Most read stories

Three Second Rule

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“Can I feel it?” he reached his hands out immediately, expecting I’d say yes. I am the type to always say yes, right? “Sure.” I confirmed, swallowing back my fear of his touch. He didn’t seem himself, like this. I led his hands to my hips and let them

In the North Woods (or, The War of Art)

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For the residents of Oak Morrow, entropy is an art form. They break their own windows and crash their cars into their living rooms. Grannies and pets can usually scoot out of the way before they’re crushed under the juggernaut of creativity.

Bird Noises

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Let's buy this robin's egg blue furniture. Okay. Let's buy this album full of wren songs. Uh, okay.

Talking Down the Flames

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She'd always been an odd girl, nearly raising herself. As she got breasts and hips the boys complained that she was easy to get in the backseat, but afterward the car wouldn't run, not ever, like the engine died the moment they used her willingness up. So

Improvisational

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This is not her death. This is absent-minded omniscience. This is impossible. And then again, the inside-out, implosion. And the hall was clogged with bodies; none of them hers, but who could be sure?

Turkey Hunt

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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…

Scene from the Clinic

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No way to know why she's here, but scars and scabs can hold more information than a file or chart.

Internet Hole (an excerpt from Psychopomp)

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Seventeen-year cicadas are the sometimes-singers that surprise spring with the ugliest mouths of all.

News That Stays News

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Some trick of the morning light makes the tattoo on her ankle look like the burn from a branding iron. She had watched her father as he slept last night. He was handsome and innocent, like a baby boy.

The Galleries

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We invent our beauties// as we find them and engineer/ our horrors

Slave to the Rhinestone

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He introduced himself as Jimmy Stamps and shook my hand with the confidence of a man who is Microsoft Windows certified. Reeking of vodka and Swisher Sweets he proceeded to expatiate on the virtues of X

The Birds

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My wife goes away for a few days to the little town where Hitchcock filmed The Birds.

The Perfect Day

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Robbie Lange closed his laptop and leaned back in his chair. Yawning, he looked out the window into the black night. Another evening at the office, he thought. He counted the other lit windows in the skyscrapers around his building. “Goodnight, everyone

Bring a Book

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It would be great if next door to every restaurant, there was a 24 hour dental surgery. Then you could sneak in and grab a few magazines to read if you’re unfortunate enough to be dining alone.

Book of Genesis

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Almost to the elevation of regret.

A Little Bit of Syrup

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"I made up my mind then, in the backseat, sucking on a cherry Popsicle, that I wanted to be like Ruby’s mother..."

The Lake

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The Lake I. When the weather was nice, the fisherman and his girl spread a blanket over the shore's rough sand and watched the cargo ships cleave their way to the…

Dead Woman's Shoes

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Loving you, I always knew, was a job I’d only get via a dead woman’s shoes. There you were, the recipient of pot roasts, fresh bread, at a loss amongst neighbourhood widows and divorcees. A tide of them rolled over you in calico blouses, cut off jeans

How to Have a Fulfilling Sexual Relationship with Your Own Parents (Part Two)

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Hi, I'm Harmony Korine. I esteem douchebags.

The Serious Writer Tracks His Stats

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The officers carried him away in cuffs as he yelled "I NEED STATS! PLEASE! JUST GIVE ME THE STATS!"

Bricks

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There are things we must not say.

Stories with a hole in it: Tales from Xanadu -------1. The kite

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U-R, UltraReads is my new concept, an experiment designed to suit contemporary need and taste. The handy tablet-size reads can be easily done from your phone anytime, anywhere in the world. Each one comes together with a visual to make the reading experience more…

The Conversation Killer

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I stand corrected once more.

WOMAN DISPOSED OF

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sex trafficking

A Body Divided, 1

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A Body Divided: Memoir 1 When I came back home, after coming down with polio, everything had changed for me. I'd been gone for forty-five long days and nights. But it was Halloween, a time very nearly sacred for children in the Midwest, and it broug

Tiffany's Economy

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The world waited with bated breath as Tiffany stood in the grocery store aisle that housed the various kinds of fruit spreads for sandwiches and toast. She tapped her toe and nodded her head this way and that while she compared the qualities of two jars of…

Fulfillment

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And she's dying like someone who's tried living and failed.

The Longfellow Bridge Diaries: Part 1

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I dared to dream whether she was coming or was she going

Hole

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For a person you don't know, a stranger with a lot of place, you think much of him.

For the young couple in the stairwell passed on my way to teaching Medieval World Literature

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I have/been you/years before/of course