Most read stories

Song of the Needle

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The Black Thing spread over the room, eating away his mother's face as well as the doctors and nurses who dashed in a frenzy around him until they too were swallowed in the black singing cloud.

Beasts

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It isn't for you to know

Waiting for the Voice on the Line

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hoping for a happy outcome/ like a kindly voice on the line

Children's Time

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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…

Three Micros

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The earth moves.

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 3: In Which Everyone Was Wrong

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What's the protocol for telling people your spouse has cancer? How do you tell your son, your friends, your co-workers? How do you tell your mother? How do you tell her mother?

A Diminishing Verse on Diminishing Returns

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My banker said, "We've millions we can spare,

To Build a Fire

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One frozen hand protruded from the snow.

Victor Krowchuck Gets Dressed

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He puts on a choir of prepositions, 142 adjectives, 317 ramifications of cotton... and 177 semicolons engorged with cabbage.

the difference between child-dread and grown-up-dread is the paycheck keeps the tears away

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the first day of preschool/ my mother walked me down the street/ to a tall building that cut/ like a knife made of bricks/ right into the street,/ an american flag/ sticking straight out/ just above the door.

Workingman

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He died in the ditch he dug.

Wet Work

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blinking out

Bones of the Amazon, Part I of a Novella

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Lulu Petite was sitting in a lounge chair by the side of the pool when she heard the man splash into the water, almost unnoticed by the guests milling around the backyard of the palatial estate. Everybody, seemingly, was involved in a balancing act of one

Gold Digger

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Sophie hoped that Ryan would just stay in the bathroom and never come out. Her stomach turned just thinking about him, but wealthy nerds were easier to work than wealthy regular guys. No self-esteem, no experience with women…no problem.

Life Apart

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Practice has perfected disengagement.

Dog

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I’m not the creative type like my friend Bosely, an Irish Setter. I’m a traditionalist. I like to eat exactly at 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. I take my bone with me everywhere I go. I will not carry the poop-bag.

The Shadow

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"Did I have a dream, or did the dream have me?" - Rush, "Nocturne"

Gasoline

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Her hair’s the color of LA at night On such occasions when the Santa Anas Have left the hills bone-dry and burning bright

The Agreement

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Our Irish tradition is rich in Yeats, drenched in Bushmills.

The Letter

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I knew nothing about the letter at first. When I came in that morning and smiled and said good morning, it was a genuine smile and a heartfelt good morning. But the letter, which had arrived the previous afternoon, was already doing its corrosive work of

Howie Mandel

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We love the sparkling, speckless, spotless, spic-n-span, sanitary.

Do I hear Ten Thousand?

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I cannot begin to list all the ways this conversation can go downhill from here, so I hang up the phone quietly.

Life on TV

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The television volume softens in the shadows.

Short Cuts

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The shop is swarming with little women.

Justice

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“Too dumb to live,” my wife said when cretins on a motorbike blasted around us nearly taking a side mirror with them.

The Street Of God Knows What & Other Stories

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One night he woke up with Underdog laying next to him, breathing softly. He marveled at how fiction could make reality so much better.

Predator

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Uncounted hens and piglets/ die at my demand. The killing floor// runs red for me. I am/ monstrous to creatures small and great,

Victoria Gate

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Maybe she was crying before she got on the coach at Marble Arch, settled in the seat across from me, but by the time we reach Victoria Gate, tears stream down her face, mouth open to receive her own sacrament.Indian, ageless in tasteful floral, a blue sweater despite summer…

Don't Mangle the Mongol

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Back in the Dark Ages, the Mongols invented the first hamburger pattie. They put slabs of beef under their horses' saddles and after a few miles of rough riding -- voila! a flattened piece of cow meat. They then proceeded t

HUNTING

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In the cool, damp morning, Jeremiah trembled, from the weight of the gun, from fear he would miss.