Most read stories

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.

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.

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."

To My Students, After Paris

19411941 views1313 comments1010 favs

I will not tell you that your anger is wrong, child.

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.

Here Comes the Sun

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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

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?

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Kids are fascinated by me. Adults look the other way. Maybe it's my size. Or maybe it's the stories in the newspapers.

Dos Equis

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dos equis ambar sits cool and dark by my side

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

Stumptown Mary

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so one time the Holy Ghost come down to Stumptown

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.

The Last Bailout

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

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

Wednesdays They Pay Us, But Now It's Thursday

19401940 views1616 comments1414 favs

fire rolls through the drive-thru

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

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

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,…

Commute

19391939 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 Tombwatcher's Tale

19391939 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.

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19391939 views77 comments22 favs

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

Thursday

19391939 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

19391939 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.

The Big Game

19391939 views33 comments55 favs

The vampire donated floodlights so the children could play ballgames at night. The lights came on but the dugouts remained vacant. The vampire sat alone in the bleachers. “Sometimes I am less than the sum of my parts,” he said to the sum of his parts.

Things I saw before and after I broke into my neighbour's apartment

19381938 views22 comments00 favs

Before Plasma screen TV Futon Underwear (brief style) piled on kitchen chair Unopened mail from funeral parlour Water in the sink coloured orange with grease Desktop computer (flying toasters screen saver) Cigarette butts floating…

The Unpublished Writer and His Love Interest (The Painter)

19381938 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

19381938 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...

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.

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

19381938 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

Colonoscopy Serenade

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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…

If I Was A Bum

19381938 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