Most read stories

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.

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 Measure Of A Man

19421942 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

Encasement

19421942 views22 comments00 favs

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

David and Goliath

19421942 views99 comments88 favs

The giant hurled threats and insults. He brandished a knife that was a foot long.

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.

Obituary

19421942 views99 comments22 favs

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

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 Tombwatcher's Tale

19411941 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"

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."

laundry

19411941 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.

Wednesdays They Pay Us, But Now It's Thursday

19411941 views1616 comments1414 favs

fire rolls through the drive-thru

Wedding Bells & Space Junk [July challenge]

19411941 views11 comment11 fav

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

Did I Tell You I Have Stripes On My Socks?

19401940 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.

Cut

19401940 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 Unpublished Writer and His Love Interest (The Painter)

19401940 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 Case for Mashed Potatoes

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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.…

Conversation between Young Men

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It was stubborn early winter, when everyone was cold but went outside anyways, rubbing red fingers and shuffling feet.

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19401940 views77 comments22 favs

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

The Last Bailout

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

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

19401940 views1313 comments77 favs

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

Thursday

19401940 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,…

The Law of Natural Selection

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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.

Twister

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

The Sky-What Limit?

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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,…

Mule

19391939 views2222 comments1717 favs

Sometimes cats had to die or dogs

The Fugitive Waits

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