Most read stories

True Vocation

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After lunch it's vocal coaching: shrieking, screaming, crying Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!, panting and face fanning. Next it's ‘situational training', where we pretend to be audience members on real talk shows and practice everything we've learned th

A Girl / An Elderly Woman / A Bear

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A girl waiting at the door, heart in a Ziploc. An elderly woman stopping at the bank. A bear in a screaming contest with a troop of girl scouts.

The Road Trip Trilogy

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...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...

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,…

Parts 2 Through 5 of a piece called Wilderness of Humanity, or, We Can Always Clean This Thing Up Again

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2. humility You know what silly does? Silly guarantees that you will enjoy the moment as the moment for the moment. Clowns make fun of silly. Isn't that ironic? They are in essence the opposite of their own image. That's why so many people see them as evil--because you…

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

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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…

toupee

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It wasn't until about 2:30 that my hairpiece began mauling small children.

The Case for Mashed Potatoes

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Steam rolls out of the bathroom as Mr. Larson opens the door with a white towel around his waist. Pepper strolls up to him and purrs as she rubs her long, gray tail against his tanned legs."Hey, girl.” He runs his coarse, scarred fingers through the cat's soft coat.…

Stumptown Mary

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so one time the Holy Ghost come down to Stumptown

five discards or less

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

I will be your girlfriend, Sam Pink

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I don't really know, though. I've been locked in a beer cave for the last ten years of my life. I was just let out by some frat boys who were looking for Natty Light.

All I Know About Grandfather

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There were days in my youth when, through no fault of their own, my parents could not drive me the seven mile trip to my elementary school. When I got older they bought me a bike and that proved duly adequate as conveyance. But when I was six years in age

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.

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 Queue

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She persisted. “How long have we been here?” A note of anger crept into his voice. “How long? How long? Why …, why ….” He swallowed hard, realized he had forgotten.

Voronezh. Samara. Tyumen.

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They have a saying in Russia: Live in Voronezh, work in Samara, die in Tyumen. In honour of Saint Rose, born on the banks of the Voronezh, fed the hungry and the poor of Samara, torn apart by wolves in Tyumen on the exact date that she had herself predict

Fishers of Hope

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June Day sprinted with urgency through the halls of the Armistice. Whenever she passed a window looking out into space, if it wasn't already covered, she didn't bother looking out, but not because of her hurry; no one did anymore. She was young, but the…

Wrong Number

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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…

Ashes

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Now, the Midwest was ashes. The oceans were covered with hydroponics plant growth.

Casting It

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

The Atlantic

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Phoebe-Lou Adams wrote this of them

The Big Game

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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.

Quiet

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He says, You think too much and he grins a grin that has all of the attic keys on a wrought iron ring, on a chain.

Da Capo

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Their bodies, ripe uncovered flesh, had begun to erode, the edges of their limbs and cores bitten, taken by the wind in small pieces, flaking and tearing, some parts sliding, falling away.

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 6: In Which Moral Boundaries Are Set

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The first time they were separated, he rediscovered music and writing.

Sunday Cookout

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She thrust her proboscis through seven layers of dermis and began to suck, filling her belly with his Welbutrin and Xanax infused blood.

Elsewhere

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when the surface of a photograph gets like this that it has gone blind

Small Change

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Life seemed okay…for the most part.

The Whippy Guy

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He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.

Things That Glow

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The tiny green light flashing in the lawn of an apartment building one night that caught Roberta’s attention while we were walking home from Café Vita.