Most read stories

Dick Be Gone

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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 are beautiful just the way you are

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There were avocados splayed across menus like 1950′s pinup girls–all thigh and curve. Avocados in California omelets. Avocados split and diced, sprayed with lime, slapped on bagels, served with tomato.

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 4: In Which A Long Walk Is Considered

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The summer before cancer—the summer of the boy/friend, the summer before Max started high school, the summer when all the decisions about blowing apart their marriage were made—they drove to Martha's Vineyard. Astrid had insisted she wasn't going, rig

Bravo, Scrittore!

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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...

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

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

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.

Mule

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Sometimes cats had to die or dogs

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

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in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

Weary

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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.

The Tombwatcher's Tale

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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.

I've Got a Secret

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

The Little Dog from Outer Space

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I looked at her, shook my head and tried to smile. She smiled back, beaming a radiance that pushed away the chill.

Monster Truck

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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

The Ouija Board Guide to True Facts about Cremation

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

THE DARK

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The Dark It chokes It threatens To consume me Im Scared Mommy Im confused Everything is A Secret But I Know Who is that man You're withI call Uncle But I wait Outside Why does your hug Feel safe But anothers Feels So Wrong …

Traum

19581958 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 Paris American

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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.

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

Where Is Daddy?

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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 Lonely Genius

19581958 views88 comments99 favs

was washing her hands and lookingin the mirror and hoping tosee someone who could tell herthe way home again. She wasn'tsure why she should want to go there except maybe to findthe missing piece that had alwayseluded her. The lonely genius puton her clothes but the…

The Book Mind

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

Hymen

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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.

The Celebrity

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"He doesn't have a parish," I said. "He works in a hospital in the East Bay. He told me that if I were in that hospital and I woke up and saw him, I was in big trouble."

Gazpacho

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It's a pretty strange feeling when you think you're about to bite into some ice cream and instead it's gazpacho.

As Pleat

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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.

The Measure Of A Man

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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

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

Small Change

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Life seemed okay…for the most part.

Casting It

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

Wednesdays They Pay Us, But Now It's Thursday

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fire rolls through the drive-thru