Most read stories

Bravo, Scrittore!

19841984 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...

The Road Trip Trilogy

19841984 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...

The Paris American

19831983 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 Urine Pearls

19831983 views55 comments00 favs

“No, dad, I've never seen urine colored pearls.”

As Pleat

19831983 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.

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

19831983 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

Three: A Heavenly Mansion

19831983 views33 comments33 favs

She went up first, I followed, a respectful three paces behind. Now, I know what you’re thinking: I was perfectly placed to steal a quick, if innocent, glance, and she would never see. The house is a center hall colonial, and there are no mirrors on the s

Refugees

19831983 views88 comments22 favs

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

I've Got a Secret

19831983 views1818 comments1212 favs

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

Wrong Number

19831983 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…

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19831983 views77 comments22 favs

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

Matisse, in the Jardin des Tuileries, 1904

19831983 views77 comments66 favs

The World's Worst Mime stood there next to the iron carousel, portraying something, and the crowd understood none of it, except that whatever thing he was trying to portray was not being portrayed well at all.

Monster Truck

19831983 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

Big C and Lil Puppet

19831983 views44 comments11 fav

At that time I was meeting Jacob at 3:30 each afternoon in Joan of Arc Park so we could walk dogs together. This was our job.

Yakkety-Yak

19831983 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

19831983 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.

You've Done Good

19831983 views11 comment11 fav

For a fleeting moment, eyes seemed to clear and the man spoke as if he were coming out of the pea soup fog that formed over the lake on spring mornings.

The Sky-What Limit?

19831983 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,…

Letters from the Asylum (3)

19821982 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.

Lesson 38

19821982 views1414 comments33 favs

You have a house (plural, as in Spain)

The Tombwatcher's Tale

19821982 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.

Where Is Daddy?

19821982 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.

five discards or less

19821982 views66 comments55 favs

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

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

19821982 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

The Tree

19821982 views1212 comments88 favs

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

Migratory Mistakes

19821982 views00 comments00 favs

Unadorned tragedies pinpoint the worst angles of the road; simple crosses or bouquets line boulders painted with car crash smoke or skid marks that tiptoe to the edge of cliffs and then, apparently, leap.

Goodnight, Travel Well

19821982 views44 comments33 favs

An excerpt.

Golgotha

19821982 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.

The Violinist

19821982 views1313 comments1111 favs

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

I'm Dying! And I Didn't Make The Bed!

19821982 views1111 comments99 favs

Five years ago, on January 15, 2009, Flight 1549 took off for Charlotte, North Carolina and, 3 minutes later, made an emergency landing in the Hudson River, with no serious harm to anyone but the geese who caused the problem. (They were liquefied into something…