Most read stories

The Damp Place

20042004 views88 comments55 favs

As long as he could still take the stairs, he would go down there to be with the memories that each piece held. He knew that their time was about up, because his was too. His wife had already gone, and even before that she had long stopped using the washe

Brot und Käse

20042004 views55 comments33 favs

I hoped I did not look as panicked as I tried not to feel.

'Bout Apples

20042004 views11 comment22 favs

Sawyer walked toward the lone house with the sentinel trees. Behind him there were no tracks in the snow.

Opening Line

20042004 views44 comments33 favs

I cannot read one more award winning novel by a female Asian author about the atrocities committed against their childhood, she thought. Then she sat down with her trusty yellow pad and Papermate fineline to write the next lyrical story of a female Asian writer and the…

Fragment

20042004 views2424 comments1313 favs

see the man

Noah's Ark, NYC

20042004 views44 comments22 favs

Two by two they come walking down 7th Ave girl with girl boy and girl boy and boy two pigeons strolling side by side two robins two crows walking stiffly like two pieces of anthracite coal two spiders two dogs sniffing each oth

The Leg

20042004 views3131 comments1111 favs

They all looked for Vic's leg after the accident.

Battle at the Bodega

20042004 views33 comments11 fav

Mr. Lowell knelt down and put his face in his hands, his knees quickly covered in blood. Sobs.

SUPER DAD flies coach

20042004 views33 comments33 favs

“I don’t want to scare you,” the stewardess says, “but there are ten police officers waiting for you outside the plane.” I reach into the diaper bag and grab an Elmo raspberry/pear cereal bar, rip it open, take a bite, sip some apple juice fr

Missed

20032003 views1313 comments1515 favs

How I felt in Ireland.

Milton wrote his best lines blind

20032003 views22 comments00 favs

the unhealthiness of obsession and control until the lines burn bright

Mr. Twitchy

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I used to think the world was fucked and it was up to me and me alone to see it unfucked. That's really what I used to think, but I've been trying to work on that. It's not a particularly flattering characteristic I have. I'm trying to be more positive.

Repatriation

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When he woke he carried the body of a cat instead of a man. Next to him his cat dreamed it had a human body.

Winter Hawk Jack

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Jack, man in black, sporting manicured talons, his smile an iced knife.

Hometown News: The Ballad of Ray and Rose

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There’s an old journalism adage, usually uttered by editors who haven’t had their butts out of a comfy leather newsroom chair in years, which goes: “You know… the news just doesn’t walk in the door.” ... But sometimes, it does.

Freeway Deaths Attributed to Talk Radio

20032003 views66 comments00 favs

"I was just coming home from work listening to Consumer Dave," said Murrietta resident Mick Baylor, through his attorney, "when my eyelids started getting droopy. And he was just talking about how Circuit City was going out of business and I was. . .well,

Carlos The Impossible (Part 1)

20032003 views22 comments11 fav

And so the deal was struck. It was arranged that the empresario for the Plaza Mexico would buy the giant bull from Button for Hernando to fight. Come the Fiesta de la Fuerza Irresistible, the Great One would meet the bull that was born of a thunderclap at

Ten years later

20022002 views55 comments44 favs

Are you asleep? He says. Wake up.

My Bed Loves Me

20022002 views1212 comments77 favs

Above-board, we sail

Zen and the Art of Enjoying the Last Laugh

20022002 views66 comments55 favs

What doesn't kill you gives you great material.

Hobo's Pastor

20022002 views1616 comments88 favs

The three of us traveled seven hours that day and Al traveled as far in the service of finding the right tool for his writing.

Blind

20022002 views55 comments44 favs

In this coaly no-time/ strewn with fallen stars,/ you are a roaming panther/ and I am a tangle of snakes.

An Old Sweet Song

20022002 views33 comments22 favs

Rob thought he might even make it. He'd stopped off south of Seattle, in Kent, and filled up the tank and went back in the can and topped off again. He got back on the road, to all appearances blase, blase. The montages were muted, at least for…

Suppose, I ask my friend

20012001 views11 comment11 fav

nothing has ever happened in this or that or any other or maybe too damn many parallel universes. . . .

Take-Home Quiz

20012001 views44 comments22 favs

1.) Please discuss any real-life problems you may have encountered having to do with the concept of “the look” or “the male gaze” as propounded in some of the feminist criticism readings we've done thus far this semester.

The Lateness of the Night Lies Dreaming

20012001 views66 comments33 favs

Your finger quivers as it writes Upon me words in water, Words I cannot read nor drink But feel them as you drink Them with your tongue

The Waves

20012001 views77 comments66 favs

...some years later I heard that an old friend jumped off that bridge to her death.

The Marriott Hotel, Downtown Brooklyn

20012001 views77 comments44 favs

There was a time when she could quell the loathing that Fred inspired in her. She could force it down. Back then, for instance, when they’d been in counseling, the ball of hatred had only been a little, overripe orange - squishy and occasionally mushed

The Truthmobile

20012001 views33 comments22 favs

She's had a magnetic sign made for the side of her Honda, TRUTHMOBILE, simple and elegant. Maybe too simple; she's worried it suggests a religious affiliation.

First Chapter of Rain (novel)

20002000 views22 comments00 favs

Every day she loves me a little less, and justifies it by saying that there is less of me to love. At some crucial, overlooked space in our life together, I used up my compassion and started to spend hers.