Most read stories

MY BOYFRIEND WAS A LUNATIC

20142014 views44 comments22 favs

Had I scoured all five boroughs of New York I couldn’t have found a more perfect imperfect object for my affections. Morgan was crazy as a loon, with the common sense of a mackerel and the emotional stability of a canary. But believing love could conquer

Snake and Duck

20142014 views11 comment00 favs

Gloomy night slippery as snake and duck.

Existential

20142014 views3333 comments1515 favs

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

Body to go

20142014 views44 comments11 fav

I’m squatting naked over the hand mirror, feet cold on the terrazzo floor, looking at my winking arsehole.

A New Kind of Madness

20132013 views2323 comments1818 favs

in my youth I was enamored of the moon—that is to say, lunacyI applauded the bizarre in natureI appropriated the gratuitous from dreamsI drank brashness and frenzy from bookswhat mad things I did!(throwing a bucket of water on the naked couple in the bed)what…

Beds

20132013 views55 comments55 favs

Called in sick at work for a week straight when I first met Tony.

If IT Were YOU

20132013 views00 comments00 favs

author's note: the borgs in this story have been programmed to think of themselves as IT and in speech refer to selves as YOU* Though IT too had ball and socket joints, the Borg could not sit down to face ITs inquisitor. While IT felt the need to clean up the fallen…

Scattering like light

20132013 views77 comments22 favs

He had long since quit listening to the incessant clanging of the bell. He stood, ringing the bell, squinting into the setting sun, nauseous from the car exhaust, his body aching for alcohol.

Blank Future

20132013 views00 comments22 favs

I might as well just keep driving. Past my exit. Beyond my job. Just drive. Until the tank runs out of gas. A blank future is better than this bleak one.

86 the Conversation: A Side of Flat Screen TV with Your Burger?

20132013 views11 comment11 fav

This couldn’t be a bar; I was with my mother. It took a few seconds for the collision of senses to clear, and I realized the restaurant had not only one, but two flat screen televisions hung in their dining room, and a fake fire blazing in the fireplace.

Quarters, Pasos, Arabians

20122012 views22 comments22 favs

Sometime that night I heard one; you get so you know when they’re coming in low down the valley or set up high over the coastals and I was sure about it.

Your Old Untrue Love

20122012 views00 comments00 favs

This is how we catch up. I write something down, and you read me quietly. In a year's time you will remind me, though I would have forgotten. I check to see if maybe you have put up a new song, every once in a while, but you don't sing as well as you used to.What has…

Cliche

20122012 views22 comments11 fav

Six thousand dollars was a small price for a man's life. Mario was in the back seat of the Honda with Johnny next to him handcuffed, all tense. Francisco had it on a rap station, the sort of music that gave Mario a headache.

Letter to the Bean Factory

20122012 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

Obituary

20122012 views77 comments55 favs

He drifted for years: No forwarding. No phone.

ROAD LESSONS

20122012 views77 comments00 favs

"Do you have to call your brother a loser? He is not a loser and that was just uncalled for"

Contagious Blinking

20122012 views22 comments22 favs

He pulls on his wispy goatee and shifts his weight a few times from one foot to the other. That doesn’t help. It rarely does, to be honest.

When I Last Saw Gina

20122012 views22 comments77 favs

Regina Dawn "Gina" Edwards, 49, passed away June 2, 2006. R.I.P. "Ridge Woman"

The Book of Punishments

20112011 views33 comments11 fav

"Not a fan?" Beth asks, feeling a sliver of happiness move through her. He furrows his brow. "Then what brings you here?" "I'm here to pick up girls," Steve says simply. "Want to hit the buffet table? Want to run away to Mexico?"

Slime

20112011 views22 comments22 favs

Once or twice he sees her around town when he’s out driving but other than that, I mean, it’s not like he was stalking her, he didn’t know where she went to school or what she did for a part-time job, he didn’t care, he wasn’t interested.

Marriage, California Style

20112011 views88 comments88 favs

Out the window we could see the parking lot and, across the street, the Bijou Moonlight Laundromat.

Red Hot Hyperbole

20112011 views77 comments77 favs

She came from the land of rumpled sheets. She was the very definition of sex. She was the breeze through the wind chimes of his heart. One might say that she actually invented the orgasm. All mirages are this way. Perfect until they disappear. They

Her Dream Princes

20112011 views1010 comments44 favs

They live a simple life..two solitudes by lamplight.

Scent of a Woman - 55 word story

20102010 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…

Eat, Pray, Network

20102010 views3131 comments1414 favs

The image was startlingly unfamiliar. Looking at it, no one would guess it had been their last attempt, their last failure. No one would believe that they had never really been that way, or that the life they shared was built on mind games, manipulation a

Clearing

20102010 views22 comments22 favs

Forty years is a very long time to live with someone.Ellen stood motionless at the curtainless kitchen window, staring at the autumnal woods, looking for signs of the various animals that frequented her property. She had done this every morning and every evening since Jim…

Crows and the Gunshot

20102010 views1111 comments99 favs

We'll Thelma-and-Louise it, I urged, Bonnie-and-Clyde it, she bettered, Sundance-and-Butch it, I proffered but she was already leaning in for a kiss.

Mutants

20102010 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

Tooth Decay

20102010 views11 comment00 favs

The schedule fell smoothly into place: After Imogene went home at the end of the day, Calvin locked the office door, then he and Rosalie marched into the examination room and she flossed him.

Arcana Magi Behind the Scenes: Writing through Music

20092009 views00 comments00 favs

A behind the scenes look at how music influenced the writing of Arcana Magi Universe.