Most read stories

One Last Hurrah, #1

15531553 views1010 comments22 favs

She was about 35 or so and noticeably pregnant. She was near hysteria when she knocked on our apartment door, right across the street in L.A. from a convent. But she took one last desperate wild look at me, standing at the door. I saw the animal in her ey

Will Write For Crab Cakes

15531553 views11 comment11 fav

By: Roz Warren (and Janet Golden)I'm a humor writer. My work appears in publications from The Funny Times to The New York Times. Janet is a history professor whose writing was confined to academic journals and the occasional op-ed. Driving back from the Jersey shore one…

To Build a Fire

15531553 views99 comments66 favs

One frozen hand protruded from the snow.

The Fifth Snatch

15531553 views1313 comments1212 favs

...oh shit...

Struggle Has Ended

15531553 views11 comment00 favs

Shh! What? The downstairs neighbors. They’re at it again. What? It’s the weekend? They’re both home? Oh. Remember? I think so. Sort of. Shh! What’s that grunting? He must be doing the heavy lifting. Sounds like he’s hurt

Florida

15531553 views66 comments66 favs

Now, at last, she finds what she's been searching for. Worms. Like bitty pale larva, like half-moons of air trapped under fingernails. She thinks she sees one twitch; she blinks more furiously and hates herself for it.

All Seeing

15531553 views22 comments22 favs

Our Core Values define evil as the concealment of information. And those who conceal information are evil.

Layers

15521552 views00 comments00 favs

"... Sometimes I think I'm so close to knowing what it's all about, to knowing myself, and then sometimes everything seems so hopeless, as if I haven't learned a thing."

Low Clouds

15521552 views55 comments22 favs

We lay in what we have made, minute fleshy bullets in the target we have made.

New Homes / New Fears

15521552 views55 comments55 favs

How would you like to leave the land of your ancestors, the place of your birth, the home of your identity?

May the Glad Inherit

15521552 views1212 comments66 favs

All creatures know death at their very core, a tacit default--

Still Crazy After All These Years

15521552 views00 comments00 favs

Dr. van Roos reminded the group that trauma is trauma...

Jonesy's Rhino

15521552 views00 comments00 favs

After Jonesy entered the bear habitat, he walked up to the biggest bear in the group and punched it square in the nose. The bear was visibly startled. I mean, bears don’t get punched that often. And there’s a reason: bears are ferocious animals.

Reflections Over Jalpeños

15521552 views00 comments00 favs

It seemed like only yesterday that she was making sure to remember bottles for Hunter and now he was eating regular adult food, and they were looking into tutors for next year, and Hunter was nearly four. Her runty Hunty umpkins was going to be four.

Children's Time

15521552 views99 comments33 favs

During what's called "Children's time," one day at church Sarah slides her left foot halfway out of her tiny ballet slipper to show Davie her toenails are painted the same soft pink as the inside of her shoe. "Look," she says. "My…

Power Ballad (Revised)

15521552 views00 comments00 favs

Everyone else in the bar was looking everywhere else: it was as though they were alone while Journey played loudly all around. “Streetlights, people,” she sang. Time didn't move. What she must be like while driving, singing to herself with the windows fog

Octopus

15521552 views44 comments11 fav

My ride, my good friend Morning was due any minute, but of course, he/she was always late. My costume was a dog. I was stuck to another dog, in the act of passion. A stuffed one. A basset hound. I said my name was Lightning.

Lottery Ticket

15521552 views44 comments33 favs

  Tony sat down in the hotel room with his back against the wall. He had a handsome face, with three-day stubble growing from it, his pupils very large as if frightened by something, or from deep thought. In his hand, was the winning lottery, Periodically he would get up…

Tangerine Slip Cat

15521552 views88 comments66 favs

I knew my cat was capable of telepathy when I began to have isolated, random, non-cause-related thoughts about food and feelings, little signals, and I realized that the signs — images of tangerines, tuna, bones; the idea of choice; slate, names; the feeling of…

Keep Your Man Crazy in Love the Redbook Way

15521552 views00 comments00 favs

You are like gasoline on the fire of my desire–you send me higher and higher into paroxysms of earth-shaking erotic explosions. Remember–the “light” catfood is the kind in the turquoise bag.

Happy Columbus Day

15521552 views1414 comments1010 favs

Oh to be young and vigorous.

It's a Wonderful Life

15511551 views1111 comments99 favs

My wife is making lunch. I suggest leftover pizza. We are going over to the neighbor’s house for pizza tonight, my wife says. I tell her that’s okay. I like pizza.

the ethics of graffiti

15511551 views1212 comments1212 favs

A Dull Roar

15511551 views22 comments11 fav

The other night while we stood in the kitchen locked in each other's stone silence, he finally said, “You're waiting for something to get you to the other side of grief. But there's no such thing.”

Oh, Little Bird, You Send Me

15511551 views99 comments88 favs

Who are all these rough looking people, hanging over me, itching me with their shaggy, grapevine arms? Like twisting, dangling down, painted, cloth Gargoyles on a quickly coming apart, dried up rope? It's always been the same old perch to view from. You wanted to know…

A DEBT

15511551 views11 comment11 fav

A rose and two dollars. Where did they come from? I didn't know anyone who had visited my parents' grave recently, yet that evening I saw a white rose on my mother's side and two bucks on my father's. I took the money and placed my own flowers with the rose. It had to have…

Hopper

15511551 views44 comments33 favs

"Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut."

Take the 40 Million Years Without Sex Challenge!

15511551 views33 comments22 favs

Scientists have determined that a tiny freshwater organism known as the "bdelloid rotifer" gave up sex 40 million years ago. And you thought the spark had gone out of your marriage.

Porch

15511551 views33 comments22 favs

“Emerald Leaf Borers, Dutch Elm Disease and Gypsy Moths blow through here like the Plagues of Egypt,” said Rafe, sipping from his glass of Parallel 44 wine. “You'd think we'd get more than a few days of good weather for all the parasites we feed.” …

The Butterfly Effect

15511551 views66 comments33 favs

Now it turns out, the story doesn’t begin with the butterfly lady, herself, but with her brother.