Most read stories

Monster Truck

19541954 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

Golgotha

19541954 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.

Rock On

19541954 views2525 comments1212 favs

...fancy the idea of tapas, Spain an' all.

The Laughing Grave

19541954 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.

Mule

19531953 views2222 comments1717 favs

Sometimes cats had to die or dogs

Arlene

19531953 views22 comments00 favs

His mother was not an aw-come-here-honey-and-give-me-a-hug type mom. She was the kind of mother who, if you had some kind of problem, would suggest that perhaps it might be a good idea to volunteer (she was really big on volunteering) at some sort of orga

Borden, Dream on Lord of the Pies.

19531953 views22 comments11 fav

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

Magnum Opus

19531953 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...

The Tombwatcher's Tale

19531953 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"

19531953 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."

True Vocation

19531953 views11 comment11 fav

After lunch it's vocal coaching: shrieking, screaming, crying Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!, panting and face fanning. Next it's ‘situational training', where we pretend to be audience members on real talk shows and practice everything we've learned th

Casting It

19531953 views1010 comments55 favs

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

Wednesdays They Pay Us, But Now It's Thursday

19531953 views1616 comments1414 favs

fire rolls through the drive-thru

The Ouija Board Guide to True Facts about Cremation

19531953 views00 comments00 favs

Oh, and take off all your jewelry unless you want your relatives sifting you through a window screen looking for your diamond.

Colonoscopy Serenade

19531953 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…

Here Comes the Sun

19531953 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

The Paris American

19521952 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 Case for Mashed Potatoes

19521952 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.…

Where Is Daddy?

19521952 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.

The Book Mind

19521952 views66 comments66 favs

The book mind, just like its namesake the book, is capable of movement only after its assembly: otherwise, it boasts no moving parts.

Hymen

19521952 views88 comments66 favs

For me German was a school subject. For Hymen, who could pronounce German but not speak it, it was a poetic technique or element, shorthand for what ails the world.

laundry

19521952 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.

Yakkety-Yak

19521952 views33 comments33 favs

Last night, the station played me a dream of sexual promiscuity that included -- but was not limited to -- imaginative acts involving....

Dick Be Gone

19521952 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.

Dog Days

19521952 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!

19521952 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...

haircut month

19521952 views55 comments44 favs

The same night your best friend of two years called you up to tell you they don't want to think about you anymore was the same night you had stood silently, leaning, head against the mustard wall in your mom's boyfriend's house, stuck listening to Randy…

Life of Charlotte

19521952 views1111 comments44 favs

A wall of icons can be beautiful if you don’t look closely at the hands. The hands tell stories of too short lives and unrequited love.

Arcana Magi - c.20: Compelling

19521952 views00 comments00 favs

Danica paused for a moment as thoughts of going to Avalon Tech changed to heading for Mystic Intelligence. She could not understand why she thought about going there.

Traum

19511951 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