Most read stories

The man-faced boy

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And so the man-faced boy grew alone, knowing little of kindness and love. As he grew, he explored the limits of his cold world; crawling in dusty nappies, toddling in hand-me-down rags, at last walking on worn sandals, haunting the edges of human life loo

Funeral

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After the funeral there was a luncheon in the church basement.

Simurgh

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Some say the simurgh is an enormous bird with four wings, teeth, and a human face, able to carry off an elephant in her talons.

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,…

Algae Freunden

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She had a strange name which I am ashamed/ To have forgotten, seven times, maybe nine,/ Her lips transgressors, wet with sourapple ...

When You Don't Believe

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I told you that I have homicidal urges that alternate with ones of the suicidal kind. You flicked an imaginary speck of dust from your fat, fleshy forefinger with your ultra-flexible, wimpy thumb.

Scar

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If he doesn't bite, I'm out of here.

SHE HAS HER REASONS

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It is a well-known fact that my wife sleeps around. There. I said it and now everyone knows that I too know about my wife. Let me just tell you this one thing; she has her reasons. You ask me how I know that she has her reasons, but who would know better than…

The Fuddy-Duddy Writer Reflects on her Fan(s)

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The Fuddy-Duddy Writer does not do wit.

Duck Sauce

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In principle, Sergeant Brock Lumley resisted superstition, but if you were to stop him on any given day he was patrolling Baghdad streets with his rifle squad and ask him to open the front left ammo pouch on his flak vest, he’d get this look on his face..

Wuthering Heights: 21st C Remix (Anti-love version)

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That Bronte woman had me painted like Eminem’s Stan Or a droog from Kubrick

2 and 2

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I was a six year old with no bike. Only the males in my familyhad that privilege. So one morning I got up very early, before the older siblings awoke, crept out the back porch door where Iknew there would be two bikes in the yard just waiting for me and my…

Swimming with Whales

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The plan was this: We would take our first vacation. My husband and I would take our 2 ½-year-old son Ethan and 13-month-old son Jonas to Mystic, Connecticut, a 90 minute drive from our home outside of Boston. We would stay at the Hilton, which was right near the Aquarium,…

The Energy of Girls

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Emma and I were in a shabby part of town with vacant lots and overgrown yards, and I wondered if something would happen as we loped beside Tom, who was slow-witted and 21. We were 13 . . .

Infinite Penis

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He finds a beach ball and recreates humanity upon it. Kicking it down the shore he wonders how the little people must feel about each other. To place them on such a tiny globe almost seems unfair.

Me and the Fleeting Glimpse

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I worry about my garden. I know there are larger concerns lurking in the stale shadows than my limp little flowers, things more pressing to the meeting of minds than thick lush green leaves might bring, but this is my own greenish way of …

Well, I LOVE Darkness . . . But I've Chosen YOU!!!

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The elevator door opened, and Tom ("The Baffler") Frank found himself confronted by Jesu bar Joseph, who opined: "You're WORTHLESS!" and recommended: "Why dontcha PULL your PANTS down, and CUT your COCK off!"

ABSALOM

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He was still on the ground...

Handy in a Denny's Parking Lot

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A compliment is candy to the heartbroken, oxygen to a suffocating flame. The best hunter picks his prey carefully, selecting his line like an archer pulling an arrow from a quiver, quickly and efficiently, then flick! the line cuts through the air and…

VCR CIA

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When VCRs were invented in the 1970s, the first big user segment was people who wanted to watch porno films in the comfort of their own home. Troy and Lynn's upstairs neighbor, James, an enlisted man in the Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor, had a vast porn…

I Don't Know What I might say

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But it all works out. I guess. Truth is something I'm sure I've never seen before, but the more time goes on, the Less I'm inclined to believe in it. Still I don't want To be one of those giving the finger to God And begging for a showdown with an…

GOING NOWHERE

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you may meet the man of your dreams.

COSMOGONY

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I am sitting on our porch in the middle of the night. I can't sleep. The stars look like runway lights. Out of boredom, I reach out my hand to connect the distant dots. The tip of my finger hits…

Island Music

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Of all the things Shelly hated about her job, the music was the worst.

Good Luck Sailor

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On a ship twice run aground a sailor cranked a rope round a spool bigger than his head. He could see overboard and also the strip of deck on which he walked down to get to the crank. What he noticed most, as always, were the green echoes in the sea foam against…

The Get-Up

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There was a children’s lit theme running through the party. Aside from Annemarie’s costume, there was a Harry Potter, a Pinocchio, and a Grinch.

Yesterday That Monday's Sun

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wrenched its lower back trying so hard to lift too many stacked November clouds off the newly shaved prickly heads of the slowly freezing trees,like ring weights,and had to spend the last of its hours setting in a small square box in…

Similarities

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She was skinny and with breasts like a wound up skein of yarn.

The Space Between Words (Valentines Day)

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Looking for meaning in spaces between words.

Someone With Keys

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Mower hits a rock and the blades scream.