Most read stories

Black Eyes, Blue Tears, and Dark Thoughts

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At five a family relative took my life away from me and no one cared

Now or Never

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One by one our friends are kicking the bucket. Let's get together. It's now or never, we figure.

Substitute

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He wiped it with a damp cloth. He set it in a glazed clay pot next to the sofa and admired its scrawny handsomeness.

Wattle and Daub

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~ ! ~

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

The Way Back

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The car has been parked there for slightly more than a day now, and nothing has occurred—there’s nothing “unusual,” nothing “amiss.” Except that it’s there, still, as he follows his boys to school.

The Troupe

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A performance is a series of situations. Each situation defines the characters that are in it.

Woman On A Bicycle

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And the ocean was black and green and blue—as your dress that clung to your body’s curve. Round as the bend of the water trailing the false line of the shore.

The Ardennes: Two Vignettes

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In the Ardennes for the the first time...

Wet Work

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blinking out

LA Blues

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smells prettier

Undercover With the Weird Religious Divorce Rules Unit

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An undercover agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish woman in a sting operation that led to the arrest of two rabbis for kidnapping men who refused to grant divorces to their wives.

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…

Backing up at Wal-Mart

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An action oriented solution for bovinity

This Is Why I Write

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I do it for fun

This is a Tender Ache

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Sit back n enjoy the show in a puffy puffed-up chair

trying to be honest but twitter is over capacity

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To be honest, I've always wanted to be black

Madness

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I read my book of names. Over and over again. Our name appeared in the newspaper 254,991 times between 1896 and 1944.

Out of Stardust

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Nor woke, as always, to a dark room smelling of the lavender she kept in little bottles to perfume the otherwise stank air. Outside, she could still see the edge of the moon hanging there like a lopsided smile. The early summer wind blew in and stirred the faded floral…

How To Build A Drunken Sandwich

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Kick your employer in the ass. Emotions are strange experiments in honesty.

To Build a Fire

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One frozen hand protruded from the snow.

Gemini

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Not many people like Geminis.

Micro Trilogy

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I start with a morsel of truth, then hide it with lies...

Looking for Eight

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She knew there were a few rodeos in south Texas scheduled in the next two weeks. Mostly small-time stuff, but riders who hadn't had much luck might be inclined to improve their scores for the pro circuit. She guessed Lorenzo wasn't having much luck.

The Prize

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The fish would need a name, but she didn’t know how to tell if it was a boy or a girl. Did fish have penises?

The Model

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My art teacher hated Salvador Dali.

A Piece of the Sky

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For the briefest moment, she was part of the sky. She hung there. Frozen. Suspended. Arms outstretched. She thought maybe she could take off flying, if she strained against gravity hard enough. She would soar into the pale blue until she reached the clouds. They …

Burnab

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Lise started making up words when she lost her voice.

Ages One Through Ten

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Age Eight: Custody battle. Reassure your worried mother that it’s alright, this will give you something interesting to tell your children one day. Until now, life has been very vanilla.

The thing is

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It was not that he was boring – it’s just that he needed a lot of encouragement. When he came, he whispered to himself, ‘ohgodohgodohgod’ - like it was something to be ashamed of, to be sorry for. I wanted to hold him close against me but I also n