Most read stories

Bubble Gum and Paperback Books

19581958 views1010 comments1010 favs

A block after his first crime, he found a bookstore to commit another.

Existential

19581958 views3333 comments1515 favs

To envy faith, to envy love --// is there a fate more hateful? Choices/ scatter like stars. Too many.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 10

19581958 views11 comment11 fav

I spent the whole day at Oliveira's, writing furiously in my notebooks. The words came pouring out. Just before seven, Darrell picked me up. I grew anxious driving down to Parker's studio because it was in a bad area on the border between Oakland

Mutants

19581958 views11 comment00 favs

Elin and I had religious differences about the garage. To her the garage required regular sweeping and organization--it was an extension of our house. Elin believed dust and mold to be manifestations of inner sin. I insisted that they were agents of evolu

Napomo 17: April 7-12

19581958 views2222 comments1212 favs

The drinking will continue/ until morale improves

Polaris

19571957 views1010 comments77 favs

Things get lost in Big John, too. I see the other guys throw jokes about his size at his body that wedge their way into his armpits or into the wrinkles of his laugh lines and disappear. I’m not sure if it all disappears to remind us how small we are,

Fall

19571957 views11 comment00 favs

The rustling of the dry leaves when he moved even slightly sounded like thunder to him, and he was sure if any of the other kids from the neighborhood got too close, it was the noise that would end up giving him away.

Where Have You Gone, Honey Bear?

19571957 views66 comments66 favs

When I wake up and look to my left, will you be there with me, snoring like an asthmatic bear?

Redacted.

19571957 views11 comment00 favs

Almost on cue, Xavier emerges and is in the vendor’s face. “X,” as he is known around here, is indoctrinating the obvious newbie on the merits of showing up earlier and the logistics of placeholders and markers.

You're A Bad Dad: The Story Of Juniper Mélange

19571957 views77 comments44 favs

Juniper Mélange was a cat person, not a dog person. Truly detested when she perceived falseness in another person. She wore glasses and drank tea. Had dark straight hair and light skin. She dressed conservatively and would watch the sky most days. She wou

Letter to the Bean Factory

19571957 views66 comments22 favs

The figure was covered in a light blue chenille bathrobe, splayed out on her back on the floor by the glass door, her hair done up in large curlers, a slipper lying askew by her left foot. Richie crouched near the face and the rancid flame of bourbon lea

Robert Penn Warren and Orange County Blue

19571957 views88 comments55 favs

We were old. Wind came in with small threats and played games with drapes. A print of orchids and some other green affair that looked to me like kiwis. Sadie was arranging some items on a desk and I noticed there was a cricket on the window. I was thinking…

Our Time as Men

19571957 views44 comments44 favs

Rhonda looks guilty as it is, don’t you think? That hair! And the unhappiness smeared across her face like war paint after a war.

A Little Fishing

19571957 views1212 comments99 favs

Harpo sits and looks at something I can't see. I drink beer and ask him questions. I ask him how they found the cancer. Backache, he says. He went to see a doctor.

Do you dream?

19561956 views1515 comments55 favs

Megalomania is a kind of backwards leprosy. It rots your insides out while your skin glistens and grows tighter around your bones.

Scent of a Woman - 55 word story

19561956 views1313 comments55 favs

She slipped into a silky sheath dress, and stepped into black sequined heels just as the doorbell rang. Her date had arrived to take her to his much touted Art opening in town. Reaching under the bathroom sink for a final mist of hair spray she realized too late…

Something for you

19551955 views66 comments11 fav

Bearing the smell of paper on her fingertips. Ink in her hair.

Jumping Beans

19551955 views11 comment11 fav

The red laser flashes. He asks if I have an Ace Rewards card. I can't even answer because my beans have stopped jumping. I wonder if the laser light harmed them. Then one jumps and another, and I hand the boy some money, suddenly very fond of my beans.

Purple Lady, Lavender Afternoon

19551955 views1010 comments66 favs

—Pretty tulips, said the woman.

Under Water

19551955 views11 comment11 fav

When I was six, my father brought home a fishbowl. Look out for the inhabitants, he said. You can play Neptune in their microcosm of the sea.

NAN : A Novel-In-Stories

19551955 views00 comments00 favs

My novel-in-stories, NAN, is now available as an ebook for $6.99. Thanks to everyone who read the first 7 published stories here on Fictionaut.

So Different Now

19551955 views22 comments00 favs

She’s right there in Thirsty’s. In her usual spot. Drinking her usual drink. Yuengling on tap. One after another. And he’s there too. Behind the bar. Pouring drinks. One after another. Sometimes they speak. But mostly she orders. He pours. And

The Weaver's Tale

19551955 views33 comments22 favs

‘Hmph! Dream indeed! “Past the wit of man to say what dream it was” - the man's a knotty-pated arse.' The old master-weaver spat into the fire, his rheumy eyes bright with contempt, then looked round furtively; Nathaniel was not yet returned,…

Letters from the Aslyum (2)

19551955 views44 comments11 fav

Leo, leo, leo, leo, the word itself imprinted on my brain, carved with a pearl handled blade into my cerebral cortex, into the medulla, burrowed deep into my dreams, I miss your kissing.

A Silent Scream

19551955 views22 comments22 favs

She hated the noiseless dying sound they made as he stuck the hook through their eyes. She always wanted for them to scream, but they never did. They didn’t even blink.

Zhou Yu’s Train

19541954 views1010 comments55 favs

Are we like a poem, a short hand of words curtained together, evoking a mood, but in the end, impenetrable? We follow the clues to our lover's heart and what we find isn't him at all but ourselves. We fill every part of his life, every part of his past and even become…

"at 'night' any night is can't"

19541954 views66 comments00 favs

“In the process, I’ve created this memory track. Yet had the sense that I had to make fixed memories move as illusion, that they move as illusion.”

3 Kids

19541954 views1414 comments1515 favs

There he was, naked and covered in green mud

Marion, Texas

19541954 views22 comments22 favs

Marion had decided to stop whenever she came upon Amarillo. It was close to two a.m. when she pulled into the motel parking lot. Momma, read the nametag on the woman at reception. Her face was illuminated by a TV. Her hair curlers were illuminated by the lone desk lamp…

Kin of His

19541954 views3030 comments1818 favs

I dreamed that coffee grounds had spilled on my Buffet. There was another clarinet, a silver one, that belonged to a man not in the room, that was clean of debris.