Most read stories

Frostproof Suite: Saint John’s Eve

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

Gemma's Story

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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.

The Charm of the San Joaquin

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They say ehmand for almond in the San Joaquin Valley.

The Gospel According to Teeny

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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.

In Portland, Where It Rains

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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.

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

Harvesting Brains Pastoral

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

Community Pool Advisor

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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.

Happiness

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

The Violinist

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

(6) Compatriots

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"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."

Marry Me

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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

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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…

Refugees

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

A House Made of Stars

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My cousin had put them up last year, showed me when we stood on her bed as her fingers pointed, traced over the outlines, then turned out the lights, so that I could see them glow.

Horny

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

My Tongue

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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

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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

Sad Songs

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

How Religion Got Its Start

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In the bearded sun, I see a golden goat.

The Esso Roadhouse

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

Following Questions

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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?

On Work

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From my resume'.

Wedding Bells & Space Junk [July challenge]

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

Better

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... 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 ...

The Hunter

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When the boy held the rifle’s sights on a living creature, his breath stilled and his heartbeat swimming in his ears, his father seemed close.

Gracious Have Been My Years of Late

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Gracious have been my years of late; The windy drifts blown soft. Truth be told, such luck seemeth bait Eliciting doubts and wonderings.

Danny Casolaro: 64 Stories, Part 2

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Cesario.

Twenty Questions

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Did you take out the trash? Did you water the ficus? Did you cancel the cable? Did you take my black sweater? Did you tell the neighbors? Will you get the friends? What about the cat? Will you send me a Christmas card? Will I tear it up? Did you know…

Dear Envelope Said the Stamp

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I have no more use for the beautiful words you used to like so much for me tosend you alone. See my feathers donot so much hide me now as giveme away; I tend to feel farfrom home. Forgive me this. Theend jumped by me quicker than anorange flower cricket on its…