Most discussed stories

Firefly Squids

18121812 views33 comments00 favs

On the fisherman boat, we were told to place the helpless firefly squids in our mouths. I watched cheeks light up like light bulbs and I wondered how barbarism could be so beautiful.

La insistencia de Jürgen Fauth

38663866 views33 comments11 fav

¿Qué habrá sucedido durante la invisible noche que se abre tras el sueño, esa Narnia en porciones individuales, para que el día se haya bestido, y con urgencia, de ira?Como si tubiera las manos bañadas en resina, intento limpiarme los ojos a zarpazos del filtro que…

Fix

927927 views33 comments22 favs

I’m sorry. We couldn’t fix the country and left her a bigger mess than we found her Oil leaking from her shores earthquake batter all over her skin We couldn’t fix her, and we’re sorry You’ll find her wreck in tatters at the bus st

The Old Man and the Shark

12461246 views33 comments11 fav

The shark’s voice was dark, warm and scratchy, like dying embers.

First Love

10951095 views33 comments44 favs

What happened then was not entirely innocent or spontaneous. I had been impressed by a scene in Some Came Running by James Jones, where the teenage writer sneaks his girlfriend home and makes love to her on his childhood's bed.

Sugarexplosion

798798 views33 comments11 fav

At school, Joe knew the answers to the questions. He used to jump up onto his desk and wave his arm before Mrs. Gestapo told him he would have to stop or he would go to the principal’s office, where the other kids said that the principal made you pull d

Saturday Night at the Yeti Fight

10251025 views33 comments00 favs

“What part of ‘only bettors can watch the Yeti fight’ do you not understand?!”, he yelled. “Either place a bet or get the hell out of here!” I begrudgingly gave him all of the money I had on me, about two hundred, and placed it on Demonio B

After the Shark

655655 views33 comments33 favs

each to his / secret dream of the thing

Dysplasia

963963 views33 comments22 favs

In my mind the village of 300 souls is called Nedoweska, but I confess that that's just a dreamy nickname I had for it as a boy. For various geopolitical reasons it had since become noteworthy as a historical site, though our interest was purely personal.…

Talk To the Bionic Hand

877877 views33 comments00 favs

Talk To the Bionic Hand “Scientists have discovered how to program intention into a bionic hand so that it will react to impulses from the brain like a normal hand” Man found being choked by his own out-of-control bionic hand after han

Veined and Green

10941094 views33 comments33 favs

Where we’ve penned heart shaped question marks, seeds sprouting bowed heads, a congregation of confused supplicants.

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen

25432543 views33 comments11 fav

My name is Mandy and I'll be your narrator today. I'd like to welcome you aboard. You will be reading at the approximate speed of one hundred words per minute. Total estimated reading time will be about fifteen minutes. At this time, I'd like to point out several of the…

What's Wrong

11441144 views33 comments22 favs

I’ll tell you what’s wrong

The World Has Let Me Down

12991299 views33 comments55 favs

My mother and I are close We talk like friends I tell her about people I'm dating She gets excited for me And she asks how it's going When I tell her I think I'm gay She says nothing She does not ask about the woman I am seeing She does not ask how I am doing …

LOL

714714 views33 comments11 fav

LOL? What does that mean? It’s showing up like everywhere. You make me LOL? Is that equivalent to puke, do you think? But no, they would have said: you make me want to LOL. And I’m like HMB, you know, Holding My Belly, To Keep From Puking. TKFP.

The Egg

13331333 views33 comments22 favs

It was spring. The stepmother brought her newish daughter to the toy store for a surprise.

Who's Going To Clip the Toenails of God?

678678 views33 comments11 fav

Who will plume the chicken? Who tend the little flower of the soft person? Who steal the pea out from under the bank while you’re holding it up?

Convenience Store

10171017 views33 comments22 favs

I’m casing the place; my boyfriend Jimmy is about to bust in and rob the store.

Ethnomathematics

10361036 views33 comments22 favs

His academic nightmare is set in an examination hall, where the student takes a seat at a folding table in the center of the room.

Brian, Lisa And The Robinsons

13951395 views33 comments22 favs

Sometimes you're searching for a family and you don't even know it. Sometimes a family finds you.

Caucasus

11921192 views33 comments22 favs

On shingle of seashells & Bullet shells, Ghosts drift along the shore Of the Black Sea.

The Bar at the Folies-Bergere: a Manet Painting

662662 views33 comments22 favs

The mystery is in the barmaid's impersonal stare. It's all there. Recognizable the bottles of Bass Ale And Crème de Menthe. Glazed oranges piled in a bowl. Two roses in a small clear glass of water. A wide gold bracelet on her arm, halfway

The Blush of Rose

10001000 views33 comments22 favs

Rose was the easiest lay in the Fletcher Memorial Home For The Aged.

The Fermi Panic

26802680 views33 comments33 favs

Schrödinger's Cat twitched and nodded as he picked up the discards, casting his mind back to 2014, when local confidence seemed at its peak . . .

Bird Words

892892 views33 comments22 favs

a thinking man's bird high above coated with scent of life

The Solution to All My Problems

13081308 views33 comments33 favs

IN BOX 12 OF DD FORM 214, the Department of Defense requires a narrative reason for every military discharge. Mine reads: Continued involvement of a discreditable nature with civilian and military authorities.

Nobody Steps Forward

13821382 views33 comments11 fav

I can only see their eyes in the dark, reflected in the light from my flashlight. It's so quiet. I only hear the sound of my own breath. I hold the flashlight steady. Maybe they will think I'm not a threat if I'm not moving. It's a small hope. Yet here we are, at a…

A Fog Will Press Forever at Your Shoulders

849849 views33 comments22 favs

Sandy lay motionless on the ground, death giving her a look only describable as "ancestral."

The Casual Writer Reconsiders His Dick

870870 views33 comments00 favs

The casual writer uses the work "dick" often. Other words for this appendage he finds pretentious, emasculating, or too much trouble to look up. A dick has simple motives. It is an agent of birth and death, a divining rod for the dark wet.

Journey

901901 views33 comments33 favs

my pilgrim tongue on the map of your body seeks sanctuary