Most discussed stories

Epilogue as Prologue

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The Celebrity

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I love reading about myself. There's nothing more gratifying than seeing my name in the paper, knowing so many people are interested in who I am and what I do.

A Selection From Einstein's Letters

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My dear Papa: I don't care to join you on holiday. Last summer when I came you and Frau Himmelfarb played "Wildlife Management" so late into the night that I got no rest.

wanna ball?

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There was still another, in 1971. That would have been this girl who had been a student of mine at that little Midwest college (her name escapes me right now.) She came out to Laguna Beach one time when I was already living up in Santa Cruz, and we saw

The Blue Whale

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The blue whale in the bathtub weighed one hundred tons and wore a grin like the Cheshire cat on steroids. Her smile stretched from wall to wall. Her blowhole scraped the ceiling. Sam never learned how she crammed her tail down into the drainpipe,…

Consolation

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I didn't have the words. Something about how he looked in that moment: elderly and frail, a tiny square speck of shaving cream I'd just noticed on his jawline, and his mouth set in the same soft shape of hurt that I'd seen it in years ago---the best I co

The Last Words of a Genius

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The crowd gathered around the dying man's bed, waiting for his last words. He was a genius. The most prolific writer and philosopher to ever live. He wiped his ass with the words of Shakespeare. The thoughts of Plato, Socrates, Descartes, and Nietzsche w

Dream Eater

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I began to feed him. All the things I could think of - horror movies, cheese, salt, pickles, chilli. Vitamin B6 tablets washed down with warm milk. Anything I could do to grow little nightmares for my new pet.

Blind Observer.

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I sat there, observing the city people. Frowns upon all our faces. The rain moistened my heart and journal. A blind family; a trio. They used their wands to lead the way.Their faces read joy but, most importantly, satisfaction.My envy filled the damp page.

A Tangled Web of Likes

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Liking up with the Joneses...

Mail

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he strides with noble purposefulness along the crazy paving

The Night

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Meanwhile stars continue to surprise...

Inbox (1)

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The email landed in his inbox.He'd been staring at the empty screen for a while now even though, really, he hadn't been expecting anything to arrive, yet there it was.He sat and stared, not daring to click it. He knew he shouldn't have sent a mail in the first place. He…

Dating My Terrorist

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“Maybe you should consider dating your terrorist,” my dad said to me. “Most terrorists, I think their problem is they can’t get a date. "

The Stranger I : Vic's

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The location : Vic's Seedy Space Bar. No, that's not just a description, that's the real name.

Working things out in my head

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A shot in the dark and everything goes black. It's as if the story never happened.

Amma

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God love him, she used to say. you never noticed it much at the time because it is just something like a habit. a benevolent habit. around through the years and decades she went like that. God love him, she used to say, if she saw someone resting peacefully, of if…

don't let the flames chase you away

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my maddening pyromaniac,/ you're burning up my heart/ so open up your broad-toothed mouth/ and let me pour the ashes in.

Mistrial

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His tie was made in France. Shoes: Italian. White, broadcloth shirt —Brooks Brothers, I'm guessing from the way the collar stood at attention under his medical jacket. He looked professional, but for a doctor, his attire, like the social worker with him,…

A Rare Meteor Shower

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Now, as we sat on lawn chairs / on the balcony to watch the meteor shower

It Seems You've Stumbled Upon My Bildungsroman

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Why yes I began writing this, my bildungsroman, Who is Mitsy Jackson, in spring, 1974 or thereabouts, and thank you so much for asking.

Pitch Meeting

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Someone shoved over a table. A little girl started crying.

The Light Of the Face

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We all have our place But it’s always there, isn’t it Streaming throughout our lives The light of the face Where most of the soul comes to rest We see it best when the hard wind blows Cause in the course of events The wind will know our

Superman and the Best Vacuum Cleaner Salesman in New York City

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I remember driving to New York City the summer of 1964, just before I met you. That was the very first time I ever smoked a joint. In those days it was happy dope. We got high and everything seemed so funny! Those were the days! I drove into the city

fish gut buckets

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The pier stretched out by where sharks came and men waited with beautiful dirty buckets that held strange and dangerous things, buckets with fish guts, buckets with blood, with character, buckets like prophets or a gritty desert walking saviour like Chris

One for the Ages

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It was 1984, that foreboding year, I now recall. You were in the hospital, your cat having snagged your nail.

Dialysis

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On the days I wasn’t there, my insides felt like paper-mâché.

It's End of the World Karaoke

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It’s End of the World Karaoke at Big Daddy’s and Lara takes a photo of herself for Facebook before she goes on stage. She’s holding a basket of nachos in one hand and her phone in the other. After she takes the photo, she says, to Javier, “Hold these,” an

GRIDLOCK

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North of Los Angeles - 210 FreewayWhen Central Dispatch's Gate bot mistakenly set Mongo down in the middle of present day rush hour instead of his cave home in prehistoric Rudy Valley, traffic was, as usual, gridlocked in all directions; a woman in an SUV was on her cell…

Dusk

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Her memory was a faded pastiche of the past, and indeed the present sat uneasily in the middle of the dreams that governed her mind; so it was that often she would forget the day, the time, the year.