Most read stories

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.

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…

Crane Man

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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…

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.

Arcana Magi - c.21: The World Stage

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The old mage said nothing. She did not even return the complement. All she had was disgust in her eyes as she looked at the grown men and women. To her they had no hearts.

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.

February Fifth

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We've worked silence over / Like pros, our best work together.

Lethargy

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‘Your hands are very clean’ she said to the furniture salesman. His name was Morrison. "After Jim" Morrison Pentworthy. His father specialized in Doors.

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.

mary jane - snow white super girl

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holland's hope and hawaii skunk god's one true gift to mankind

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

Closed Curve

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What the heck to believe in??

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.

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…

I A Dog

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I am a dog – four legs, a tail, a carefree enough manner, I do this, I do that, get into fights, sniff the ground and so on

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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…

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

Carlos The Impossible (Part 2)

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La revancha! The rematch between the great matador and the impossible bull was set for La Fiesta de la Objeto Inamovible. Red-lettered posters announced the event on shuttered tiendas and busy bus stops and papered-over graffiti on the city’s walls for al

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.

Where the ocean ends

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For my Dad Happy Father's Day!

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…

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.

Summer Reading

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