Most read stories

The Last Bailout

19381938 views00 comments00 favs

In desperation, the city council imported a shaman to exorcise whatever demons had possessed the house.

Monster Truck

19381938 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

Confessions of a Liturgical Voyeur

19381938 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.

The Laughing Grave

19381938 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

19381938 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.

A Quantum of Disappointment

19371937 views1818 comments1212 favs

Reality winks at us then scampers off

Suspended

19371937 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.

Did I Tell You I Have Stripes On My Socks?

19371937 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.

Commute

19371937 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

Cut

19371937 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.

The Paris American

19371937 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…

Borden, Dream on Lord of the Pies.

19371937 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)

19371937 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

The Measure Of A Man

19371937 views44 comments11 fav

Cos I play hard that’s why. Everyday hard. You want someone who ain’t an everyday player ? Try our Closer. But ain’t his fault he’s always sat there in the pen, like he’s taken root. His number lines rely on the rest of the team. So he’s flatl

The Little Dog from Outer Space

19371937 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.

laundry

19371937 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.

If I Was A Bum

19371937 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

Twister

19371937 views1515 comments1414 favs

The rain pelted down, it got dark, and they couldn't see a thing. The wind roared like a thousand locomotives.

Dos Equis

19361936 views1616 comments88 favs

dos equis ambar sits cool and dark by my side

Magnum Opus

19361936 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...

Weary

19361936 views11 comment00 favs

At this time of night, the fluorescence makes his eyes bleed. The muscles in his legs are tight; walking's more of a necessity than anything else. Alexander pushes the shopping cart down the endless gray tile floors of the Grand Union on 35.

A Christmas Tale

19361936 views77 comments22 favs

leaning over the banister, her Christmas waist making the wood swoon and creak, a warning sign if there ever was one...

True Vocation

19361936 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

The Book Mind

19361936 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.

Thursday

19361936 views1717 comments1010 favs

Every Thursday, around 11 am, right after the cemetery where I work receives the daily shipment of cremated remains to be interred, a frail nonagenarian steps out of the driver's seat of his Lincoln Continental and walks, unassisted, up a flight of twenty granite steps,…

Obituary

19361936 views99 comments22 favs

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

Mule

19351935 views2222 comments1717 favs

Sometimes cats had to die or dogs

March Madness

19351935 views1010 comments33 favs

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “I never knew where that was.”

Unveiling Kirkiss Automated Amazon Reviews!!!

19351935 views2020 comments1212 favs

No! No! Nonononono!

Novel excerpt: "Home Cure"

19351935 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."