Most read stories

Frostproof Suite: Saint John’s Eve

19011901 views1111 comments88 favs

Everyone at the Bermudez Brothers Combined Shows and Circus held one low opinion or another about Jimmy Dubcek.

Harvesting Brains Pastoral

19011901 views77 comments33 favs

A bawdy secretary languishes behind the farmer, translating the squealing gray matter and scratching her rectangular nose obsessively.

Mayweather

19011901 views2020 comments1818 favs

where I'm from

Gemma's Story

19001900 views1414 comments77 favs

I respect mom, she survived cancer and all while she was pregnant with me, but something about getting through all that crap made her heart tough, like an over-cooked piece of beef, and no one likes meat you have to chew forever.

Marry Me

19001900 views77 comments44 favs

My mother told me never to trust girls who speak from the side of their mouths. But Kat, with her rainbow bracelets and flat vans, can't speak any other way. A creature of A.D.D. and zip up leather, studded belt and the next No Wave, has mistaken me for the last…

The Great Bank Run of 1912

19001900 views1212 comments66 favs

She bought her first gerbil at the age of nine. She wondered if he would die from endless logrolling. When he died from natural causes, she refused to bury him and kept a distance from the first boy who kissed her--Thomas J. Hobbit. The next year a twister swept…

The Charm of the San Joaquin

19001900 views11 comment11 fav

They say ehmand for almond in the San Joaquin Valley.

The Gospel According to Teeny

19001900 views1414 comments1212 favs

Then I heard it -- a sound like an oboe being strangled. Teeny was farting onto the cement stoop through her jeans, a tripple flutter blast.

Impromptu Retranscriptions from the 'Song of Songs' (erotic poetry - explicit language)

19001900 views44 comments33 favs

I. When my lips mouth yours where they are…

Community Pool Advisor

19001900 views00 comments11 fav

Lydia slid into the pool and rubbed lotion on the exposed areas of skin. She lathered her flipper arms. She lathered her sun-worn face. And she lathered her chest, rubbing some between her chubby breasts.

Sad Songs

19001900 views1313 comments1212 favs

She was thrilled when she learned that her best friend was having an affair.

How Religion Got Its Start

19001900 views2020 comments1414 favs

In the bearded sun, I see a golden goat.

Wedding Bells & Space Junk [July challenge]

19001900 views11 comment11 fav

Right away, like toadstools, there were crackpot theories. The first: that kids out on the lake dock, against fire department warnings...

(6) Compatriots

18991899 views11 comment00 favs

"It was here where he’d first seen the girl—Nan. Slender, with brown hair, pale skin, sitting on a bench, and reading from a pile of papers on her lap."

In Portland, Where It Rains

18991899 views88 comments11 fav

So many opportunities for mud can be found in these hills,

This Isn't a Title, But I'm Fingering Your Mother, While You're Sitting at the Computer, Reading This.

18991899 views33 comments11 fav

[ETIQUETTE ... DECORUM ... BOUNDARIES ... BAH!]

Happiness

18991899 views1717 comments99 favs

Can you find happiness in the middle of a kidney stone attack?

My Tongue

18991899 views1111 comments55 favs

A nun once told me to watch my tongue. This is not an easy thing to do.

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 4: In Which A Long Walk Is Considered

18991899 views11 comment00 favs

The summer before cancer—the summer of the boy/friend, the summer before Max started high school, the summer when all the decisions about blowing apart their marriage were made—they drove to Martha's Vineyard. Astrid had insisted she wasn't going, rig

The Violinist

18991899 views1313 comments1111 favs

Max leads the parade up the hill. He is sawing on his violin, wearing nothing but a raincoat.

Better

18981898 views00 comments00 favs

... all my friends are girls; I like opera; I can answer all the questions about male and female ejaculation – without stammering – in sex ed. classes. And Braydon? In boardshorts, tall and tanned and naked from the waist up ...

How the Body Prepares Itself

18981898 views1818 comments1414 favs

it corrupts the smells// and flavors of the world/ and plants its swollen face

Gabbie Zombie

18981898 views00 comments00 favs

And it whispered like any wood. And the blade moaned when he got too deep and tried to cut too much. And as the dead parts of him came off, in tendrils and dust, the man's chest began to move, like the hands around his heart had let go.

Melancholy Happiness

18981898 views99 comments44 favs

It's only 4 lines.

Why They Cried: Roy

18981898 views22 comments11 fav

“Where did it go? You don’t know do you?” he teased the dogs as he adjusted the bottle rocket he had twisted into the ground at his feet, trying to find the optimal path.

Danny Casolaro: 64 Stories, Part 2

18981898 views00 comments00 favs

Cesario.

Refugees

18981898 views88 comments22 favs

Four in the morning. I was awake because I'm always awake. There were little fog-halos around the streetlights.

Horny

18981898 views66 comments44 favs

"...I wonder if it held magical powers..."

The Esso Roadhouse

18981898 views2222 comments1414 favs

The night we crossed the Madres my father stuffed his Stetson full of cash.

Following Questions

18981898 views44 comments11 fav

4. If the property line is a symbol, what about the neighbor girl's window, the flickering candle in her room, her black cotton panties?