Most read stories

Subj: re: doing time ...

18741874 views1919 comments1010 favs

The jail, where I stayed for 48 hours, gave me enough information to write a 180-page book, something I resisted setting out upon due to the insult of it.

Not Lao-tzu's Yellow Brick Road, xxviii - xxxvii

18741874 views99 comments77 favs

master carvers do not reduce with carving.

The Goldsmith's Anniversary

18741874 views11 comment00 favs

He searched for something deserving of the word “bestowed,” something so rare as to horrify the clerics of ordinariness.

A Circus Never to Return

18741874 views77 comments77 favs

But on arrival Darlene was in no prompt mood to undress. "There's some ugly sumpthin' out there along the fence, looks like it's gnawin' on sumpthin' dead."

All the Broken People

18741874 views1919 comments1414 favs

We all// fall short and fail.

Smite the hindmost of them, Joshua 10:19

18741874 views66 comments33 favs

Marlene smiles at me with her lips pressed together. The young girl standing with her can't be more than fourteen or fifteen although she is tall for her age. She too smiles. She has an intricate set of braces on her teeth. I can't tell if Marlene has teeth

Grand Union

18741874 views22 comments00 favs

She suggested just moving in together. A lot less constrained by convention she, on occasion, did not wear a bra.

Mick Dever

18741874 views1616 comments1212 favs

The P-36 used for gunnery exercises was twitchy and stubborn...

Free Time

18741874 views00 comments00 favs

The desk calendar was brilliant, unused. The problems with it didn't begin until March.

Extortionist

18741874 views44 comments22 favs

They leaned against the hood of his pickup, which sat heavy on its wheels, the back of it filled with the things that he’d held out of the yard sale three days earlier. “When’re you leaving?” she asked. “Early. Get on down the road. Shut ’er down ea

ABSALOM

18741874 views33 comments00 favs

He was still on the ground...

The Chance of Rain

18731873 views1515 comments1313 favs

I'm still working on this. I'm always open to your thoughts.

Hygiene

18731873 views1212 comments1111 favs

I peed on Rick’s toothbrush. I nearly repented and cleansed it with hydrogen peroxide in the middle of the night. But I didn’t.

Itch

18731873 views2424 comments1010 favs

Clayton had a grin like the hand of a beast that stretched as long as her gravel road...

The Hiders

18731873 views22 comments11 fav

The Kharal kept us safe, we knew, kept the colony functional in the oft belabored effort that was living our small, human lives surrounded by death, for in their ring of constant invisible protection, when they did not come, we thrived. It was not as tho

A Few Introductory Words

18731873 views44 comments00 favs

And without further ado, The Author.

Luc

18731873 views22 comments22 favs

Her wrinkles came into focus, the sort of old woman's face photographed for coffee tables and art galleries and corporate boardrooms, for prize juries and grant selection committees, and Luc searched his formidable memory for an exact match. Over the long, tedious…

A Clean Tent

18731873 views88 comments66 favs

“No,” he says. A simple lie. “I -” He pushes the sleeping bag off of his legs. Their getaway reset was a mistake.

The Men Who Forgot Math and Poetry

18731873 views22 comments11 fav

"They treat us like shit," the mathematician said. "They think they can just take us and electrocute us and drown us."

Cake

18721872 views2525 comments1717 favs

A little poem

Swimming with Whales

18721872 views22 comments00 favs

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 Cruelest Man

18721872 views00 comments00 favs

He was arrested for a horrible crime. It took more than three weeks to identify the body. The newspapers were vague so as not to terrify anyone. He hung his head low as he pled guilty.

GOING NOWHERE

18721872 views1414 comments88 favs

you may meet the man of your dreams.

Arcana Magi Zero Arc 3 - c.4

18721872 views22 comments00 favs

Alysia stretched her left hand out at Kurai, and the electricity connected with her fingertips like beacon.

Ghost Questions

18721872 views1111 comments99 favs

What if I never feel like a real artist? What does it even mean to be a "real" artist? What if nobody ever cares about what I make?

Unprecedented weirdness

18721872 views33 comments11 fav

The weird thing was that standing here with himself, or what appeared to be himself, he had got so self-conscious that it was almost paralyzing.

The man-faced boy

18721872 views11 comment00 favs

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

That is That

18711871 views77 comments66 favs

Alexander Ivanovich stuck out his leg and tripped Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev. Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev stood up, took two steps forward, stuck out his leg and tripped Alexander Ivanovich.

GRANDMA FLYNN

18711871 views66 comments33 favs

She shoved a small bottle under her aprons and came towards me, darkening the passageway from “Ancestor” by Thomas Kinsella The night I heard the Banshee she passed away. In my screaming fear dada and mama woke. …

Dangling About

18711871 views77 comments33 favs

Looking at his pale and pimpled flesh, he was repulsed by his flaccid and lifeless member. The accompanying bits, dangled about far from his frame as the summer heat drew them away from his sweaty and unwashed body.