Most read stories

The Violinist

19771977 views1313 comments1111 favs

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

Forever Four-Eyed

19761976 views77 comments66 favs

I'm a librarian. A reader. I identify as a four-eyed person. I've always worn glasses. I got my first pair in the second grade. It was a miracle! The blurry world I'd inhabited all my life suddenly came into focus. I could see the blackboard! I could read street signs! I…

(6) Compatriots

19761976 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."

Assay the Assail

19761976 views22 comments22 favs

No one is a Puritan under all that powder!

Casting It

19761976 views1010 comments55 favs

Truth came out of it, a little bug that hovered there...

laundry

19761976 views1212 comments1010 favs

She’d once read the Time-Life Encyclopedia on The Universe and became obsessed with the woman from Alabama who was singled out, by a rock from a far place, in her sleep.

The Yawn

19761976 views1010 comments88 favs

La Petite Ange had lived all her life in Paris under the strange architectural twists of Notre Dame. She had been a Bluebell girl once, kicking her surprisingly long legs into the air to the delight of plumbers and Prince du…

Dog Days

19761976 views1818 comments1717 favs

The air is dry and smoky from a fire some miles away. The air is cool. A pair of vultures is soaring in a circle high above the rising land.

Bravo, Scrittore!

19761976 views44 comments00 favs

I hadn't yet assembled enough pieces of Italian to explain any of this, but it was hardly necessary. The fact that I was a scrittore in a language foreign to her seemed to make me especially fascinating...

Fear the Future: 25 Brief Tales in Various Keys of Woe, Fear, and Loathing

19761976 views1313 comments66 favs

The three were up early to await the deer with rifles, ammunition, and coffee.

Kazooed

19761976 views88 comments77 favs

"I've been on eight blind dates in three days," she tells me. I can't quite work the math out, but somehow the combination of her wildly undulating eyebrows and harsh vocal tone manage to convince me."I can play the kazoo," I tell her. It's my one saving grace--the thing…

The Same

19751975 views1212 comments99 favs

The bus is late; the papers disappear. The china breaks, and the suit does not fit.

The Good Sounds of Squeamish Language

19751975 views66 comments44 favs

Accuracy is a prediction

Things I saw before and after I broke into my neighbour's apartment

19751975 views22 comments00 favs

Before Plasma screen TV Futon Underwear (brief style) piled on kitchen chair Unopened mail from funeral parlour Water in the sink coloured orange with grease Desktop computer (flying toasters screen saver) Cigarette butts floating…

Commute

19751975 views88 comments44 favs

Fred's ruined face stared back at him from a fractured, mold-spotted mirror. The remains of breakfast pooled around his feet and a pair of lace panties clung to his shoe, glued there by God knew what. Bits of flesh were stuck between his yellow teeth, alo

Unveiling Kirkiss Automated Amazon Reviews!!!

19751975 views2020 comments1212 favs

No! No! Nonononono!

lament of Liu Ch'e . . . while elsewhere--

19751975 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

Lesson 38

19751975 views1414 comments33 favs

You have a house (plural, as in Spain)

The Tombwatcher's Tale

19751975 views22 comments11 fav

My name is Lu-chen Wyatt, and I have watched this tomb for seven years with undying loyalty. Tomorrow I am going away, and I wish to set down the story of my leaving and to say goodbye to Set-Yi, whose burial place has been my home for so long.

Novel excerpt: "Home Cure"

19751975 views55 comments00 favs

He picked up the bottle of gin, looked at it. "Not a lot left," he said. "There's enough," she replied. She took the bottle and lifted it to her lips. "Are you ready?" she asked. "For what?" "You'll see."

When I'm Not Here

19751975 views22 comments00 favs

She’ll get a dog a Weimaraner I know She’ll call him Alfie after her first two dogs He’ll try to get up on the bed She’ll say, Alfie, no, no But in the night she will let him so as not to be lonely

Strip (Her)

19751975 views77 comments66 favs

There’s not enough cigarette cloud to conceal her, malnourished and pale beneath blue and pink lights that summon 80s-era skate rinks. She saunters towards the center of the stage, asking her bored expression to convey detachment, while a DJ that fits the

Golgotha

19751975 views22 comments00 favs

They were starting to get winded. The boy, his father and his little brother were hiking up a hill, cutting a diagonal path through hay-colored grass towards an outcrop of craggy boulders below the hill's summit.

If I Was A Bum

19751975 views33 comments00 favs

If I was a bum I’d risk everything for a drink or a smoke I would beg and curse and steal if I was a bum If I was a bum I would cuss out the Pope I would not vote for anyone because I would know truly they’d be telling gross lies

The Road Trip Trilogy

19751975 views00 comments00 favs

...It's my advice that this Fourth of July the Office of Homeland Security post the following instructions on your web site www.Ready.gov — people should act like my dog Lucy and just stay inside under the bed and tremble...

Animals, Animals, Animals

19751975 views11 comment22 favs

  Crea grew up above a pet store and now she dreams of cats. There are too many of them to name, a slinking mess of calico, tabby, tortoise-shell, black and white. There are more each night. They whisper to her, words made of hissing mewls. During the…

The Celebrity

19751975 views99 comments66 favs

"He doesn't have a parish," I said. "He works in a hospital in the East Bay. He told me that if I were in that hospital and I woke up and saw him, I was in big trouble."

A Natural Consequence of Things

19751975 views66 comments44 favs

Belief is a hammer, like saying the mind is a piece of iron.

Wrong Number

19741974 views77 comments33 favs

The package arrived, delivered to her work as was her preference. She took it to the ladies room and sat on the lounge, carefully opening the box, removing the new black patent leather FMQs, pulling out the tissue paper stuffed into the toes and placing her well-worn…

A Broken Ankle, Canasta, and a Weirdly Sexy Jesus Sighting

19741974 views1010 comments88 favs

nothing can stop a group of genteel Southern women from a card game, and divine intervention makes one's participation in such an event quite worthwhile