Most read stories

A Message from Your Local Superintendent Concerning Sex in Our Public Schools

18611861 views00 comments00 favs

Such behavior will result in no disciplinary action only: 1) if all blinds are drawn; 2) all doors are locked; and 3) loud groaning is masked by appropriate use of the volume control on the classroom’s closed-circuit TV set.

The Tree That Took Brooke’s Faith Away

18611861 views55 comments33 favs

The thing was, though, she couldn’t shake the image of that dead dog she had found inside the black trash bag she thought could be first base, right before the twins said, Screw the game, let’s swing.

Halfway Out The Door

18601860 views55 comments33 favs

She asks if I only write about men, which I tell her is redundant. I also answer, “Yes, but sometimes I write about them as race cars, hyenas, vaginas, or God.” She smirks like she wants to smile, but it’s stuck halfway out her door. Her happiness has

The Perfect Day

18601860 views22 comments11 fav

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

Book of Genesis

18601860 views55 comments22 favs

Almost to the elevation of regret.

A Clue Found Aboard a Zen Mind's Floating Iceberg

18601860 views88 comments77 favs

I do so want to bring you into the sacred linguistically eternal loop of all ordinary things on earth, but it can so easily turn into a very sudden unsparing trapdoor, or a hissing angry knot tying up itself into even more tricky sorts …

Christmas Magic

18601860 views00 comments00 favs

You know what parents have to do to get an Xbox? They don't just stand in line and someone hands them an Xbox, OK? That's sacrifice. They have to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice. I mean, I chase alpacas a mile every night in subfreezing conditions,

Talking Down the Flames

18601860 views44 comments11 fav

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

This is Poop Patrol!

18601860 views88 comments33 favs

Sherry and I stand on the sidewalk on a sunny morning, watching her dog take a dump. She's new to the neighborhood and we've just introduced ourselves. The dog, a handsome poodle, does the deed efficiently. “See you later, Gloria!“ Sherry says…

Turkey Hunt

18601860 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…

Scene from the Clinic

18601860 views11 comment11 fav

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

Stupidest. Film Director. EVER!

18601860 views44 comments44 favs

["This is not a snippet of text. This is only a test."]

Toweka: The Vanishing Elephant

18601860 views33 comments22 favs

The elephant kept popping in and out of the savannah--which is to say, in and out of existence. It was an African bush elephant, which made this trick even more impressive.

With a Danish

18601860 views44 comments22 favs

It wasn't hidden, exactly, but kept in a place where she wouldn't be expected to look: a photograph of Roger, naked and supine, looking at the camera without surprise.

Where I work you cannot see the sun.

18601860 views99 comments33 favs

Where I work people use words like leverage. They do not appear to denote anything.

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

18601860 views33 comments11 fav

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…

News That Stays News

18601860 views33 comments33 favs

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.

wheat field with cypresses. van Gogh

18601860 views33 comments22 favs

There’s no sky like that, with twisting clouds shot up into by cypress trees that are so like dark green flames, leaping out of the earth as if a dark green oily pool were on fire underground, and this was all that could escape, was its essence. And a

Corporate Zombie Voodoo The rantings of a middle aged male against the corporate culture of America

18601860 views11 comment11 fav

This seems to be what happens to the Corporate Zombie Cowboys. They get eaten by their own Zombie Kings. The hardest part is I can see them coming, I am on the menu, and I cannot avoid them.

WOMAN DISPOSED OF

18601860 views44 comments44 favs

sex trafficking

The Death of Childhood Heroes (or "Roadkill")

18591859 views44 comments00 favs

We were pushing ninety down the highway through a stretch of what rightfully should have been called the Badlands. We were both absorbed and coping with the rapidly escalating stages of desperation and so neither of us noticed when the yellow figure stepped…

Latté plus

18591859 views1010 comments77 favs

Hurried, hassling suit in front of me is being awful to the barista. So she refuses to serve him, turning away.

Bird Noises

18591859 views33 comments33 favs

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

Hole

18591859 views66 comments44 favs

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

18591859 views44 comments55 favs

I have/been you/years before/of course

Road Trip

18591859 views1010 comments77 favs

I threw my hand / at the gearshift/ the car glided off.

Cymbals

18591859 views00 comments00 favs

On stage, students from the junior college join children from the community to speak and sing in American-French accents. They are timid, heart-broken, in love, rebellious, faithful, resigned to their fates—and all in the matter of a few short hours.

Internet Hole (an excerpt from Psychopomp)

18591859 views11 comment11 fav

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

Twin Lakes of Whiskey

18581858 views77 comments44 favs

not that we ever had before

Bring a Book

18581858 views22 comments22 favs

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.