Most read stories

The Dilemma

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Scribble something basic with traces of spectacular,pen every pint of pain spilled during the massacrewhittle the convoluted down to the vernacularboiled the whole story, now you got everybody crackin' upnow step back from the business like, “man, that's wack as…

Zeus Takes a Day Job

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That's demeaning enough, but not as hard to take as the customers. They're all jaded hipsters, thumb diddling smartphone freaks, pretending their online interactions actually count as relationships and that “tweets” are real conversations. It's sad, reall

Blow Me

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[BEEZLEBUB SAYS, "GO!"]

Big Dipper

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“You’re not in Saigon anymore, Mai Bi'ch,” I said, craning to read her name badge. “They’ll need to be much better than that if you want to stay in this country.”

A Scalar Boson a Day

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. . . the empiricism of the mechanical had wound tight into her, lessons her few calendars could never impart without aid from sundials, hourglasses, clocks.

Spilled Milk

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(I'd appreciate some feedback on this very weird story.) A Frosted Mini Wheat walks in to a bar...

Thanks, for the Memory

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"So, how did you know my name?" "I read memories." i said

Oh, Baby!

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One of the drunk men, a dear friend, hunk, as he updated me, now living the existence of a poet, called from San Francisco to say he would take the plane to Minneapolis, do it, then leave me to raise the baby.

Another Big Dumb Object

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"James, can you take a peek at problem://7ac5e46f today?" "It's just another big dumb object. Seems low priority." "Escalated by the directorate."

Owl Watching

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I attended the burial of our affair when I found her notebook— maybe it should be called her diary—that she had foolishly left on the deck of my beach house where she stayed while I was on that short trip to Chicago. Numb at first, unsure how to proceed, I went…

The Paranoia Experiment

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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…

Bron-yr-Aur

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The night we broke into Bron-yr-Aur it was too cold to make love. I said I wasn't horny anyway. You put your hand on my forehead: Are you ill?

A Body Divided, 3

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A group of nuns arrived in the middle of my first night at Hinsdale Hospital. I guess I must have dozed off when this odd noise, like curtains being moved, woke me up. At first I couldn't make out what that rustling sound was in the hallway outside my doo

Outside Thunder Pallets

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Carl’s peculiarity of toilet paper rolls is not covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act – he’s looked it up.

A Little Lotion Talk

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They were obviously having some secret beach affair.

The Scavenger

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I am a scavenger. I sit on the telephone wire, a ravenous vulture watching a man and a woman arguing across the street. The clouds remind me of ashy marshmallows I found in a fire pit yesterday. The woman starts violently shoving the man; he stumbles…

The Legacy

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The old man had always known things, was feared and revered up and down the valley for knowing things. I’d heard the stories since the day I was born.

The Shit List

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I have a tablet called, The Shit List...

Shadow Play

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I read it all wrong. In writing her novel, I thought Marilynne Robinson was writing about twins — writing, in some way, about me. Instead, these characters, Lucille and Ruthie, were standard sisters, one older than the other. In fact, Robinson explains th

Low Clouds

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

The Caveman Attends the Symphony Without His Club

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“Would you consider renewing for the next season?” “We’re not interested.” “Can I ask you why?” I considered my reply. I was thinking of mincing my words. The man on the other end of the line seemed, how should I put this, somewhat s

Eight minutes, twenty one seconds

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Well, I turn the car off, the song turns off, I gather all of my stuff, turn off my lights, inevitably drop something as I’m getting out of the car, shut the door, lock the car, fumble for my house key, walk up the stairs, unlock the front door, set my

Begettings

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However did we make it this far/ without murdering one another as the other sleeps

Land of Our Fathers

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He called me one Friday when I was a kid and told me he wanted to go trout fishing. He had dreamt that I was a worm or a fly -- he couldn't remember which -- but he was sure I would bring good luck to the stream. The next morning, before grandma awoke, I

Midnight Mass

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Mom wraps a bulky-knit scarf around my face and over my mouth. She tightens it into a big knot in back of my collar.

Ballerina

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His mother was a ballerina.

Winter's Presence 2010

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A short triangular plastic shovels into the/White plastic container filled with topaz crystal-like/Salt granulars. Scratchy sandy sounds echo.

Falling In Love Again

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Marv felt a stirring. Warmth in his gut. "Maybe we should get together," Marv said.

Hide & Seek

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I have never seen doubt on the face of a Roman general,' he said, ‘but when you looked at me and said “I know”…that was a certainty I'd never encontered. You have crossed the Acheron twice.'

Pull Another String

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Now as my fearful hand goes unwittingly up I search the faraway trees for the closest possible answer I know I don't know. The clever waiting beast is looking my way with an intelligent roving eye that says he likes to hit. It doesn't matter. You're worse…