Most discussed stories

Scene from the Clinic

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No way to know why she's here, but scars and scabs can hold more information than a file or chart.

Carpe Mentis

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machine utility of thought, intangible aesthetic of sentiment.

Settling

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But she knew what she would find. She knew it all the moment she felt the sticky fingerprints behind the slat of her old oak slay bed. The fingerprints that would only be left from a person grabbing it from behind their head. The fingerprints that she

Where Does Love Come?

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He was rummaging through his giant pile of clothing on the floor, looking for something to wear to sleep. When he couldn't quite tell what was dirty and what was clean, he knew it was time for laundry. Just as he was going to…

Always / Never

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"... A set of vertebrae disintegrate and a woman falls face first into her dinner plate."

The Poetry Section

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In the poetry section, no one talks except to say, "excuse me," or, "wow," or, "amazing," with the second 'a' stretched out like a blacktop highway. But mostly they say, "excuse me." and that's only because someone dressed in a corduroy jacket is …

Ai Kitano

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Sick of sight, Ai Kitano constructed glasses by which the wearer was rendered totally blind.

Award Season

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I made the List!

Determination without Negation: A Love Story

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In dreams begin responsibilities--Yeats I'm writing this story to tell you about a mistake, despite the fact that you might find it boring or might consider my writing style onerous or overeager. I begin with…

At the Balcony

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I was setting up a mattress and a lamp in the balcony of my house because a boy, G., told me he was coming to fuck me.

As Faulkner's Birthday Nears, Mailmen Ask "What If?"

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Before he became famous Faulkner was postmaster at the University of Mississippi Substation Post Office, a fact that endears him to mailmen around the world.

soul, baby

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Soul? Who's got soul? That nothingness that holds us together, between the spaces, in and out of the cracks in our minds and bodies. The soul weighs something, you know. It's been proven. Some guy did a study where he weighed people before and after death, and they weighed…

The Wild Silence: Intro

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He huddles against the wooden beam of a chop suey stand, glaring out into the giant technological organism that was his city. Lights, hulking monstrosities and endless possibilities were teeming in the night-hustle that surrounded him.

True Vocation

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After lunch it's vocal coaching: shrieking, screaming, crying Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!, panting and face fanning. Next it's ‘situational training', where we pretend to be audience members on real talk shows and practice everything we've learned th

Shinto Haikus

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He walks down the path Carrying the rice basket Red foxes lead on

Oyster

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"Maybe…" he began searching for some comforting wisdom. "Maybe it's like this. Husbands live for their wives. Mothers live for their children. And children...well...until they're husbands or wives, they live for themselves."

White Treasure

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one man's trash

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 2

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“How did you come by a name like Vladimir?” I asked the toilet guard. “Sounds Russian.” “My mother’s Russian. You got something against Russian?” “No kidding?” “Real KGB,” he said. “She was in it when they arrest my father. Only way he survive

Loose Lips Sink Ships

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I asked the Eskimo if he'd ever seen a vagina before. “Because I can show you,” I whispered. Albert Huffman, a recent arrival to Hamden via Alaska, was not, in fact,…

Fractured Memories of Hope

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May as well have lived two lives, he thinks: one before memory and one after. And how can you remember someone else's life? You can't. After forty years of living, he realizes that there's no way of knowing what his own eyes have witnessed.

Lake Erie on a Monday Night

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As if I should have expected better of it.

In the City of K.

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I had never been to the city of K. before, having just flown in on business the other night, and so imagine my surprise at seeing my parents, waiting at a bus stop just a few blocks from my hotel.

The Pearl

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“An attractive woman is at a ritzy brunch. She’s drinking a really outstanding Bloody Mary and decides to try a raw oyster on the half shell.

Just Before the Funeral

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We had been on the way to the church when we found them. The handkerchief in my breast pocket was folded just so and I'd tried to recreate the perfect ribbon in Ashley's hair, …

Countdown

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My bones will rob me blind, corpuscle by corpuscle.

FEAR OF LANDING

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“Omaha is filled with fine clothing stores for men,” he says, “all of them doing very well. Whereas Minneapolis is a different story altogether.” I am trying to sleep in seat 26C. 26B is occupied by Mildred who has already introduced herself,…

Illumination,with grace

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Jerry peered out into the dark landscape with no fear left.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 8

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“Okay,” Boris said, wiping his mouth, “ready to go see these paintings by Lenin? We go now.” “Where are these paintings exactly?” Ellen of Troy (NY) asked. I didn’t mention which Troy she was from. “I have friend in Prague,” Vladimir said. “Has sh

Bad Boys, Bad Boys, 2

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I ran into Geary Marston in front of the French Hotel Café, across the street from Chez Panisse. I was sitting outside at a small round metal table. A girl that looked like a Degas model was selling flowers on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Her shor

Cobbler's Clinch

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“If Sir would observe, the storm welt, a shoe for the big occasion, a shoe that will guide sir through the dismal passages, a shoe that will roar in the face of adversity and …”