Most discussed stories

Life, in a slowly roasted nutshell

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You wake up. Slowly but surely. Okay, you're in the bookshop. Yes, apparently this is where you slept, on the floor, with absolutely no sense of irony, in the romantic fiction section...

Blacktop

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Infrastructure...

Lend a Hand

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Now how do you feel about that, My future graverobber friend?

The Maximum Security Book Group

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"So what about this week's selection?" I ask cheerfully. "What did everybody think?" "I liked it!" says Liz. She always does--her tastes aren't very discriminating.

STROBE

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Alcoholic Reverie

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My grandfather’s soul And his infinite high-pitched laughter Intervene And the alcohol that Brought him closer to heaven But that wreaked havoc Among his family And my father Washes down the gullies of the Future

children

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today on the bus/ a man in his fifties/ smiled at a baby/

Spiders

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Ten am, and the piledriver behind Rhys's eyes shows no sign of mercy. Beyond the safety glass, caverns of empty air tumble down and out to where the edge of the city is lost in the murk. The figures on the screen pulse and phase with the hideous internal rhythm of his…

All that Remains

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The drapes are closed against the sunlight, but Ginny can feel someone in the room. She peers through barely open eyes so as not to let on she's awake. She adjusts her position in a way she hopes mimics sleep, turns her head to the side. A woman…

Mutual Respect

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Then, relieved to have cleared the air, they peacefully returned their way of living.

Mystery

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In a corner of a neighbor’s land too stony to till Cob makes a mystery.

ATYPICAL TWITTER PSYCHOSIS

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nine seven thousand debut novel words i love you thx for reading by #aksania #xenogrette #MINE #novella #birdking #pixies #ASPARAGUS #SPACETRASHVIOLET #SEX #DOROTHYNOTROBOT

He Brings Things Closer

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Behind the plastic kitchen, where the special children sometimes sit, a large boy in tight dungarees had grabbed Stephanie's hair in one fist.

Things Found In The Wreckage Of Angel 1508

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A canister of unused laughter taken from the mouth of a baby not yet born A splinter of wood from a cross, perfectly preserved in dark tea taken from the belly of a dead Irishman A milky vial of smog taken from the air of Los Angeles circa 1965 A

Put Your Trust in God

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God is my stomach.

Camp Lake (excerpt)

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In retrospect, we should have been a cult.

The Thief of Words

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That's my memory, kept and clutched as with a sixth sense, that it was a prim Oriental afternoon, with the pink streaks in the sky going God-knows-where down across the park, but very far away. Ghostly, melancholy travellers. Birds met and crashed headlong somewhere up…

How to Have a Fulfilling Sexual Relationship with Your Own Parents (Part One)

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Hi, I'm Alexander Payne. I hate sex.

R.I.P.

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Her funeral was scheduled for the following Monday, and of course Claudia would attend. Trouble was, Monday was a workday for my parents. So when neither Mother nor Claudia could find somebody else on short notice to keep me, it was decided that I would a

The Karaoke Girls

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The Karaoke Girls are not appreciated. Not nearly enough and not often enough.

THAT KIND OF LOVE

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I've heard of sucessful marriages where there's very little sex. My heart aches for that kind of love.

Ring, Ring, Ring

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If this is trouble, please call someone else.

That Crazy-Ass Willy Wonka Boat

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I was crouched under a bruise-purple sky on a field of battle. I held a World War I-era weapon, an ancient black-iron spear with a spring, and I was told to load balloons onto it without popping them, and then I was to fire the balloons at some unnamed ta

You Know It!

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"Every single thing ... " Hunk Hokum pronounced from the stage, flexing his muscles and prancing around in his red pseudo-loincloth, "has been totally scripted ... and ... every action ... has been ... preplanned-out ... in advance!"

The Tale of Pregnant Tinkerbelle

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Everyone was shocked when they heard Tinkerbelle was six days gone and had got so heavy she couldn't fly. Who could have done it, everyone asked, but Tinkerbelle wasn't telling. So no one knew. That isn't true. I knew, and in this Declaration I swear I will tell…

The Infinite Wheel, Hold That Taxi

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Scientists have discovered what I already did once on dope way back in the Sixties. There are so many other earths out there that they are almost infinite. Now in our other lives we have to shuttle from planet to planet reading our poems. And o

Carousel Horses

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From this distance, he reminded me of a sleazy pink flamingo, waiting for feeding time at the zoo to deepen the timbre of his feathers and hint at the promise of a narcotic aviation before his commune of hens.

Memoir 2.3

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Coffee comes in KCups and you can't fight five wars at the same time.

An after-image, a ghost

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It was also witnessing the emergence into explicitness and clarity of everyone's expendability.

Another Supper

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The man was older and had never found a wife. Years of accumulated pain had short-circuited his instincts so that the first time he met the woman, he doubted her. Each time he spoke to her, he felt himself responding, but he wouldn't allow himself to plea