Most read stories

Wingless messenger

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a bird who gives messages

Outfit

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Momma called them Vaughens, "a outfit," and said, "they shoulda throwed the book at that Darla Jean."

Happy Hour

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We were in the car more than anywhere else. A few days driving, then a few days to get back home.

Picking the Bark Off Experience

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After breakfast, he dresses and heads / for the blackjack tables.

Nightcap

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I formed a snowball in my bare hands. Hard as a rock, I let her fly.

Watering

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“Sometimes when I feel the urge to create, I don’t know whether to grab my paints, my camera, my guitar or my pen.” “You could have sex,” her friend, sitting in the desk next to hers, joked.

The Martians Are Coming

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"I read a cute animal story yesterday," I tell them. "And I was filled with rage. I can't live like this. There must be no more bears, or hamster-bears, or manatees, being hopeless and depressed. There must be no more cute animal stories—ever."

The Tree

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

Cool Gray Redemption

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I’ve been such a fool, so reckless and untrue.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 7

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7 We sat in Darrell's truck in the deserted silent world of the down-trodden industrial area of West Berkeley, where no one in his right mind went at five in the morning. "Put the gun away, Darrell," I said. "I mean it." "I can't help but keep

Arcana Magi - c.28: Our Hearts as One

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Oryn knelt down beside Alysia and grabbed her white and light blue hair. She pulled it back, and tried to get an emotional response. Their eyes locked in place. Sparks of anger clashing between their faces.

How I Left Onandaga County

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So, like I said. Da. I have dealt with the men, when I was a lap dancer. The men they need the….manipulations. I have good hands. They want me to see them naked, their power. Here it is only the women. The massage, the facial, the waxing...

Mayweather

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where I'm from

Let’s Us Not Exaggerate

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Call him a hobo or homeless or bum or junkie.

A Meeting With Qaddafi

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Qaddafi's murder brought an old memory I had forgotten about.

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…

A Thousand Books

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I gave away 1000 books.

Hurricane Shutters

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The thing that really gets you about the house is the hurricane shutters. They're up already, even though it's the end of May, because Buck's uncle is back in Rhode Island for the summer and he's prepped the house on Key Largo like Armageddon is coming.

You, Cliché

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You might as well be the man on the moon. Once touching your face was quotidian. When I tallied each day's pleasures, you, in this room or that, counted too much for me, I think. I stopped record keeping. I'm …

Teller of Tales

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He came to us with wandering tales of wild things Savage, biting, slashing, tearing A violent voice boomed becoming of beasts

The Yawn

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La Petite Ange had lived all her life in Paris under the strange architectural twists of Notre Dame. She had been a Bluebell girl once, kicking her surprisingly long legs into the air to the delight of plumbers and Prince du…

Clearing

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Forty years is a very long time to live with someone.Ellen stood motionless at the curtainless kitchen window, staring at the autumnal woods, looking for signs of the various animals that frequented her property. She had done this every morning and every evening since Jim…

Ancestry.com

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Ancestry.com The Liverpool census in 1851 lists him:Thirteen years old, Irish. Occupation: beggar. Only that. I will do more for him.I will see him in torn jacket and too-short pants singing all day of the fields, the cliffs,…

A New Notion about an Old Story

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A dark girl, quite poor, maybe three, maybe four, leaned on a statue of a horse and his man. (The rider rode him in place, but as if in a race.) Her dress needed patching, her heart needed smoothing. She'd tried to sell…

||||||||||| (Munun)

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Winter melts to ashes and now we walk where hillocks dip like pillows, where a warm pocket of air keeps the scent of spring beauties for itself. Sensitive vetch so easily shocked folds under a feather yet the earth trembles where trout lilies shove. Buds stall on lilacs…

We Don't Need a Guitar Man

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The courtroom smelled a lot like mold and it was hot as you could imagine. I sweated through my shirt and wondered if he wasn’t dying under his robe. He looked down at me from his bench and I just knew he was going to call me a commie and sentence me to l

Trapeze Artist

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Solitude is such an excellent alternative to suicide.

The Quiet Room by Doug Holder

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I keep my life very ordered. Order for me is security. I am sure of some things. Like the fact I work five nights a week, and sleep during the day.

Commute

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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

Spinning Walt Whitman

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In San Francisco, there rides at night a phantom streetcar whose driver is none other than Walt Whitman . . .