Most read stories

Beard-Men

16951695 views88 comments33 favs

Sometimes they bleat like sheep when I shave in the shower. They live in a complex social order.

After Grief

16951695 views55 comments22 favs

Within a day, she had a scummy apartment which belonged to the government. It had cockroaches, which she was not used to. They churned her stomach, repulsive little things. Not even creatures. Two brains, she'd read: one in the head, one in the ass.

A Life

16941694 views44 comments33 favs

Born, he stood up. He wore nothing as often as possible

Dead Girl Rolling

16941694 views1818 comments99 favs

They left me on a gurney for hours...

Dislocutions

16941694 views1313 comments66 favs

Q: This name in Basque means “owns a new house.” A: What is “Xavier”?

Turkey Hunt

16941694 views44 comments22 favs

While I was still new at Black & Twigg, shortly before Thanksgiving, Percy brought me a handwritten memo to type, the subject “Turkey Hunt,” addressed to all Black & Twigg employees in the San Francisco office from management. It said that the firm…

Praying in bed

16941694 views44 comments33 favs

When I was a kid, I was terrified of dying in a bombing, which is strange, really, because I lived in Long Island, which has relatively few bombings to speak of.

Whyisthereaheavyweight?

16941694 views1313 comments1010 favs

Why is there a heavy weight and a chain and a padlock in her woodstove? Because, she says to herself, slightly hysterically, because this is yet another thing that you must carry. Why? Because life is full of chains and padlocks and heavy weights. Hea

Two Little Fictions

16941694 views1919 comments1414 favs

His work was done. For sixty years, beginning soon after his seventeenth birthday, he had listened to the gods- good, bad, somewhere in between-

Nobody Steps Forward

16941694 views33 comments11 fav

I can only see their eyes in the dark, reflected in the light from my flashlight. It's so quiet. I only hear the sound of my own breath. I hold the flashlight steady. Maybe they will think I'm not a threat if I'm not moving. It's a small hope. Yet here we are, at a…

Four Fundamentalist Teenagers In Front Of A Metropolitan Railway Car

16941694 views77 comments66 favs

That morning, four children appeared in front of the train, which was ready to depart

The Runaway Conductor

16941694 views99 comments99 favs

For another man she raced through infinite wounds and fists in a monsoon forest. Hands tied to her lover’s for a dance, a roulette of paper cranes exploding across the sky. Cascaded into the sea of black eyelashes.

Notes on Consulting the 'Owner's Manual for the Human Mind'!

16941694 views11 comment00 favs

[CAUTION: TO PREVENT ELECTRIC SHOCK, DO NOT REMOVE COVER. NO USER-SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE. REFER SERVICE TO QUALIFIED SERVICE PERSONNEL.]

Prime cut

16931693 views55 comments44 favs

1I don't like it when they leave the heads on.I mean it's not nice, is it.The idyllic order of the abattoir.Mary is on stunning and bleeding.She prefers evisceration.Still, the work's ok and it's her day off tomorrow.Deft hands perform their daily ballet.Mary had a…

This is the Wild Place I was Telling You About

16931693 views1212 comments99 favs

I want youto remember me. This the placewhere I'll always be, if you're looking hard enough.This is the place I've letgo of all expectations, no regrets, and nomasks. This the place my heartbobbs about like a…

Balls

16931693 views1919 comments88 favs

Evening was drawing nigh and Mosby's horse had tired from the daylong ride.

White Noise

16931693 views1010 comments66 favs

In the small hours, when the crackling of the embers had stopped and the room had gone cold, the boiler kicked in and the pipes began to clang. He was half-roused out of his sleep, and then slipped under again to dream of Marley's fettered ghost.

Don't Trip On My Exit Switch

16931693 views44 comments44 favs

It’s nice, but, it’s weird not being in love, or maybe in love, sometimes in love. (Or, not in love. Frankly, we might be not in love.) Or, both of us might be. Or, only one of us might be. (Good lord, I hope it’s never me.)

One Regrettable Talent for Tragedy

16931693 views55 comments55 favs

Vandalina embarked on her career of serious dramatic roles to widespread acclaim, her depth of feeling and potency of delivery winning her thunderous ovations and gushing reviews . . .

Dancing Beneath a Gazebo

16931693 views33 comments11 fav

We learned to dance beneath a gazebo / in Spring Lake Park / We were fourteen

-And Lurking Behind Quasar 3C295 . . .

16931693 views22 comments22 favs

“Let’s see that great big telescope of yours,” she exhaled hotly, “I want to grind your lenses!” The doctoral candidate dutifully stood between her and his massive telescope so her hands would encounter some instrumentation with no optical components.

Pit Stop

16931693 views1212 comments44 favs

I was more annoyed at the scream, the icy air around us and our eventual destination–his parents, the club, small talk, all that drunken insignia.

Love Rusts

16931693 views55 comments44 favs

Their love was doomed at the onset, yet they engaged in it anyway, heedless of the numerous error messages and critical runtime failures. Abort, Retry, Fail? They selected Retry over and over.

Alternate Timelines

16931693 views00 comments00 favs

Physicists say that a tremendous amount of energy has to be generated in order to rip through space-time, to jump to another place, and at this time, we're incapable of doing it. I have to disagree. They've never met my brain. I fear it's going to kill me

A Little Piece of Meat

16931693 views99 comments44 favs

I didn’t have toothpicks. You looked at me as if it summed up everything about me.

The One Day Internship

16931693 views00 comments00 favs

Poppy de Witte was content to spend her summers in Cape Cod, where her family owned a small beach house considerably less stifling than their spacious apartment on Park Avenue.

To My Children, With Apologies

16931693 views22 comments00 favs

My apologies also for those crowded roads you and your families have to drive on. My generation would have built more public transportation but, in all honesty, we just didn't give a damn.

Ditto

16931693 views1111 comments55 favs

He looked straight at her, not to challenge her, but to better gauge what it was she would throw at him. Her eyes always darted to the thing right before her red, swollen fingers snatched at it, like a thing possessed.

The Yin and the Yang

16921692 views1010 comments44 favs

Penis vs Uterus

February: Letter From a Friend After Fifteen Years

16921692 views99 comments99 favs

And she finds calm in the word “Easter,” thinking about chocolate and, for some reason, our dog Panda. I think of you tonight, Linda...