Most read stories

1985...What I wanted

18251825 views1313 comments99 favs

with cool confidence and believable body language

Martyr

18251825 views55 comments11 fav

The waitress says, “That’s a memory,” as the smoke dances around her head.

77 Words About Last Night

18251825 views33 comments33 favs

Blacked-out out on junk, I bet money on a sport I hated just last year.

Love Story, a Sequel

18251825 views2121 comments1111 favs

He hid in parks and abandoned apartment houses until his wounds healed. He ate nuts, berries, and seeds. A shy, gentle soul, he watched children playing on the monkey bars, and thought of his lost youth.

The Silence of Harold

18251825 views1919 comments1111 favs

It's been sixteen days since I spoke with another soul. I don't mind much, but I know enough about people to know most would think I'm mighty odd. Muriel, for example. She'd be pissed as all get out. …

Alone

18241824 views1414 comments88 favs

It's not loneliness I'm afraid of. It's how I would be happy to be alone too much.

Sgt. Nelson, KIA

18241824 views1313 comments44 favs

. . . she didn’t bow her head.

GRACE

18241824 views33 comments22 favs

The sand felt warm, the way it usually was on Saturday afternoons in Seaside Heights; face down on the beach under a hot July sun that burned my back and shoulders

Window

18241824 views1717 comments1010 favs

Can you write a 250-word story without using the letter "e"? Ruth's back is curving forwards, folding, softly caving into tomorrow.

Kitchen Scrap

18241824 views55 comments44 favs

Her pudgy face, flour-coated and sugary and so life-nurturing in the past, had a different spark now, a searching look I’d seen as soon as she opened the door.

Well, I LOVE Darkness . . . But I've Chosen YOU!!!

18241824 views11 comment11 fav

The elevator door opened, and Tom ("The Baffler") Frank found himself confronted by Jesu bar Joseph, who opined: "You're WORTHLESS!" and recommended: "Why dontcha PULL your PANTS down, and CUT your COCK off!"

Exasperation Management

18231823 views1313 comments1313 favs

We honor fierce, quick, cunning/ thought-in-action types

The Devil in Converse

18231823 views00 comments00 favs

In se'enties style serenading strut A passin all the pretty birds in kin', The feathered Stetson ‘clipsin crimson suit, A whistlin Dixie blues ‘cross county-lines.

I Scream

18231823 views1818 comments33 favs

she peeled back the white wrapper from around her ice cream sandwich slowly, methodically

i went to raves & wrote songs

18231823 views66 comments33 favs

A short poem.

Caprice Classic

18231823 views22 comments00 favs

A cloud of light, white smoke floated out of the driver’s side window. Nate and Zach sat on the front bench seat, talked, and puffed away. “Breath in and say Mom is coming,” said Zach.

The Lateness of the Night Lies Dreaming

18231823 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

Human Frailty

18231823 views1717 comments1212 favs

Conceptio culpa Nasci pena Labor vita Necesse mori

Elevator Neighbors (from The New Yorker)

18231823 views33 comments44 favs

“Do you think she paints?” “Her face, a little, But don’t you find her kind of bony?”

Aerobics 6 p.m.

18221822 views33 comments11 fav

Dizzy but still alive Inside this conversation I ask if you have a sister And if she'll know me If I'm with you.

Confiding in the Airsick Bag

18221822 views33 comments22 favs

In row nine, there was a lady on the window seat. Seeing the potential of space between us, I asked, “Mind if I take this one?” “Not at all” she said as if she hadn't a friend in the world, apart from the poor bastard now sitting in seat 9D.

Ten years later

18221822 views55 comments44 favs

Are you asleep? He says. Wake up.

Witness

18221822 views1515 comments99 favs

The violin hung on the wall after that, a witness.

Walking To Gibraltar, Epigram & Chapter 1: So It Was Cancer

18221822 views44 comments22 favs

So it was cancer. And so he was screwed, royally screwed. He was screwed all the more because he knew how screwed he was. He had to carry the shame of knowing, as much as he wanted to deny it, that this had been his first thought when he found out about h

Turbidity

18221822 views3939 comments1414 favs

Where seldom is heard an encouraging word

'Bout Apples

18221822 views11 comment22 favs

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

Leox

18221822 views66 comments22 favs

Whoever came up with the term kismet is an absolute moron. There isn't a single reason, or word, that can describe what exactly my brain has concocted in the face of him. No, kismet isn't what makes it happen. It's my own stupidity..

Anchored Leaves

18221822 views1111 comments55 favs

i.More and more, for Megan LeMaster, each beginning was its own end. She couldn't bear to buy flowers or dresses that seemed too beautiful. Friendships formed, endured, gave out in a handshake. Each deed in life had an immediate, inescapable…

Damn Headache

18211821 views1414 comments55 favs

Less than 5 seconds...

Awakening

18211821 views11 comment11 fav

What? No, no, where did my world go? I was in the middle of… something. What's going on? What's stroking my face?