Most read stories

I've Got a Secret

19721972 views1818 comments1212 favs

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

19721972 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.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water (the update)

19721972 views33 comments11 fav

tough noogies

Mice

19721972 views1313 comments77 favs

Short, but true. Damnit.

The Tree

19721972 views1212 comments88 favs

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

The Road Trip Trilogy

19721972 views00 comments00 favs

...It's my advice that this Fourth of July the Office of Homeland Security post the following instructions on your web site www.Ready.gov — people should act like my dog Lucy and just stay inside under the bed and tremble...

Animals, Animals, Animals

19721972 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…

I Like it This Way

19721972 views1717 comments77 favs

Through its branches we saw a couple. Teenagers, narrow and pale, two young birch trees, their roots twisted, submerged in the water.

The Good Sounds of Squeamish Language

19711971 views66 comments44 favs

Accuracy is a prediction

Why They Cried: Deano

19711971 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

Where Is Daddy?

19711971 views66 comments55 favs

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.

Small Change

19711971 views1414 comments1414 favs

Life seemed okay…for the most part.

Christmas Morning

19711971 views1313 comments55 favs

Dad woke us up and said it was time to go.

The Laughing Grave

19711971 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.

The Celebrity

19711971 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

19701970 views00 comments00 favs

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

The Paris American

19701970 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.

19701970 views22 comments11 fav

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

Purple IV

19701970 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—

Wrong Number

19701970 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…

Stories Around People

19701970 views1212 comments44 favs

Stories Around People An Event Facebook lived in midtown, for there the people and windows shone like water. Though it would board the bus—1 day—and ride to the sea, where people said words like sea and where the city shone in the waves…

Dick Be Gone

19701970 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.

The Ouija Board Guide to True Facts about Cremation

19701970 views00 comments00 favs

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

THE DARK

19701970 views66 comments22 favs

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 …

A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. Manet

19701970 views11 comment00 favs

The mystery is in the barmaid's impersonal stare It's all there. Recognizable the bottles of Bass Ale and Crème de Menthe. Glazed oranges piled in a bowl Two roses in a small clear glass of water A wide gold bracelet on her arm, halfway up from

Traum

19691969 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

Conversation on Thanksgiving

19691969 views88 comments00 favs

“You always use that as a crutch. You, a sixteen year old girl. The way you were…” She looked at me, shaking her head, looking at my body as if remembering some wrong, some thing that should not have been.

Magnum Opus

19691969 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...

Letting Go

19691969 views55 comments44 favs

Jerrod's lips and tongue were like slabs of bologna someone shook in Kirsten’s face as she hit the turn signal. Kirsten was proud of herself. She'd been taking it well and she was pretty sure her real feelings weren’t poking through.

The Measure Of A Man

19691969 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