Most read stories

A man with bleeding hands

19591959 views55 comments44 favs

A man with bleeding hands at the back door of Out of the Closet this morning asked me for the bride and groom figurines at the top of my donation box

Clicking

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Reining her small hands around the molded handle grips, her bottom bouncing athwart and wildly off the seat, Symphony wrenches her center of gravity inward, commandeering as much control from the road it would allow. With her breaks behaving as stubborn

The Unpublished Writer and His Love Interest (The Painter)

19581958 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

Visiting Sally

19581958 views1818 comments1717 favs

Buddy was in a garage band. They were pretty good. “Soul Harbor“ they called themselves.

toupee

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

Men Are Beasts

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They both have an annoying habit. She talks to him while she's in another room, and he doesn't answer because he can't hear what she's saying.

Nobody Steps Forward

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I can only see their eyes in the dark, reflected in the light from my flashlight. It's so quiet. I only hear the sound of my own breath. I hold the flashlight steady. Maybe they will think I'm not a threat if I'm not moving. It's a small hope. Yet here we are, at a…

Ashes

19581958 views77 comments66 favs

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

The Mirror Tires of Looking at Itself

19571957 views1919 comments1414 favs

Sure, to a teacher, life is a paper / but what would life be to a druggist?

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

19571957 views77 comments66 favs

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…

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.

Bonne Fire

19571957 views55 comments22 favs

And the voodoo pins pinged as, folding and imploding, she was reduced to a petro-chemical puddle.

Myra's Lesson

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There’s no training course available for kids in love. You can watch your parents, you can watch other kids, but for the most part it’s all trial and error, and I'm still pretty shaky at almost all of it.

Our Time as Men

19571957 views44 comments44 favs

Rhonda looks guilty as it is, don’t you think? That hair! And the unhappiness smeared across her face like war paint after a war.

Girl Friends

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Two women grab a table near a window in a coffee shop. Outside, the sky is the color of dulled aluminum. It is early spring and pollen assaults the air with a tint of sulfur.

Wedding Bells & Space Junk [July challenge]

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Right away, like toadstools, there were crackpot theories. The first: that kids out on the lake dock, against fire department warnings...

Work Room

19561956 views1919 comments99 favs

the constant inner jabber

A Thousand Books

19561956 views1212 comments1212 favs

I gave away 1000 books.

Hurricane Shutters

19561956 views44 comments66 favs

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.

Fruits of Passion

19561956 views44 comments00 favs

Lifting a pear wedge to my lips, I hesitate and dip it into my bourbon instead. I notice a tiny sphere of liquid, suspended, glistening with the flame of the candle. The sweet, subtle scent tantalizes my senses. Careless, sticky fingers bring movement.…

Rear View

19561956 views1010 comments1111 favs

The man of a thousand faces was defunct.

Cucumbertini

19561956 views44 comments22 favs

“Really? And you write…?” asked her breasts in the black dress, making excellent eye contact. He smiled at them.

Flowers for Our Dead Lovers

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We brought flowers for our dead lovers

The Bird, The Snake, and Me

19561956 views99 comments44 favs

The truth about the bird and the snake is this. They are dead. And me? I cannot stop thinking about them.

Clock

19561956 views11 comment11 fav

I know it was the ceremonial magician who talked you into it. I know it was supposedly to be what the Enochean Angels needed to come into the vortex and into the world, make it all balanced on all four sides, four elements, so that when the world ended, t

Electric Delirium (ELECTRIC DELIRIUM 1.5)

19551955 views22 comments00 favs

Rose, silence her desire when she, in this moment of desire, has passed into the grey and dawdles in the margins of such a hurtful unconventionality. Bend her astray from such a becoming. It would be a horror show: intimate, endless, and bloody, just the

Working Girl

19551955 views1616 comments1313 favs

Suddenly a hand shot up on the other side of a hedge. “I’ll have one of those!” cried someone who remained invisible.

December 17

19551955 views66 comments66 favs

When she finally arrived it was like a cello playing inside me

Wild Dreams of Reality, Chapter 15

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Darrell looked at me, then down at himself. He was still in his wet underwear. "What is this?" he said, looking up again. "Where in the hell was I?" He shook his head. "It was weird, Philip. Boy, that was one wild dream." "That was no d

Fantasm

19551955 views99 comments55 favs

but with a light, a rainbow light which was scattered, maybe she herself was a scattering of light, an infinity of universes caught like the opening rays of sunlight