Most read stories

Thunder at Midnight

19561956 views44 comments44 favs

I’ve had it to here you see.

Bubble Gum and Paperback Books

19561956 views1010 comments1010 favs

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

A Little Fishing

19561956 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?

19551955 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.

Tuesday Night

19551955 views44 comments11 fav

She comes in with her white bag with its floral patterns scattered, almost accidentally, all around it

Purple Lady, Lavender Afternoon

19551955 views1010 comments66 favs

—Pretty tulips, said the woman.

The Widow's Morning

19551955 views11 comment11 fav

Whispers flew, like wild darts across the room. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Right then, it wasn’t my job to figure things out; it was my job to cry.

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.

Truffle Socks

19551955 views00 comments11 fav

Imagine instead the skater's lean feat, the toes which, honestly, may represent 25% of the entire length. The superb way she slips them into the boots. They smell like truffles.

Mutants

19551955 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

Polaris

19541954 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,

Redacted.

19541954 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

19541954 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

Trio of Found Poems

19531953 views22 comments11 fav

Paper Bird, Devotchka, TV On The Radio

Where Have You Gone, Honey Bear?

19531953 views66 comments66 favs

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

Scent of a Woman - 55 word story

19531953 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…

3 Kids

19531953 views1414 comments1515 favs

There he was, naked and covered in green mud

Marion, Texas

19531953 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…

NAN : A Novel-In-Stories

19531953 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.

Letter to the Bean Factory

19531953 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

19531953 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…

The Weaver's Tale

19531953 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,…

A Silent Scream

19531953 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.

Something for you

19521952 views66 comments11 fav

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

Forgive Me Mamma

19521952 views00 comments00 favs

His footing unsure and his clothes covered in vomit, he grabs the railing and stumbles up the three steps. He pulls off his shirt, finds a cleaner area on the puke-covered garment, wipes sweat off his forehead, dripping wet from the humid, stormy night, a

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

19521952 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.”

Casual

19521952 views1111 comments1010 favs

Slip me in Between the cracks in your schedule Between the sheets of your bed Between your memories and your fears Between your eyes and the moon where I'll twinkle at you Slip me in somewhere, I won't disturb you Won't make you want to push me away Let…

Beyond the Wire

19521952 views1212 comments55 favs

Thistle and cracked corn were thrown to us each morning and the occasional live chicken...

Quiet (from Grand Street literary journal)

19521952 views22 comments22 favs

I know it’s nobody’s fault, and that one thing had nothing to do with the other, because it was this way for me since I was born; they just didn’t figure it out for a while that with one of my ears I could hardly hear, and with the other, I couldn

Jumping Beans

19511951 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.