Most discussed stories

Flash'em Tag'em Bag'em

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On a hot summer day in downtown San Francisco, a flasher gets more than he bargains for when the woman he flashed at a coffeehouse pulls out a gun.

Tidbit

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By dawn, she is ready to hunt.

Prometheus

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Allow me one moment of stasis from pain, If I must really become that one, Who brought by giant hand man's gain, And suffered through theft of the sun. No dagger pricks the injured side, Or vulture picks the source of bile: Still must wan hordes…

the girl next door to Andy's

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Then there was this short little girl, Jo Ann, who had a daughter and was divorced, who lived next door to Andy. She told me right after we did it one night that she had always wanted to have sex with me when she was growing up, as a teenager, I mean. A

the spirit of the dead watching. Gauguin

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Listening too much to the night, with its whistles, bright lights of luminescent bursts like leaves on fire, or the raised ear of a cow in the purple mist, or the curled tail of a pig foraging in the night.

Street Lamp

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An old man leaning over his stamp collection. His burning face glows with bourbon. Underneath, children try to stretch moments. Each toss of the ball, turn of the handlebars a deliberate time shaping exercise to see how much distance they can…

Crescent City, Spring '97

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It takes almost an hour before I drift to sleep on the bus. When I wake up in Crescent City, I’m surprised. Maybe I was going somewhere else in my sleep. Walking out of the station, it feels like a strange place. Somewhere I’ve never been before. The

The Theory of Color

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The story of the black pen drawing a dark hole makes everything seem so elaborate and obscure. Or even a seven-year-old leading police on a wild car chase to avoid church. Or naming a new band Fuchsia, which looks like the beginning of an

writer’s block

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round & round this empty block again & again i go

The Crescent Caretaker

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Enter Tipitina’s – the rotation hole where electric, shoeless uncles allocate their copper goulashes to catch white dripwater.

Cliche

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Six thousand dollars was a small price for a man's life. Mario was in the back seat of the Honda with Johnny next to him handcuffed, all tense. Francisco had it on a rap station, the sort of music that gave Mario a headache.

Who's Better: Michael Jackson or Shakespeare?

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I looked up “tupping.” It doesn’t have anything to do with Tupperware. It’s Old English for screwing. Just like a professor–make something harder so you’ll get it wrong on the mid-term.

Let's Walk This Dog

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if you don't quiver with anticipation you'll barely manage to explode

Whistle Stop

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Her eyes blaze through the green burka as her veil drops, revealing skull where face should be. Her teeth form a death grin, words pour from within, hollow like a baby's rattle. She speaks Farsi

The Perfect Command

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He stood in front of her. They stood eye to eye. "You aren't supposed to look me in the eye. If I were anyone else you would be smacked down on the ground right now. Treat me as you would a lover, your master."

Robots Among Us

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Father hands Billy a length of rope. Billy builds his resolve, fights back his tears, heads into the kitchen. It's time to become a man.

Loretta McKinley

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After Loretta McKinley had sat for just such a time on a rock near the tribe, hallucinating and coming as close to death and God as she ever had, she walked into the camp and asked to speak with the elders.

Klondike

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"How could anyone say that I was wrong, that I was crazy?" These thoughts scraped across her mind and tore open the reasons she had knitted herself into over the years.

Just a Joke

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The pizza was perfect, ingredients genuine, not artificial: crust charred slightly; cheese gooey; sauce steaming, requiring careful eating lest the mouth suffer burns. Such quality was becoming rare around town. The product in Manhattan, by and large,

Leningrad's Sister City And Her Cuban Sandwiches

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It began not so innocently with voyeuristic tendencies. the sound of concrete and confetti in the night.

Quel Bordel

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Our friend, M. Dieu-Juste partnered in a used car business with a Vietnamese mechanic, Mr. Tran. Cars however, were not their only venture.

They know about fish

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A debacle has been scheduled for 11:45...

Ecce viator : Behold the Traveler

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The snake glides unhurriedly through the garden one warm July afternoon looking for a schmoose. Or barring such pleasant daytime passage, a shady snoozing spot. He twines himself about the gravid apple tree’s trunk caduceus-like, slithering his handsom

Deal Me Out

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Vegas is turning out to be my kind of town. Easy money, free booze, and everyone is too overstimulated to realize I’m broadcasting right into their noggins.

The Nanny

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     In the dark, alone after she was gone, he would whisper her name into his pillow and fight the tears more out of shear exhaustion than anything else. He had mourned for her even before she had passed, as he watched helpless while the disease marched slowly and…

Martini Business

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On Martini Business Nights the rules of decorum were written by Esquire or Playboy.The red bar-side book divulges the secrets brewed with ice, libation and a sleek chrome shaker, because its all about the accoutrement, and technique. Mr Boston said that, NOT James Bond. If…

The Art of Conversation

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The lounge in our hotel —— the Oregon coast —— one guest, wheelchair bound, in residence for the full summer season, asks us in her Main Line Philadelphia accent, "Have you come far?" "No, not far. Flew from Salt Lake…

Yuppies Fight Callous Image With "Tap Your Laptop" Day

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"When I knocked my laptop over,” he says, "four years worth of muffin crumbs shook loose on my desk. It got me thinking about those less fortunate than me.”

Beamers

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I try again. "You can make a big cup by putting your hands and fingers together, see?" He glares at me. "A giant could make a big cup," he says. "A giant could make a giant cup." I thought so before, and I’ll say it again. A little genius.

Assay the Assail

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No one is a Puritan under all that powder!