the same Bombshell she'd seen him with earlier (So it was him). His hand was on the small of her back and he was talking and she

At Risk

10851085 views44 comments00 favs

I wonder if this is how my parents viewed their marriage.

One Thousand Incarnations and One Thousand Deaths - Part I

16401640 views44 comments11 fav

She heard mortar fire, whose percussive power rose above the tapping typewriter keys. A perspiration of terror broke on Loretta’s brow, under her arms. Then suddenly, the whistling of shells.

An Alphabet

12121212 views44 comments22 favs

A daydreams about a woman whose name he’s forgotten next to B, who’s been drunk since afternoon.

My Poetic Nemesis

14941494 views44 comments33 favs

Except for the bathroom stalls—you know the one that goes “Here I sit all broken-hearted”—the only poetry in the house is composed by Hazel, recited to her fawning sycophants.

Night Wreck

37123712 views44 comments44 favs

You were watching TV when it began. That much is obvious, since you have always watched TV on Thursday nights, and Thursday was when it began for everyone in Polisville. Around 11 PM, a train on its way to a Nevada landfill jumped the tracks. It's a secure landfill, and the…

ghosts

14781478 views44 comments22 favs

conflicts in time

Starspeak

18471847 views44 comments22 favs

So if we all have an idea what goes down when the young person at the cash register (the registerista?) asks, “Can I help you?” then we all know there’s a different way to habla at Seattle’s gift to the world.

Frothing At the Fountain

13611361 views44 comments11 fav

When I came back from California the second time, in the summer of 1965, I was the first around our town to wear my hair long, influenced by the Beatles. And I bought a bunch of blue caps that everyone in our gang wore, with the number “69” sown on

The Color of Silence is Radium Green

28812881 views44 comments22 favs

...the teeth she began to lose went under her pillow, though no money ever appeared. She could not bear to throw them away and finally deposited them in her jewelry box next to the string of seed pearls she received on the morning of her confirmation.

Making Love- Circa Y2K

14611461 views44 comments44 favs

I want to ask him why not now, right here on the living room floor when Rosie is out for the day. Instead, I suggest Sunday afternoon. I can make grilled cheese sandwiches and we'll eat them on the veranda. I'll take off my tennis skirt and unbutton my...