Most read stories

Touching Jim

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He introduced me to key lime pie, and for this alone I would have loved him forever. It was an innocent time for me, and I was easy to please.

Tortoise

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Seven black and orange Tortoise-shell kittens nursed in a crate the day Sue returned from rehab, to her parent's Atlanta home.

Self-Portrait of Someone Else (excerpt)

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Recently I think I became someone else. When the alarm clock rings in the morning, it sounds sharper than usual; getting up, my feet don't seem to quite touch the floor; looking into my bathroom mirror, my face seems to be melting, sliding, my eyes dri

Turbidity

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Where seldom is heard an encouraging word

Stay. Sit. Listen.

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There is a small church in the south of Italy, with a stained-glass window depicting the sister of John The Baptist.

Phil's Last Stand

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Phil was scared. Not of his own shadow, but of the three men from ConAgra who'd dropped a duffel bag of green outside his den the week before.

Toward a Critique of Everything Existing

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You got a lot of people, out there

Tumbalalaika

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When the arguing started, their voices would get louder and louder, till they broke into my dreams. That night, I woke and listened in the dark for what felt like a very long time. Perhaps I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. For one thing, they never

Exasperation Management

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

Stupid's Rising Up

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Stupid's rising up, I see. Melting all the intellect. I before E, except after C, but that's not how the alphabet goes.

How to Forget

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Refuse to go to the church service, even though you already missed the funeral. Tell his mother something came up. Call his phone over and over, just to hear his voice, until his mother asks you to stop. Make a recording of his voicemail. Delete it an

April Haiku

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A sardonic moon/ surveys our plight and cackles.

El Gabacho

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She turned to the window, staring into the dark. A smile crept to her lips and she laughed softly. “No, we can’t. I’m Mexican and we speak Spanish.” The smile vanished and she moved to leave. “No sé qué decir… sólo puedo llorar. Nada

Albert's Mother

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The stern tone of the chairwoman made him miss his mother, the snap of her accusations, the sting of her belt on the backs of his legs.

Moles & Scraps

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A starved hunchbacked figure covered in blanket gently steers a one eyed dog along with him. A four legged shadow serving as his longtime companion against the all-consuming vacuum of the universe. A friend for all times.A thin scar runs from his cheekbone to…

Biography

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There is a price. It's on the back. If you turn it around you'll see. It isn't expensive. Everything's okay.

Light Shot Water

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Where I grew up, you did not venture casually into ocean waters.

Better Days

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I peeled off a hundred. For the screwdriver, I said. The kid shook his head, made a pushing-away gesture. You need it worse’n I do right now, he said.

Rock-a-Hoola

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She wears a green and pink bikini and walks real slow, poking her chest out so people will notice her.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst

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The things we do for books, she thought.

My Love For You Is Real

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Caroline smiles before reaching out to touch a shapeless shadow dancing on the wall, closing her eyes as the bumps in the primer serve brail to oncoming dreams.

Elegy For the Old Republic

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You call the shit in this paper news? ‘Dog Accidentally Shoots Man With His Own Gun, Swedish Man Bursts Into Flames on Train Platform, The Truth About Elvis's Hidden Extraterrestrial Daughter.' Seriously? Enough about Elvis already.

MONSOON

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a beautiful cool quiet day

Discuss

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... her hair spills like spinach all the way down to her backpack, the top pocket where the bowl and the cinnamon estrange themselves from the coffee.

The Mitzvah

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There were only two students in the sculpture class: an 86 year-old Jewish woman and myself.

Kepler On The Bus

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On the bus I sat like an ounce.

An Open Letter to my Fictionaut Family

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Dear Fictionaut Family,Some of you may recognize my name and remember reading my work, some of you may have joined more recently and be wondering what the hell I'm doing addressing you directly. I began writing on Fictionaut in 2010, during four years as I was fragmenting…

Will #17

19381938 views88 comments44 favs

I want crazy at my funeral. I want clowns, a petting zoo, fireworks, craps tables, male and female strippers, and a three-person band composed of old men wearing striped vests, black pants, and straw hats: one plays a banjo, another on tuba, and…

THE WEDDING

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I am at a wedding with a new girlfriend. The bride is her old college roommate. I don't really know anyone else here. The wedding is being held at a huge estate, located on the edge of enormous cliffs that overlook the ocean. Despite the danger of this precarious…

George, Love, Shakespeare and Company

19381938 views88 comments66 favs

"Love, against the dying of the light." (An unusual story about George Whitman, former owner of the revered & beloved Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, France.)