Most read stories

Rev. Jasper Pickery and Three Manifestations of the Devil

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I shall simply give you an account of the Devil's own attempts to thwart my godly work and the three forms in which he came unto me.

Gorgeous World

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I’ve forgiven my mother; she didn’t know what she was doing. She heard voices, had visions. She imagined herself to be a prophet named Helen when her real name was Marge. When she learned she was pregnant with me she scored some Thalidomide from my gr

Tenderoni

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"Oh, damn,” I say. “A kitty.”

A Boy Who Looks Like Horses, or A Horse Who Looks Like Boys

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He nuzzled the breasts with his face for a moment, his leathery skin and tangles of hair tickling her in the process.

Understand, Rubberband?

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After we moved uptown we lived close enough to the park that we could go there on our own (with permission) on weekends and during school breaks to visit the zoo or the pond where people floated their mechanical boats....

The Greatest Public Works Program

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Hope wakes starving/ in the storm,/ to off and hunt.

Hot Lava Carpets

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"The carpet's hot lava," my son cries, pointing at the ground from the sofa."Yeowch!" I say, leaping next to him.We sit together for a moment, silently contemplating our predicament."We need to get downstairs," I tell him. He nods, but does not move. He stares at the hot…

The Golden Moment

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I wait for the small gap of time where the note vibratos into nothingness...

Coming Back To Earth As A Dog

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Even after he shot me, I still loved him and even after I was dead I wanted to be with him. So I forgave him once more and made the crucial decision to come back to earth as a dog. …

A Forest

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Her mind was full of fresh air and swung like a bee over clover.

Everything is Fine

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        The first one was dark and angular, coiled-looking inside an expensive suit.  Over her food at a small table in the hotel bar, Francesca had been unable to look at anything else but him.  Out of the suit, unsprung on a king-sized hotel bed, his skin…

We Need to Breathe

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She turned and looked at me as if she had just discovered me. A weak smile looped around the edges of her mouth but she didn't mean it. It was as if her brain had relayed a signal to her mouth to smile but the mouth didn't really want to, not really.

Migraine Dreams

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I walked the desert of the sun. Light was the sage, the Joshua, and the wild grass.

The Literary Savant

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"I would date a dog," she says.

Gasp and Dash

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I took a deep breath and turned the key. I pushed the door open just far enough to see. I backed out, closed the door and turned the key again. I walked to my car, knelt down and placed in front of the right front tire the little box with the holes in it that held the…

Knowing

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She was a big woman, a massive, misshapen tree of a woman, wrapped in a rain-coat the size of a tent. She wore a cap on her head, its beak peeking out, drops of rain slipping of its edge like so many pieces of transparent candy.

When the Translator Disappears, the Translation Withers and Dies

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She pined for the return of the trans­la­tor who / became mes­sianic in her eyes.

our lips are barely touching

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Our lips can touch, just touch. Our lips can touch, but they can't really touch.

In My War Novel

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If I wrote a war novel my wife would be killed off before our relationship figured out our differences. Like her being really Asian and me being just so-so Asian.

Stalling

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My son, six, is practicing dying.

War

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Once, an elephant contracted a sudden bolt of insanity in the streets of Ernakulam and trampled three children under her feet before she was shot to death. It took them seven bullets to bring her down.

Pieces of Lou, pt. 2

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Serbs and Croats? Hutus and Tutsis? The east coast/west coast thing in hip hop? Lou Lou and more Lou.

Credentials

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He was starting fresh, starting legal.

Baby Hater

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You leave your husband and go to the nursery at 2 a.m., painted so cute, go to them, and that’s the only place you want to be, and there’s no chance to leave, or trust they will be okay if you turn your back on them. They won’t. SIDS. Meningitis. A

Fusebrain

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I am an icon of drunken ruin, sunken cheeks and shaggy face Breath like molded barley and eyes like old oysters placid and grey, devoid of illuminating thought

Fragment of an Early Novel of the 21st Century

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But, as his mind twisted like a square peg beating a hole into a round mallet, he sensed it had something to do with penguins. Not that he knew anything about penguins, at that point in time. That would come later, in his days, after this history, where h

The Long Fuse

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I have heard the very people who make me talk as if explosiveness is something to flee. And I agree. If you are not designed to destroy, you should stay far away with me. I was packed with the desire to fall apart with force and take whatever stands near me with me. It is…

The Birds

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My wife goes away for a few days to the little town where Hitchcock filmed The Birds. Her sister goes along. When she comes back, I ask her if she had a good time, and she says no.

Pink

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In China I remembered you only once:the restaurant's speciality, chosenfrom a braid of live varieties,spiraled to the floor while the waiterflayed it with a knife flickedfrom his wrist. The snake made your initialover and over the black tile.What pain? Love's all…

Rain

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I am under the rain. Under. The. Rain.The rain comes after me. Beats me. I wait for the boom of thunder, fork of lightning. In the rain, I am afraid. In the rain, I don't know where I am going. In the rain, I am fucking ridiculous.I try to outrun the rain. My shoes sink…