Most read stories

The Violinist

19791979 views1313 comments1111 favs

Max leads the parade up the hill. He is sawing on his violin, wearing nothing but a raincoat.

Kazooed

19791979 views88 comments77 favs

"I've been on eight blind dates in three days," she tells me. I can't quite work the math out, but somehow the combination of her wildly undulating eyebrows and harsh vocal tone manage to convince me."I can play the kazoo," I tell her. It's my one saving grace--the thing…

The Good Sounds of Squeamish Language

19781978 views66 comments44 favs

Accuracy is a prediction

The Paris American

19781978 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.

19781978 views22 comments11 fav

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

A Broken Ankle, Canasta, and a Weirdly Sexy Jesus Sighting

19781978 views1010 comments88 favs

nothing can stop a group of genteel Southern women from a card game, and divine intervention makes one's participation in such an event quite worthwhile

Migratory Mistakes

19781978 views00 comments00 favs

Unadorned tragedies pinpoint the worst angles of the road; simple crosses or bouquets line boulders painted with car crash smoke or skid marks that tiptoe to the edge of cliffs and then, apparently, leap.

Traum

19771977 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

Why They Cried: Deano

19771977 views33 comments11 fav

When it came time to sell the agency—when the papers came for him to sign—it was a very bad deal. But he did not cry. This was business. He had gambled and he had lost. He signed the papers without a hint of regret and even pried open a case of champa

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

19771977 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

The Tombwatcher's Tale

19771977 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.

I've Got a Secret

19771977 views1818 comments1212 favs

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

Wrong Number

19771977 views77 comments33 favs

The package arrived, delivered to her work as was her preference. She took it to the ladies room and sat on the lounge, carefully opening the box, removing the new black patent leather FMQs, pulling out the tissue paper stuffed into the toes and placing her well-worn…

When I'm Not Here

19771977 views22 comments00 favs

She’ll get a dog a Weimaraner I know She’ll call him Alfie after her first two dogs He’ll try to get up on the bed She’ll say, Alfie, no, no But in the night she will let him so as not to be lonely

The Tree

19771977 views1212 comments88 favs

No fuckin' way, Maude. Excuse me, but you know I can't stand that bag of wind. No way.

The Celebrity

19771977 views99 comments66 favs

"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."

A Chaos Theory

19761976 views00 comments00 favs

—with spinster goddesses in the middle of things / circling looms.

Dick Be Gone

19761976 views33 comments22 favs

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

19761976 views66 comments66 favs

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.

Animals, Animals, Animals

19761976 views11 comment22 favs

  Crea grew up above a pet store and now she dreams of cats. There are too many of them to name, a slinking mess of calico, tabby, tortoise-shell, black and white. There are more each night. They whisper to her, words made of hissing mewls. During the…

The Sky-What Limit?

19761976 views00 comments00 favs

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,…

Magnum Opus

19751975 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...

Letters from the Asylum (3)

19751975 views22 comments11 fav

She stepped into a pair of high heeled slippers and began to dance. She was Salome, a witch, dancing like the most beautiful, the most skilled whores of Paris.

Purple IV

19751975 views1313 comments77 favs

Purple not rain! I guess Prince left. It is said that Prince owned the aquifer under Jordan, Minnesota, and that he sold it but to whom? And moved to Canada—

Stumptown Mary

19751975 views22 comments11 fav

so one time the Holy Ghost come down to Stumptown

Small Change

19751975 views1414 comments1414 favs

Life seemed okay…for the most part.

The Little Dog from Outer Space

19751975 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.

five discards or less

19751975 views66 comments55 favs

weep or go stark mad your amanuensic fool will bury your words

Goodnight, Travel Well

19751975 views44 comments33 favs

An excerpt.

The Madness of the Gods

19751975 views00 comments00 favs

“Have you heard about Lucius?” The lawyer turned to the carpenter. “They say he's gone mad. Just gone; the madness of the gods.” Sitting in the barbershop were the former two, one in his forties and the other of his fifties; a gray-haired…