Most read stories

Double Vision

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Maybe it’s the cold that has me seeing double. My sister in Florida would probably laugh, “I told you so” as she sips her pumpkin latte in the barely-cold.

Parcel

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you hear the knell of kindness long before its cathedral voices -- a recessional -- barters better times.

Made in Japan - 2

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My motivation as a filmmaker for traveling to Japan was economic and opportunistic. American military occupation had accelerated westernization and, when Japan regained its sovereignty in 1952, their economy was rapidly expanding. Led by manufacturing and export of items…

Star Heart

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This is the place I could find my breath. I didn'tSay I understood it. I only wanted to hold someone andMeant to. I don't care about the rules for caring.This place where I could speak was incredibly far from Where I'd once met you. The place where I could…

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…

Pectoralis Minor

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Her thumbs tucked beneath the waistline of her pants, slightly pulling them down to expose the eternity between belly button and bliss. I looked up at her as I slid my tongue along the rail of her hip, sucking at its point.

Teller of Tales

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He came to us with wandering tales of wild things Savage, biting, slashing, tearing A violent voice boomed becoming of beasts

Worms Shouldn't Drink Whiskey

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I have two memories of my dad. The first is a story he liked to tell: So my old woman came home one day with a worm. She sets the worm on the counter and goes into…

Fruits of Passion

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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.…

Wishes Shovel Best

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Just as he expected, the reaction was spontaneous, euphoric and unequivocally positive. With just one exception. A politician connected with the home service of his parliamentary section's boss, with the mobile phone number 0-609-3459812, and known for hi

Migratory Mistakes

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Unadorned tragedies pinpoint the worst angles of the road; simple crosses or bouquets line boulders painted with car crash smoke or skid marks that tiptoe to the edge of cliffs and then, apparently, leap.

Matisse, in the Jardin des Tuileries, 1904

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The World's Worst Mime stood there next to the iron carousel, portraying something, and the crowd understood none of it, except that whatever thing he was trying to portray was not being portrayed well at all.

Until the Dawn (part 1)

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Tara was so tired. The bus connection was off again, and her ankles were so swollen. Maybe it was the heat, the humidity, she wasn't sure… but things were definitely getting worse. She sighed. At least the bus shelter had an empty spot on the bench, so as she…

Me, Butterfly Hu, and the Damnable Season

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When the city froze and the darkness began to arrive ahead of rush hour, my pills worked; Butterfly Hu’s did not. In a double blind trial, you can’t know who gets the miracle, and who gets the sugar.

Morning

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Leaves dance their way down,unfazed by this September heat. Bus stop routines set already-summer ended years ago.A chipmunk scampers undera parked truck while once againthe young man does his morning…

I'm Dying! And I Didn't Make The Bed!

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Five years ago, on January 15, 2009, Flight 1549 took off for Charlotte, North Carolina and, 3 minutes later, made an emergency landing in the Hudson River, with no serious harm to anyone but the geese who caused the problem. (They were liquefied into something…

Laughingly rejected by The New Yorker

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...and we laughed.

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…

Coda in the Form of Three Haiku

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Nature has its way:

Love, a comet, omens and wings

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My love for him like wax wings/ so long they stretched eternal— beating in the sky, grazing peaks,

Modulus of Elasticity

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The limbs lift again,

2006, What I Wanted

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freedom from my mind

Clock

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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

Unlucky Star

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“I don’t want you to, not even for one minute,” she continued, tone empowered, “Blame yourself. If anything, you’re the only one who has ever given a damn…” she thought more, then added, “…besides Jeremy.”

Progresso

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I don't see why you didn’t get a dozen while you were at it.

The Kicker

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She had plain features suggestive of a Native American, which in fact, she was, partly, and she rarely wore makeup of any kind. She easily might have been indistinguishable in a moving crowd except for her loping gait and a tendency to move her hands arou

Oversleeping & Getting in Trouble for It

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A few people bristled and looked at Jim, but since he was avoiding their gaze, they had no choice but to return their attention to their own table and pretend to pay attention to the conversation they previously had been pretending to pay attention to.

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.

Relic

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While space and time opened up for us, the ground accelerated its attempts to devour the astronaut. Grasses grew up around his edges. Seeds propagated in the folds of his suit, tendrils found their way into the mysterious holes for the missing hoses that

Educating an American

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Note to self: look up Bobby Sands.