Most discussed stories

yapping and laughing and living

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I can't take it bird by bird because I have neither.

So Played the Pipes in Arras

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After he closed the door, Harry stared at the box for a long time before picking it up. I know what it is and I know what it means. Bloody hell. And at Christmas of all times.

The Gruden

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"Who’s John Gruden?"

Nanny

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I remember the days when my brother and I would walk down Tillman Square, careful to avoid the cracks zigzagging along the ground. Well I did. My brother made a point to step on every one.

Sex Ed With Barbie and GI Joe

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As soon as I discovered that nasty thing the grownups called “sexuality,” I just knew it would get me in a lot of trouble some day—with Jesus, my parents and some yucky boy—so I hid it. But my Mama and Daddy noticed my sinful sexiness way before I knew I

Transmitter/Receiver

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Valerie had purchased a new cell phone in late 2007, and, say a few months afterwards, in the beginning of 2008 a demon briefly took up residence in it. She had just returned home from running a few errands, and set her phone down on her desk. She had been focusing on…

the body that has the heat

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Dream, swan, dream of your woman, whenever you get hold of her. Problem after problem lets up under the grip you have. And conquest without plan is what you’ve added to the world. So, share your songs under wild silk, won’t you? I remember there was hel

Sneaker Waves

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On the way inside, Peter stopped a moment on the deck and scanned the trees for the raven he and Lottie had seen at lunch. It wasn't there. Of course it wasn't there. He scanned the beach, the rocks and broken shells, the damp stinking rafts of seaweed with their rubbery…

Protect

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The fabric on the waiting room chairs is stained and matted, but has been cleaned over and over.

Three Photos

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The first photo above shows plainly: five children dressed in suits and dresses. There are three girls. Each girl wears a yellow sundress with chiffon ribbons. The boys have been terrorizing them--the girls, not the dresses.

Rivers of red

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Proudly we fight, yetWe run, we hideIn the jungle's quietBut how can we hushthe screams of the dead?

Open Orchidae

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But Jana insisted to see this miracle, this antidote for the mundanity of existence.

Marion Winik Has Kissed A Lot Of Frogs

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Writer Marion Winik has ridiculously bad taste in men. She's an intelligent woman and a terrific writer, a good mom with a good heart, and ALL of her romantic relationships are train wrecks.Winik recounts her quest for love at age 50 in her new book, “Highs In The Low…

Parts

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IT's like, 15 words. Do you really need a snippet?

The Intercom

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I have never met Joe’s brother, of course.

I never.

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contemplatedshredding lettersfrom mybelated betterscauterizingsevered tethershorizoningmy ruffled feathers

Accidental Discoveries

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They look like giant golden raindrops, or flying saucers, or peculiar fish out of their element

Memoir 2.0

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His friend Boner, who was more accurately a friend of Milo, who was a friend of his cousin in Dubai and who had, up until this post, seemed to share thoughts in common with him, posted, “Holy Shit, Dude! What’re You On?”

Darcy Eastland

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To him the younger women, contemporaries of the bride, all sounded as if they were breathing helium.

The Woman with No Skin

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Far away or up close, she appeared just like anyone else, a young woman with pale arms and legs and a milk-face unblemished by a single freckle or pimple or blotch. Only when she turned a certain way did it become clear that what rested atop her muscle an

11 Bang-Bang

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The smell of candy and burn... /A patriotic prose poem for the fourth of July.

Struggling with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

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No one takes me seriously because I am an idiot.

sunburn

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I used to compare her to a sunburnthe first of the summerit is always the worst oneexposed skinalmost hot to the touchturning warm and pinkthen raw and redit is a transition that is effortlessbut still you can feel it happeninga lot like loveyou can feel it all around…

It's All in the Interpretation

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a random sticker that says, Repent Sinner, and a club lineup snaking around the corner and sirens and that urine smell at alley's mouth

We Are In Our Thirties Now

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For years, Nina lived in an apartment with furniture that was silver or clear or metallic, she could see her reflection in every surface. She had an enormous television that took up one entire wall of the small living room. She and Anna and Desmond, Nina's downstairs …

Meat and Bones

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The man who put up the clothes line left his kids upstairs at night and came down to my bed.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 39

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—Francesco, did you come to bed last night?

The Chair

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His thoughts drifted to when he was a kid, to the monthly trip to the barber.

the last thing

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salmon maple syrup horseradish smoke detector the list read, scrawled in purple marker on the refrigerator door.

December and a Former Cotton Field

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In the sad suburban subdivision with its cul-de-sacs and broken curbs