Most read stories

Why the Woodpecker Laughs

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Once upon a time, before there was Prairie, there was Swamp. Therein lived Salamander and Snake. High above them, in the tops of Cypresses lived Woodpecker.

Dr. Wong

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Hippy health food. It all began with Hannah’s homemade granola.

Universal Theory #1: The 3-Step Secret to a Good Life

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1. Think up problems that don’t exist 2. Realize, suddenly, that they don’t exist 3. Elation

They Would Judge His Trespasses

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They waited until the crowd was gone before making their move. Gill kept watch while Warren bypassed the lock. “You sure about this?” Gill whispered. Voices echoed down the hall of the museum.

What She Gave to the Sea

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1.There's a young woman in a nightclub seated next to a window out of which she watches the slow descent of snow, illuminated by strategic lights. She imagines herself falling with those flakes. Her friend has left her for the dance floor. The young woman is…

WE NEVER

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No news spreads faster than news of a death. Word of the death of a child can be heard simultaneously in a thousand places. . . the word spread by telephone, in back yards from clothesline to clothesline, with whispers in grocery stores, in the looks on faces stunned into…

Death Masking Love

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She brought the ends of her fingers to her mouth and moistened them in her warm saliva. The whorls of her prints glistened in the harsh light of the room, but it wasn't her own outlines she was interested in raising. His hand lay outstretched in his…

Whale Lessons

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Even if your heart is as large as a small car, your tongue as heavy as two grown men—even then—you will have to carry it with you wherever you go.

How I Made My Fortune

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At the time I first went to work for Mr. Byron my family was in a sorrowful state. My dad, much as I can recall, was one of those roving kinds, called himself a carpenter or contractor, depending on the kind of job he was aspiring to, and was subject to f

Europe, 1960

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The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

tears, et cetera

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ghosts are local plagues/of unexpended grief—tears/can't be bodiless.

Phantom head syndrome

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The Bird King suffers from phantom head syndrome. Ever since his decapitation by a critic, he has felt pain where his head used to be. Sometimes it wakes him in the night. It's so excruciating, he fumbles for a saw. But alas! there's nothing to chop off.He's seen every…

Aerobics 6 p.m.

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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.

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.

The Last Quiet Morning

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Things don’t happen here, life is so boring in this little Irish town.

Some Kind of Change

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She was flying back in the morning, returning to a long-distance boyfriend I believed she had cheated on while she was here but didn’t ask about because I thought it would have been too obvious and somehow ungentlemanly.

What The Hell Nationality Are You?

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It’s confusing enough to grow up in a place like America, a country without definitive culture, except for ranch dressing and reality TV, but it’s even worse to grow up half one thing, half another, christened a hyphenation of names without connection to

Closed Curve

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What the heck to believe in??

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.

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

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The light against the nylon walls of the tent gets me feeling a little down. The air's wet inside, but it's warm. The whole world outside is creaking and chirping, everything that wakes up with the dawn's first tepid blue light does so and starts making n

Toward a Critique of Everything Existing

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You got a lot of people, out there

Stories in the Dirt

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I walk back home, alone and without the bus fare. Distancing myself from the shadows that float interminably against the drowsy sun. Where frightened boys often roam, going in circles against the long lines of epitaphs and gravestones. Puzzling…

Peterson Park

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The bungalow was unlocked. The screen door was unhooked. The trout on the counter was deboned.

Life Story

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A man lives with a woman he loves enough to live with, but not enough to marry and not enough for kids. He knows he could love others enough to marry, enough for kids, but he's not the kind of man to find those women when he's with this woman.Sometimes “love”…

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.

Love Story, a Sequel

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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.

Escalation

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Don't fall to sleep.

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…

Ibambe

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If this was the day when the bribes of whiskey and US dollars would fail to work. If on this day a black bag, smelling of shit and fear, would be pulled over his head – the bloodied roots of a knocked out tooth tickling his neck.

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.