Most read stories

Did I Tell You I Have Stripes On My Socks?

19431943 views88 comments55 favs

Kids are fascinated by me. Adults look the other way. Maybe it's my size. Or maybe it's the stories in the newspapers.

Traum

19431943 views1010 comments55 favs

Over our short, yet enduring relationship, I found that he was desperately trying to reconcile his ambitions with his situation. I left and he continued to be unhappy, trying to "fix" what he now realized had been broken all along. In the end, a span of a

The Paris American

19431943 views44 comments22 favs

He returned to America on the Fourth of July. Twisting in his cramped window seat miles above the Atlantic, he buckled up before the descent. “You can handle this,” he muttered. Hungover, still reeling from the dreamy head-turning experience of…

The Tombwatcher's Tale

19431943 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.

Missing Letter

19431943 views1515 comments1010 favs

It's so far to get to where we aren't inthe way of someone's destructive progress.I'm only walking in my own gardensnow, but the big blue house is like an emptiedout envelope. I guess that makes this themissing letter. I don't know your heart's newaddress, but I once…

Confessions of a Liturgical Voyeur

19431943 views1616 comments66 favs

...when she spoke, her voice still seemed to spill bourbon from a heavy crystal tumbler, and drift cigarette smoke in a dark paneled room.

What Gorillas 'Talk' About When Gorillas 'Talk' About Love

19431943 views1313 comments77 favs

Eons later, Bobo evolves into Shakespeare. Bonus feature: wings.

Obituary

19431943 views99 comments22 favs

I won't fail at this like trying to fix a leaking sink without mud grease or washers tinier than Cheerios.

Here Comes the Sun

19431943 views00 comments11 fav

I watch my brother carry her into the hospital, and I love him with parts of myself I didn’t know were capable of love. I love my brother with the space behind my eyes, the skin between my fingers, the ends of my hair, the crease in my neck. I love him wi

Commute

19421942 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

The Fugitive Waits

19421942 views00 comments00 favs

The wind rushed by her and she heard the faint sound of barking. And then she knew why she was coming. And she ran.

Encasement

19421942 views22 comments00 favs

A universe, all of it, was encased in glass.

To My Students, After Paris

19421942 views1313 comments1010 favs

I will not tell you that your anger is wrong, child.

If I Was A Bum

19421942 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 Laughing Grave

19421942 views1010 comments77 favs

Newhouse returned his gaze to his wet palm, which he lifted to his nose with suspicion, sniffed again and again, then struggled to move out from under the growing stream.

The Law of Natural Selection

19421942 views1616 comments1111 favs

Once a student brought him a jar of black widow spiders. Tony put it on his desk. Somehow the jar got tipped over, and the spiders got out.

Wedding Bells & Space Junk [July challenge]

19421942 views11 comment11 fav

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

Cut

19411941 views1515 comments88 favs

Effluvium is such a lovely word, so hey surprise it covers rancid butter, vomit, fertile gingko fruit trekked in from the pavement.

Borden, Dream on Lord of the Pies.

19411941 views22 comments11 fav

A plague of dykes mattered not. This spider-girl had driven the world of thought from Borden’s mind.

The Unpublished Writer and His Love Interest (The Painter)

19411941 views22 comments00 favs

When the writer expressed with subtle alacrity that he adored the painter, she was flattered and didn't raise objection. The writer-in his aloof manner, with experienced caution-pointedly wrote a poem directly for his muse. She never spoke of it, and hi

Novel excerpt: "Home Cure"

19411941 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."

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19411941 views77 comments22 favs

French pee runs stronger, less minty. In France the world' a pissoir.

Wednesdays They Pay Us, But Now It's Thursday

19411941 views1616 comments1414 favs

fire rolls through the drive-thru

Colonoscopy Serenade

19411941 views55 comments33 favs

Retired cantor Janice Woltag Cohen just turned 50. We Boomers all know what that means. It's Colonoscopy Time!Colonoscopy! That fabulous 50th birthday present you give to yourself. Yes, it's yucky. But it's absolutely necessary. (It could save your life.)As kids…

The Big Game

19411941 views33 comments55 favs

The vampire donated floodlights so the children could play ballgames at night. The lights came on but the dugouts remained vacant. The vampire sat alone in the bleachers. “Sometimes I am less than the sum of my parts,” he said to the sum of his parts.

The Sky-What Limit?

19411941 views00 comments00 favs

Lighter-than-air flight was back. The skies of the coast were alight with colorful balloons, dirigibles, and zeppelins tethered to their docking towers along the beach, the huge aircraft bobbing in the breeze up and down the coast for miles,…

Suspended

19401940 views99 comments88 favs

In the beginning the revolution was all motion and energy. When the President for Life resigned motion and energy disappeared with the sounds of clapping hands.

Magnum Opus

19401940 views44 comments33 favs

The scaffolding had been difficult to construct. The rock floor of the bluff offered no purchase, so he'd been forced to anchor braces to the trees behind, then span some thirty feet. A cantilevered gallows reached another fifteen feet past the stage...

As Pleat

19401940 views1010 comments66 favs

I turn up the music and slip into drone, rock it like a tunnel in canary. When that does not erase his face, I cup my breast with one hand and let my hair fall.

The Case for Mashed Potatoes

19401940 views44 comments11 fav

Steam rolls out of the bathroom as Mr. Larson opens the door with a white towel around his waist. Pepper strolls up to him and purrs as she rubs her long, gray tail against his tanned legs."Hey, girl.” He runs his coarse, scarred fingers through the cat's soft coat.…