Most read stories

Minnows

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I combed the ocean for my minnows while Hattie's giraffes multiplied like spider plants, all yellow and brown on the dry yellow savanna, propelled by their gauche necks, awkward in their bodies, bodies rooted to the feet of the humming planet.

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.

Scrawls From My Blue Period

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The following was written under disagreeable circumstances, in that I was present for them.

Arcana Magi Zero - v.2: Megumi's Fable, the Advance

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“Is it a dream? Or is it real?” Questions Megumi asked herself as she stood before the mirror. She no longer had fox ears or a fox tail. Even her long brown hair had turned jet black and her lavender eyes were a natural green just like Alysia’s.

Another Plastic Surgery

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He told me to count backwards from 10. I was out by 8. He was now in complete control of my life – what a helpless situation.

The Abandoned Shoe Project

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It’s the unfinished sentences Of the children on our refrigerators That worry me the most It’s the Fake News It’s all the people Living in their shopping carts Without shoes It’s the abandoned shoe On the street And the Abandoned S

What the Doormat Said

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It's not my fault I was made to be stepped on, so stop saying what I am with such contempt. Yes, I'm a doormat. No, I'm not weak. I have taken a hundred kinds of treads, twice as many pounds at once, and once or twice there have been cleats. Think about what those would do…

A Theology of Anorexia

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She always told them that she had eaten earlier, that she had had a big lunch, that she wasn't hungry. "Leave me alone," she cried, running from the table to her room. This anger would burst out of her, so sudden and so total in its transformation--from t

Chennai

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I go to the seaand turn myself over in my hand like a shell: a hollow conch carried on the resonance of a song long past its singing. My heart is a well and this city, one that is forever in drought.

...anything but love...

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"Take a chance, Bill," she said, "Like Eddie across the hall did. Tess told me he marched right into his boss and demanded a raise. He pointed out how much they needed him and they gave him twenty-five dollars more a week.

Animals in the Sky

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When the great comet passed over, everyone was at my door with pitch forks and rifles with extra long bayonets. Don’t kill it yet; I want to study its habits.

Bird-Watching

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I didn’t understand, you said with a hoot, that it was hard to get hard when my ass was soft.

A Man

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A man’s been in jail for six weeks awaiting trial. Lillian doesn’t say his name. A man kidnapped her from the grocery store parking lot. He raped her at his house, and again in the desert, chopped her hand off with an axe and left her for dead in the

Throw

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She was a dead bird the morning I found her, wings clipped in dirt and blood vanished into tiny braille maps on concrete.

Stop.

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Accept that your husband's heart always belonged to his first love. You should've noticed sooner because she works in your building and won't look you in the eye. She takes the stairs because you ride the elevator.

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.

SOMETIMES

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Sue Ellen walked on. “You were thinking about me -- I saw you.”

A Glimpse

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I am everything she wanted me to be. I am crossed legs, chest out; I am wearing a soft white dress—lacy and completely inappropriate to the Midwest, to 2011, to anything about my existence.

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.

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen

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My name is Mandy and I'll be your narrator today. I'd like to welcome you aboard. You will be reading at the approximate speed of one hundred words per minute. Total estimated reading time will be about fifteen minutes. At this time, I'd like to point out several of the…

The Jumpers' Pool

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The way that worked was you gave the bartender a buck, and he would write your name on a square on a calendar that was behind the bar. If somebody jumped off the bridge that day, you won the pot.

Amputee

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He is my daughter's son and his father's worst enemy.

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…

The Green-Eyed Shwemyethna

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Moon-girl spins around & around drunk on her outrageous momentum as if she could make the world rotate on its own fables.

Mountain Country

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I’ve always missed the mountains, but I didn’t know it until I saw them.

Blue Pinto

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“Just curious,” Sean says, “but what’s up with the old Pinto out front?” She looks at him. “It’s my boyfriend’s.” Her green eyes are flat: What business of yours?

A Quite Literary Catfight

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Cavett asked McCarthy what she thought was overrated about Hellman. McCarthy–never known to mince words–replied “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.'"

Desilu, Three Cameras

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Ricky imagines bending her over his conga, yanking that bushy dark ponytail like reins and ripping into her. He sits, watches, legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. He needs a dancer for the Jezebel number now that Connie is showing. This girl would make a f

House on Fire

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I started the fire. I started the fire in my room. I started the fire in my room because I was cold. I figured something small, in an old oil drum I kept in there, and no one would get hurt.

Moth Woman

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I sat on the top step and watched the woman go down and stand in the middle of the room, raising her hands as if to touch them and I half expected the moths to lift the ends of her hair, the hem of her skirt, and fly away with her.