Most read stories

More from the Chronicles of His Demise

17721772 views2222 comments1313 favs

Only scotch and cheap champagne/ retain their reliable flavors.

Grief Has No Welcome Garment

17721772 views88 comments55 favs

Twice burned, it buries its graves.

When a Bastard Stares at the Sun

17721772 views1616 comments77 favs

The sun is going to slice your goddamn face open.

Good Fences

17711771 views22 comments22 favs

I built the fence myself, strong and high and aesthetically pleasing. It was high enough to provide privacy on both sides, but from my bedroom balcony I could see everything. More than I wanted to see.

Malady

17711771 views88 comments55 favs

When the malady struck and the world fell dark at noon, she and I groped the walls and found our front door. Outside, bewildered, we heard the whine of jets in free-fall, explosions in the imagined distance. And we heard a car — or was it a truck that veered…

Sisters

17711771 views33 comments11 fav

She'd no doubt catch the guy's eye in the act, flash her smile and laugh in his face as an insult or invitation, depending on how she wanted things to go.

Motley Crew

17711771 views11 comment11 fav

Paul had come to Hawaii, like many young haoles from the mainland, to party. Partying proved to be lucrative for him. By early October 1982 he had done well for himself in Hawaii, living in a country house with sprawling lawns that held back the jungle foliage…

Letter to Myself at Age Twenty-One

17711771 views66 comments44 favs

First off, don't worry about the marriage. It ain't gonna last. But don't worry. People will drive you nuts with that tiresome old chestnut, “there's more than one fish in the sea.” Thing is, they're right. Listen. I'm not talking salmon and sea bream…

Every time we kiss, my hair falls out

17711771 views77 comments11 fav

I’m in high leather boots; I’m talking many dead cows here and I respect that

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 9: In Which A Cause Is Proffered

17711771 views00 comments00 favs

"I think you're a great candidate for a sentinel node biopsy," said Dr. Kartes. They sat in the small, dark office. On the sofa, not touching. She still wouldn't take his hand.

A Museum of Numbers

17711771 views00 comments00 favs

At street level there is a small arrow on which is printed “Museum of Numbers” that points up a long narrow staircase. There is a restaurant on the first floor. All the way up the stairs, the air is permeated with smell of fried foods

The Paranoia Experiment

17711771 views11 comment00 favs

I know this is going to sound crazy, possibly because it is crazy, but still, please hear me out. I'm a relatively sane person. Sane as any of you, or I was. Just, what I'm saying is that anything that happened to me could happen to you, and you might do the same things I…

Prince Charming

17701770 views33 comments22 favs

They could have heard a pin drop in the car for the rest of the ride to her house, where she looked at him one last time and found nothing admirable, nothing memorable about him.

Takin' a Break

17701770 views00 comments00 favs

The place turns out to have a really nice ambiance, and while the pasta is only passable—though I ordered, I believe, the cheapest plate on the menu, so maybe I got what I deserved—the background dinner music playing is "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" by Wilco.

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 8: In Which Love Is Declared

17701770 views00 comments00 favs

Astrid hadn't always hated him. They met at the Beta house in the fall of his junior year. Typical Friday night. Stoned, drinking beer. He and Red Chapman sitting in their room playing guitars. The girls in their blues jeans. The guys from the house hi

Sometimes the bear eats you...

17701770 views22 comments11 fav

...something darkly malevolent looming above him...

Running Out of Gas on the Highway of Love

17701770 views44 comments00 favs

“When I get like this? What about what you get like this? If you know my answer you know you look like my answer. Otherwise, how would you know my answer?”

Myra's Mother

17701770 views55 comments33 favs

Smoking is like hooking up with an ex-girlfriend: you know she's bad for you and that it won't work out, but it feels so familiar and comfortable and so easy to slide back into.

Sea Shell

17701770 views33 comments11 fav

Useless.

SWAMPLANDS by Paul D. Brazill

17701770 views55 comments22 favs

Elvis awoke in a cold, dank sweat, hungover from bourbon and bad dreams.

Vienna

17691769 views22 comments22 favs

I remember thinking the seasons are arriving later every year, as if the world has been slowed by the weight of graves.

The Tale of Pregnant Tinkerbelle

17691769 views33 comments33 favs

Everyone was shocked when they heard Tinkerbelle was six days gone and had got so heavy she couldn't fly. Who could have done it, everyone asked, but Tinkerbelle wasn't telling. So no one knew. That isn't true. I knew, and in this Declaration I swear I will tell…

The Introduction

17691769 views1212 comments1010 favs

Lucy looked up, smiled and said mine had a head that looked like a mushroom. I suppose she was right. We were sitting on the floor drawing naked bodies for our anatomy lesson and teasing each other about our lack of drawing talent. We were new friends, having met when…

Sonnet for a Unicorn

17691769 views55 comments33 favs

My sweet baby angel has baby hair Baby angel has a golden cross lit looking at the crystal pig and kind mare The drowning unicorn comes from the waves in fits. My sweet baby angel has baby talkBaby angel has a diamond shape scarburied heart shaped…

Zombie Night

17691769 views77 comments55 favs

The man and the lady loved to laugh. She would tuck her hair back and lay her head on his stomach after dinner while watching old scary movies on Thursday nights. She would listen to his stomach digest the food and laugh then, he would laugh and…

Tangenital

17691769 views11 comment11 fav

I don’t personally know any models—let alone any supermodels—at this point in my life but some years back my father, who was working for the Woolite Corporation, was in charge of hiring models for them.

Bookends of a Life: II

17691769 views1313 comments66 favs

The clacking ventilator reminds me of ice cubes rattling in your highball...

THE SONGBIRD AND ME

17691769 views33 comments11 fav

“Tell me again,” you whisper softly, “about the songbird.”

The 11th Arrondissement

17691769 views11 comment11 fav

I concluded that Parisian sexuality must be partially indebted to the cricket or grasshopper. The entrance to their flat was a wood door scarred by scriptures common to places frequented by people who have not yet made their mark on the world.

The Clairvoyant Dwarf, The Jester, and the Tame Elk of Prague

17691769 views99 comments88 favs

All were part of the household of Court Astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) who lost his nose in a duel as a student and went through life thereafter wearing a gold prosthetic one instead and who met and fell in love with a commoner who bore him eigh