Most read stories

Luc

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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…

The Insured

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Before the bills, before the fighting, before the need to blame something, there was a moment blown empty in the span of one doctor’s breath, a moment where bar nights and weekend benders had no meaning, a moment where the future was as blank as the bac

A man with bleeding hands

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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

Wired

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He got up to the pulpit and said that he thought he might have made a mistake. I will never forget the desperate look on his face. He recalled being at his Ivy League school and wondering just what he was interested in upon his graduation and what would b

Tales from an Indiscriminate Record Collection

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45s I’ve kept wrapped in newspaper in the attic. These are all mine. Some doubling up in sleeves. Some pushing tears in the seams.

evening cigarette

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It's short.

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…

The Hiders

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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

The Fergus Incident

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Fergus Winston, a former accountant from New York, finds himself mixed up in the middle of a trafficking operation in small town Iowa.

The Martians Are Coming

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"I read a cute animal story yesterday," I tell them. "And I was filled with rage. I can't live like this. There must be no more bears, or hamster-bears, or manatees, being hopeless and depressed. There must be no more cute animal stories—ever."

Our 2015 Holiday Letter…Sort Of

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“Why do I have to sign these cards? You haven't written your dreaded holiday letter yet.” “I told you not to complain or you'd be the one writing it. And addressing the envelopes. Then you can stamp them and take them to the Post Office!” …

The Garden of Earthly Delights

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When I come to suck fresh raspberries' juice from your hair pressing the clasp of my mouth's purse on the oyster of your ear;

The Lesson

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So, when Daddy grabbed that cock by the neck and threw him into the hole that he quick covered with dirt, I knew right then that men would play a subservient role in my life going forward.

Mick Dever

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

The Eleventh Commandment

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I never thought I’d miss the sound of church bells, reminding me of my sudden apostasy, faintly ringing over the rumpus where even the birds can’t get a word in edgeways.

MYTHO-THERAPY ON THE BLINK

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Once upon a time, not so long ago in Los Angeles, Jack and Jill Woodman’s father remarried.

Forever Four-Eyed

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I'm a librarian. A reader. I identify as a four-eyed person. I've always worn glasses. I got my first pair in the second grade. It was a miracle! The blurry world I'd inhabited all my life suddenly came into focus. I could see the blackboard! I could read street signs! I…

The Spoken World

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The spoken world is bigger than I had ever imagined it to be, wonderful and relentless and unforgiving, and to be a part of it was my grandest childhood fantasy. I don’t know what the world sees me as now, but inside I will always be a stutterer.

Dangling About

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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.

Four Prospects from a Spanish Garden

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(For Dancer and Guitar) …

If The Fire Is Not In Your Apartment

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If you get crushed in New York City that's your own problem.

A Clean Tent

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

Wingless messenger

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a bird who gives messages

Take-Home Quiz [DIRECTOR'S CUT: Now, w/pretty colors & font changes!]

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[PLEASE SHOW YOUR WORK!]

Shana (Refuse)

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Papa said he'd be in the stands watching: section H, 5th row, seat 35. During warmups, she had looked, during stretches, she had looked, but she had stopped looking right before the race."Don't worry about me," he had said. "Focus on the race," so when the man had said on…

Interview With a Pimp

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He went to the switchboard and rang one of the rooms. I moved away to a discreet distance so he could make his pitch in private, and soon he came back to the desk front. "He d-didn't like it much, b-but he said to s-send you up. Room 412."

Laughingly rejected by The New Yorker

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...and we laughed.

Mescaline Blues

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This is about a mescaline trip that went wrong. It happened back in the '60s and I know, the '60s have been done quite to death and nobody ever gets the trip right but--you'll like this one. Joey and…

IT CAN, IT CAN, IT CAN

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A man jumped off the High Level Bridge this morning.

Itch

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