Most read stories

Ibambe

19781978 views1616 comments1313 favs

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.

This is Why We Can Never Have Nice Things

19771977 views66 comments55 favs

At age eleven, I murder the coffee table. I gouge with every available implement: thumbtacks, Lefty scissors, the plastic hand of my Barbie accomplice (who really should have known better). It is a slow death. In the end, there is nowhere to hide the body. When I am…

They Would Judge His Trespasses

19771977 views77 comments22 favs

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.

Not Lao-tzu's Magna Carta, xlvi - liv

19771977 views1212 comments99 favs

the Great Way itself is very smooth and straight,/but folks take to the challenge of rough, wild roads.

Life Story

19771977 views99 comments77 favs

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”…

Tatters

19771977 views99 comments88 favs

They sat on the couch, and he tried to unbutton her buttons, but she fended him off.

The Crescent Caretaker

19771977 views22 comments11 fav

Enter Tipitina’s – the rotation hole where electric, shoeless uncles allocate their copper goulashes to catch white dripwater.

Eighty-eight

19771977 views77 comments66 favs

She realised that things you can't prove can be more intimate than the things you know to be true.

Traveling Lightheaded

19771977 views44 comments11 fav

He lit my cigarette even though he didn't want me to smoke. Buying me drinks all night, he didn't complain, but he thought I drank too much.

Summer Reading

19771977 views55 comments33 favs

The summer everyone read Faulkner, I read Hemingway. Out of spite.

Moles & Scraps

19771977 views1717 comments1212 favs

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…

Exasperation Management

19761976 views1313 comments1313 favs

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

The Mitzvah

19761976 views1717 comments1111 favs

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

We Threw These At Each Other

19761976 views55 comments22 favs

Jimmy wore a tie to top that torn green tee he toted every day, every other. He smelled of dirt, said he had a feeling we had watermelon somewhere since he caught a whiff from his room inside his house across the street.

Berthier Door

19761976 views44 comments33 favs

On Day 1122 at 4:14 AM the door which has remained since installation firmly glued to the masonry behind opens and a man emerges blinking shielding his eyes against fine stinging snow.

Breakfast Dance - a 55 word story

19761976 views1414 comments66 favs

The handsome man at the opposite table swivels his head at the tall cool slim blonde entering the breakfast cafe. The ordinary woman sitting with him adjusts her chair accordingly. She pretends to ignore her husband's distraction, smoothes her hair, licks her…

Light Shot Water

19751975 views99 comments44 favs

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

Prompts

19751975 views1616 comments1313 favs

Write a poem in which your father is a dog and you are his leash.

Better Days

19751975 views66 comments55 favs

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.

Anti

19751975 views99 comments55 favs

“What do you call this place?” I didn't really want to talk much in there. For some reason, talking felt too—linear. The words seemed to have a kind of reverberation into associations that seemed somewhat meaningless at the time.”

Black Wheat, 2

19751975 views55 comments22 favs

They are really living (they) say things they don't mean . . . Do not know what they say Take the path without heart, seeing the image . . . The moon rises above them It does not move their blood Nothing calls out to their blo

Coffee Shop

19751975 views2424 comments1717 favs

He wore his hip in his hips, his lipsShe wanted to know if he would lick the edgesWhen he pulled the coffee cup from his mouthA bit of foam clung to his moustacheShe watched it there, wondering if he wouldTwirl it off with his fingersOr lick it, his tongue darting out like…

To Kill a Deer

19751975 views33 comments33 favs

On September 12th, 2011, the ban on deer hunting became official. Apparently, the hunting and killing of deer had become too cruel. The ban had been a long time in the making. Ever since man began hunting deer way back in the day—somewhere between a fe

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

19751975 views55 comments11 fav

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

MONSOON

19751975 views55 comments33 favs

a beautiful cool quiet day

Squishy

19741974 views44 comments22 favs

Martin named it “Squishy” for two reasons. The first reason was because it was the noise it made when it came out of the hole in his basement. The second is because it’s what it did to Grandfather...

Crane Man

19741974 views11 comment00 favs

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 Burning Gulf

19741974 views88 comments44 favs

None of us ever thought this would happen.

How I Made My Fortune

19741974 views00 comments00 favs

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

The Sex Life of Your Mouth

19741974 views1010 comments00 favs

"What say we adjourn to the bedroom and I give you a little demonstration of sexual acrobatics?”