Most discussed stories

Road to Nowhere

15991599 views33 comments22 favs

I could smell a bold combination of cheap perfume, stale smoke, and sex excreting from her weathered pores. The bus engine hummed as we climbed a winding road. She scratched her neck and tried to finger comb through her knotted hair. I caught a glimpse of

Once upon a time.

16511651 views33 comments22 favs

"Tell me a story."

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 27

14271427 views33 comments22 favs

Bounder squirmed out of Francesco’s hands and ran into the kitchen.

among American gods

803803 views33 comments22 favs

in dark recesses of this morgue of earth / where beauty of the good does not compel, / where evil's horrors seldom do repel— / Americ gods reign o'er from birth to birth.

The Poe Man

10211021 views33 comments00 favs

“Hey,” he said looking up from the New Yorker. “There’s a really interesting article about Edgar Allan Poe in here.”

English Leather Aftershave

885885 views33 comments00 favs

I just can't figure out why nothing terrible happened to me that night. Young, blonde, drunk American girl sitting on a dirty curb in the red light district of Nuevo Laredo, and everyone left me alone ... amazing.

Battleship

16301630 views33 comments33 favs

You compare the brightly-colored wires sprouting from the bandage wrapped around your stepson's head to a bouquet of flowers. The tech sits in a chair next to Brett's hospital bed and holds up line drawings of common objects: cats, boats, skyscrapers,…

Sushi, Bentham Ave.

16941694 views33 comments11 fav

I suggested a threesome for her birthday. In jest, I thought. But here we are; me in my checkered Oxford, Katie in her red silk blouse, as planned. We're at this sushi place at the corner of 9th and Bentham. “Zuma.” I hate this restaurant, to tell you the…

One Night Stand Before Finals

10771077 views33 comments00 favs

There was one girl from Ireland, with her thick Irish brogue, who came into my bedroom early on the morning before my final exam for my Master’s degree in the writing program at U.C Irvine. She knew I was so nervous about taking the exam that I hadn’t sle

Intake

11821182 views33 comments00 favs

If I came home and she had peed, even after I walked her in the morning before I left, I would tighten up my whole face and shoulders, so I wouldn't hit her, and I would grab her by the tags collar, and I would hiss at her what she needed to know, what sh

The Mujahideen

14561456 views33 comments22 favs

Eighteen-year-old Svetlana Kabalevsky was now the widow of the poet Dmetri Kabalevsky, soon to be another widow-whore on the Moscow highway.

Bob Dylan, Republican Party Animal

48214821 views33 comments11 fav

That’s right–Bob Dylan, ne Robert Allen Zimmerman–will be riding shotgun with me as we head north to fight the good fight against the Democratic Party’s war on women.

Jump-start

12041204 views33 comments33 favs

"I don’t know what to do. I need to catch the 11:30 train, but what is the difference between doing it today or tomorrow?"

Breathing

23122312 views33 comments11 fav

It was the end of a New York City summer, the heat and humidity thick all around. But in her body it was an unforgiving winter, the memory of pain always leaving her cold

Cat summoned for jury duty in Boston

15331533 views33 comments22 favs

Cat summoned for jury duty in Boston Wayward hawk loose inside Library of Congress finally caught (God only knows what happened to the doves) Vacaville roof collapse blamed on bird droppings These are a few of my favorite things Piano mysterio

Rest In Peace

11761176 views33 comments22 favs

Gone he is in his designated place Just resting in peace while I barely move on

Happy National Hairball Awareness Day

12111211 views33 comments22 favs

Something’s not right. Okie, the elder cat, seems–distrait. Taciturn. Phlegmatic. And those are just leftover vocab words from my son’s senior English class.

Pain

14631463 views33 comments22 favs

My pain is a black pearl hidden in a clean shell.

On the Empire Builder

15791579 views33 comments00 favs

Naked American Apparel models romp with elk and antelope, and the Ghost of Richard Nixon directs traffic with the grace of a Wounded Hyena.

One Thousand Incarnations and One Thousand Deaths - Part II

14141414 views33 comments00 favs

The door flew open, hitting the wall, and the woman seated in the corner across from her pressed herself against the bench. Loretta saw that down through her petticoats came a trickle of yellow liquid, which pooled on the floor.

Possum Woman

23532353 views33 comments00 favs

They always referred to her as the possum woman back home. She scoured the streets just as the sun fell into deep slumber behind the sentinel, sun tanned shoulders of the mountains encircling small town anywhere.

The Washing of the Quilts

14971497 views33 comments11 fav

Sweaty feet, drool from the weighty sleep of mid-afternoon naps, the inescapable perspiration of the South: all combine to create the entwined scent of socks and stale toothbrushes...

Holden Caulfield and his Crummy Band

981981 views33 comments00 favs

Holden Caulfield starts a band call Crummy He’s jumping around the stage swearing at everything, every damned thing in his oversized raincoat that he never ever takes off for any reason including when there’s the slightest possibility of having sex

black friday

30703070 views33 comments11 fav

She is laughing, watching me spit out a mouthful of seaweed. It's a soft kind of laugh: small gasps between small sounds of her eyes closed, curling with the corners of her mouth. Her left eye curls a little less, closes a little more than it did when she laughed a year…

Zoo

16091609 views33 comments11 fav

It's London Zoo and ten minutes to closing time. The clock walks in and out of cages. I love you baby when you laugh like that at monkeys.Penguin and pelican, wing in wing, approaching. It's some bird act, I know. Two birds from nowhere. One flies, one walks.The zoo…

Floater

18841884 views33 comments00 favs

Just because I’m suicidal doesn’t mean I don’t care about whacking my head on some service railing ten stories down. The fact that I’m going to jump doesn’t lessen my fear of propellers or a broken back.

I’m Not a Needy Film Project

21582158 views33 comments22 favs

Thanks to the popular funding platform Kickstarter, I am finally getting my life in order with the help of generous people like you. Dating in this economy, without a job, is surprisingly expensive.

Goodbye Uncle Jack

14091409 views33 comments11 fav

He fought off the U-boat packs in the Atlantic — one hand on the tiller, one on the torpedo launch button.

The Abyss at the End of Life

862862 views33 comments22 favs

When I hear her voice Repeating over and over Will you help me? Will you help me? I get very, very sad Have you seen Rose and Fanny? She asks They died 30 years ago, dear Oh Will you help me? Over and over Will you help me? I g

Friends

16521652 views33 comments22 favs

“Hi. I’m Rita Bates,” I had said. “Can I sit here? The boy who introduced himself as Thomas told me I could, so I did, and his friends all introduced themselves in turn. Around the table there was Bev, Ernest, someone whose name started with an F – maybe