Most read stories

SNOWSTORM

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long lines, short words

Woman without Time

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The men who have come to take me have science on their side. I know this is true, and yet I sit on the same bed I've had since girlhood, unable to move myself to pack even a pair of socks. What does one wear at the asylum anyway? Pajamas? Certainly my suits will be useless.…

The Tourists

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They acquire him in a bar that is famous for its shipwrecks.

Arcana Magi Cross - c.5

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They stood before the opened door, where cold vapor seeped out along their feet and chilled their bodies. The Avatars figured this was what the necromancer used to get inside.

Girma Dali - Chapter 2

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This is Chapter 2 of my serialzied novel Girma Dali. The title character reflects upon his youth and the young boy, Benga, who mentored him into adolescence.

Frances at Virginia Beach

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My husband waits for him to hurt himself. The boy drinks red wine between movements, Staring hypnotically at the back Of a girl’s head.

The World is Bigger

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It is best not to judge.

Saturday Morning

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Saturday morning, and I’m pushing the old truck a little, chasing retreating bands of cloud shadows along a winding hilltop road.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 19

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His wings were down when he got into the truck. It was a used UPS truck we’d bought from someone in Berkeley, and we painted out the letter “S,” so that it just read “UP.”

The Birds

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When I left my wife, I got the birds. Two parakeets, blue and yellow, male and female. They were loud, messy and, because my ex rarely cleaned their cage, smelly. So I got them. At first, I called him Rod and her Tippy. Rod Taylor and Tippy Hedren? The Bi

The Land Collector

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He liked owning acreage.

The "Just Do It" Moon

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The calls come in a few times a week. When the unknown someone calls Safety Now, Radon Testing and Elimination Headquarters, Mrs. R. wonders who it is that just sits silently on the other end of the line. She wants to say, "Look, if you're a bill colle

Cancer Always Calls Collect - Part 1

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Again, that was not the man I once knew. If they were taking Las Vegas odds; I should be the one dealing with this first. Why was it him and not me?

Diplomatic Relations

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I fully intend to show Hamilton the delights of soft Oriental carpeting and a delicious new position I learned not long ago. It involves a silk scarf, a leather strap and some aromatic herbs.

Nothing At All

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The ice in my drink provides ample cooling. The brew strength of my tea is just such that it combines in a pleasing fashion with the melting ice. My mind is clear and my belly absent hunger. I am completely sated from any physical desire at this very mome

The Burning of Deyrolle or Losing Hugh

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Deyrolle, established by the granddaughter of Jean–Babtiste Deyrolle, to house his scientific debris became a Paris fixture. A museum masquerading as a store and when casually mentioned in HG or when it was discovered that David Sedaris was an aficionado

Tale from a Möbius Strip

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Francesca is a sweet girl and everything, but her incessant doting on Paolo is best left private . . .

Tak Tuckerby

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Tak Tuckerby was a racecar driver. He could drive a racecar fast and handle a racecar perfectly. Unfortunately, Tak could only drive in one direction.

The End of Coffee

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I am getting twisted like a cruller into the mess I have made of this morning and I am stretching the meaning of morning to way past its boundaries.

Excommunicado

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not every punishment proceeds / without a hitch

Missing

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... he led what might be called a quiet life

Sleep Music, No. 1

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Now they are sleeping in a poppy field, sun-drenched warm afternoon girls lying on their stomachs and sides, faces in flowers, and flowers blowing, blowing. If this afternoon were every afternoon, the world would be cured.

Looking at the Light of the Moon on the Sea

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It was hard, in the crowded vacation house, to make love as they would have alone.

New in Town

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He had a handsome dial tone, we called him every name but his.

Crossties

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Regrets lined behind him like crossties on a railroad track.

Merry-Go-Round

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I thought the Ferris wheel was dumb. All it did was give you a high altitude view of the little Minnesota town where I had grown up.

Assiduity Six

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"Every generation is a new generation, isn't it? What's so different about your generation?"

And her child

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The mother was happy, though. She was happy because she could make him some soup and then she could feed it to him in bed.

Geode

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There is a rock somewhere with the truth of the sky in it, the glitter of otherworldly charms that falsify the ugliness of the literal.

Boys Who Do the Bop (from The New Yorker)

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Enid closes her bedroom door when she changes her clothes but leaves it ajar when she's doing her face; is she hoping some small talk might reach her dainty ears?