Most read stories

(6) Compatriots

19771977 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."

As Pleat

19771977 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 Tombwatcher's Tale

19771977 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.

I've Got a Secret

19771977 views1818 comments1212 favs

There's a man sitting in my room holding a jar of my ashes. That's what he claims.

The Tree

19771977 views1212 comments88 favs

No fuckin' way, Maude. Excuse me, but you know I can't stand that bag of wind. No way.

The Celebrity

19771977 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."

The Paris American

19761976 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…

Why They Cried: Deano

19761976 views33 comments11 fav

When it came time to sell the agency—when the papers came for him to sign—it was a very bad deal. But he did not cry. This was business. He had gambled and he had lost. He signed the papers without a hint of regret and even pried open a case of champa

Borden, Dream on Lord of the Pies.

19761976 views22 comments11 fav

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

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

19761976 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

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

19761976 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

You are beautiful just the way you are

19761976 views66 comments66 favs

There were avocados splayed across menus like 1950′s pinup girls–all thigh and curve. Avocados in California omelets. Avocados split and diced, sprayed with lime, slapped on bagels, served with tomato.

Animals, Animals, Animals

19761976 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…

Traum

19751975 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

Purple IV

19751975 views1313 comments77 favs

Purple not rain! I guess Prince left. It is said that Prince owned the aquifer under Jordan, Minnesota, and that he sold it but to whom? And moved to Canada—

The Little Dog from Outer Space

19751975 views1111 comments88 favs

I looked at her, shook my head and tried to smile. She smiled back, beaming a radiance that pushed away the chill.

Wrong Number

19751975 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…

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

Goodnight, Travel Well

19751975 views44 comments33 favs

An excerpt.

Dick Be Gone

19751975 views33 comments22 favs

One thing about being a musician—more specifically a drummer—struggling against the cost of living—more specifically the cost of living in the Bay Area—is that I will do just about anything to earn money.

I Like it This Way

19751975 views1717 comments77 favs

Through its branches we saw a couple. Teenagers, narrow and pale, two young birch trees, their roots twisted, submerged in the water.

A Chaos Theory

19741974 views00 comments00 favs

—with spinster goddesses in the middle of things / circling looms.

Magnum Opus

19741974 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...

Letters from the Asylum (3)

19741974 views22 comments11 fav

She stepped into a pair of high heeled slippers and began to dance. She was Salome, a witch, dancing like the most beautiful, the most skilled whores of Paris.

Stumptown Mary

19741974 views22 comments11 fav

so one time the Holy Ghost come down to Stumptown

five discards or less

19741974 views66 comments55 favs

weep or go stark mad your amanuensic fool will bury your words

Monster Truck

19741974 views33 comments33 favs

In another lifetime the loft had been a shoe factory and I joked how in the dark of night I could hear the ghosts of lost soles speaking in tongues. There was the rolling of eyes, and when I repeated the joke to my therapist, who was actually sitting acr

A Staple Diet

19741974 views77 comments00 favs

Whenever Mommy was gone, Josh Forcett's father made him eat staples, often by the spoonful.

Where Is Daddy?

19731973 views66 comments55 favs

He checks the bedrooms first, then the hallway, followed by the living room and the bathrooms. When he can't find you he takes to calling out, daddy, I'm sure the neighbors hear.

Small Change

19731973 views1414 comments1414 favs

Life seemed okay…for the most part.