Most discussed stories

Holding It In

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I really need to go to the bathroom.

Roy G. Biv

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Perhaps a blue person is more alive underneath than a red. Red is eye-catching and flashy, but blue is substantial, secretive. Of course, blood is red, and there’s nothing more substantial than blood, but we’re on blue at the moment, and the thought

Welcome Mat

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For you, airplane wings said 'life has not been kind here'. Kind, like what was missing was tea or as if we didn't clean our windows properly. There was that time when, stood in the kitchen Rupert saw the fire. Flames lapping at the gate of…

Last Visit to Mauritius Island

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So I threw away all my stuff, because I was tired of it, and because I decided I wanted to revive the Oral Tradition. I figured if it was good enough for our ancestors, it couldn't be all that bad, not that I’m really into history or cultural stagnancy o

ASH WEDNESDAY

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Everybody knew the McDonald’s at the Waterfront was selling theraflu stamp bags, and I guess I’d heard how bad it was for you—they’d had reports of dumbasses ODing on channel 2, 4, and 11—but it was a lot stronger than regular heroin and a lot cheaper...

The Insured

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Before the bills, before the fighting, before the need to blame something, there was a moment blown empty in the span of one doctor’s breath, a moment where bar nights and weekend benders had no meaning, a moment where the future was as blank as the bac

Crane Man

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Inside my high-rise studio apartment there are only three locations where Crane Man can't see me. The bathroom is one—although he watches me go in and he watches me come out. Crane Man does a lot of watching. Sometimes it seems he spends more time looking…

the marriage of heaven and hell & their cat

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It is hard

On Clearance

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She clutched her fat rolls and tugged on a pant leg. "I'm so embarrassed! You caught me on a bad day!"

The Whippy Guy

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He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.

Everyman's Armful

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She was, they said, everyman’s armful; Bedding down with her was most likely harmful.

Cleverbot conversation RSC00206460

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maybe if I bat my lashes just right, or look prim enough to fly, you just might touch me tonight, and the dream will pop and fizz and I will wake somewhere, your hands smoothing these lines of worry away.

Interruption

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As soon as he neared his neighborhood newsstand, handed over the exact change and had The New York Times in his hand, Irving switched from feeling he had no choices, to feeling he had a future.

Louise at Christmas

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My brother used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them ..

The Men on the Moon

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It was a gesture on their part, an act with meaning; they didn’t care about country or science; their love was their art, their art was their love.

Can Bone-Munching Zombie Worms Help Fight Childhood Obesity?

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President Kennedy’s national physical fitness program tried to reverse the incoming tide of obesity, but for many it was too late.

Film Appreciation

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“Shane, will you turn off the lights?” Jean asked. “Film really is much better with the correct lighting.” “I believe you,” Shane said while he switched off the lights, blanketing the room in complete darkness. The large TV on the…

Dude Fish

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the wiggly word / floats toward the crowd

Kitty

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One winter day, walking home from work because his old Honda Civic refused to start out of sheer laziness, Martin found the cat in the alley behind his apartment building. It was terribly thin, with a swollen belly. It twirled around his legs, pleading with big…

Conversation between Young Men

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It was stubborn early winter, when everyone was cold but went outside anyways, rubbing red fingers and shuffling feet.

First Streetlight

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What I'm going to do is grab this eight-year-old fellow down the block, and declare him a candidate for this Presidential campaign. I'll be his campaign manager, and our whole message will be based on the First Streetlight platform. It's old school but very…

Butterfly Kisses

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We are driving towards New Jersey, my husband and I, to pick up our seventeen-year-old daughter who is visiting her father for the weekend. As we drive there, I am suddenly reminded of how much I used to love my ex-husband, particularly when I was sevente

The Star... an excerpt from The Exile of Gaspar

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The night is very clear and unusually cold. We are so near to the star that its light banishes the darkness that tries futilely to extinguish it. A small village twinkles in the foothills to our east. The cry of a lost sheep cuts the night like a blade

Courtly Love, a tail

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They're bound to wonder what sort of offspring we'll hatch. We've done the tests, we are cross-fertile.

Zorro

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Zorro lived in his mother’s basement until he could get back on his feet.

Snapshots

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“Do you have a job? Are you going back to school,” I asked, you know, because I’m hip like that.

Tuna Sandwiches

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The tuna fish sandwiches were laid out the way they had always been; they were cut into triangles, with wet paper towels between them. They stayed that way over an hour, untouched, aside from a dimple the size of my cousins finger to test the softness. …

July Night At Greenlake

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In the vaultwhere no one had daredsince your first stillborn screamsI swept out your deadThe gnawing thingsboneless and dustyand stinking of churchesYou came to me thenand I took youthere in the shadowsunder the tree on the grassnear the reeds by the lakeI dived in your…

On Being Choked

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I was sitting at my desk at work and couldn't figure out why it felt like a person with a very weak grip was trying to strangle me. Then, I realized I was wearing a scarf.

Resonate

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In September of that year, our neighbor Wayne had this idea that he could get rich by selling groceries Amway-style, and he booted his 12-year-old boy out of his own bedroom and put up shelves loaded with packages of spaghetti, cans of roast beef, soda po