Most read stories

Golgotha

19451945 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.

Here Comes the Sun

19451945 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

Not Again!

19451945 views11 comment00 favs

"People just weren't getting it," he continued, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and hiccuping mildly. "It looks like it's time to UP the ANTE!"

Maître d’

19441944 views1717 comments1515 favs

Before the days of “customer experience,” Eddie figured out whatever information he could about his clients. He asked them for business cards, recorded their phone numbers from the reservation book, snapped photos of them in his mind…

The Paris American

19441944 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…

Novel excerpt: "Home Cure"

19441944 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."

The Book Mind

19441944 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.

Confessions of a Liturgical Voyeur

19441944 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 Guardian

19441944 views1414 comments1111 favs

.

Fear the Future: 25 Brief Tales in Various Keys of Woe, Fear, and Loathing

19441944 views1313 comments66 favs

The three were up early to await the deer with rifles, ammunition, and coffee.

Obituary

19441944 views99 comments22 favs

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

Did I Tell You I Have Stripes On My Socks?

19431943 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.

Traum

19431943 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

The Tombwatcher's Tale

19431943 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.

The Law of Natural Selection

19431943 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.

Wedding Bells & Space Junk [July challenge]

19431943 views11 comment11 fav

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

Mule

19421942 views2222 comments1717 favs

Sometimes cats had to die or dogs

Cut

19421942 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.

Borden, Dream on Lord of the Pies.

19421942 views22 comments11 fav

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

The Fugitive Waits

19421942 views00 comments00 favs

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

Encasement

19421942 views22 comments00 favs

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

The Case for Mashed Potatoes

19421942 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.…

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19421942 views77 comments22 favs

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

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 Unpublished Writer and His Love Interest (The Painter)

19411941 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

Magnum Opus

19411941 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...

As Pleat

19411941 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--

19411941 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

Wednesdays They Pay Us, But Now It's Thursday

19411941 views1616 comments1414 favs

fire rolls through the drive-thru

Colonoscopy Serenade

19411941 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…