Most read stories

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.

I'm Face Blind. Who The Hell Are You?

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The real problem with being face blind isn't that you can't recognize faces. It's that people expect you to be able to.

Concubine on the Ginza Line

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so I tighten hands with my castaway and say/you failed to impress in your folded peacock dress

Rowdy

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Flash’s hackles stood brushlike but he kept his head bowed just enough beneath the bigger dog’s stare to delay the inevitable fight. Flash, Mal thought approvingly, would pick the time and place.

Pretending Veracity, History Winks

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Mosaics are a trick of the eye, seeming

Sister (pt. 1)

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Slept on a chair last night in the Springfield, Mass., bus terminal. It was March, and a dude in shorts asked: "Yo, you smoke trees?" I said, "Sure. Who doesn't?" He said, "You buyin'?" I said, "Nope, I'm going out of the country." He smiled and said, "Alright." He started…

For Better or Worse

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I married a penguin. Her waddle made for a scenic view.

Nothing to laugh at, at all.

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The house had to be clean - I mean thorough-clean - when he got home from the pit for his tea, or he’d throw his plate at the wall and the gravy would run down onto the carpet. There was always gravy.

You Can Go Now

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The summer when I was six and my sister Audrey was eight, she'd walk around our house pretending to be in a trance, fingers strategically hovering over my mother's vases and lamps, leaving smudges behind on my father's heavy oak desk and rocking chair. She'd lumber past my…

Curry

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I looked around in my pantry but there were no sentences I felt like cooking.

In Small Packages

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Linus had it right with the security blanket he held like a beloved pet swan. Geneva had it all wrong with a pastel-colored music box, painted with impressionist-styled daisies and tied up in gold-ribbed pink bow. But it had come from her grandmother. Her

snatch 4

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...fingers...

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.

Indulgence

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I crave the confines of the convent

Howie Mandel

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

The Animal Cracker Incident (Part 2)

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“I feel like my bones are melting.” Her arms are wrapped around her body tightly, like she’s trying to hold herself together. She’s shaking; I can hear it with every breath she takes.

Micro Trilogy

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

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.

a nice girl is like powder

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I remember mad strong words out of a teenager, fresh from the shower without a blouse: First! He will be my age, period! He will be the first to walk me to my room as my fear crashes to earth, final, considered. And I will be the first to milk the w

Summoned by the Board

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They were all sitting naked in a sauna and drinking Diet Coke, with droopy ball sacks and sweat rolling over massive man titties and paunches. Yahweh sat on an upper bench, wearing dark goggles to protect his eyes from the brightness of his own still radi

Frances at Virginia Beach

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My husband waits for him to hurt himself. The boy drinks red wine between movements, Staring hypnotically at the back Of a girl’s head.

One of Us

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“We’re starting to get into weather control,” Mark said. “Can you really do that?” Rachel asked, trying to sound supportive and not skeptical. “There are people out on the west coast in Seattle, who’ve been experimenting with it,” Mark said. “Bec

Out of Character

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Co-workers have started calling him Jesus, Manson, Foghat, Doobie Brother, hippie, hipster, Grizzly Adams, Dude Lebowski... there’s really no end to it.

Word Fish

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Looking with his ears, Hearing with his eyes, Not really mute, he simply didn't know how to speak.One word, then another string together,a crack spreads across an ice covered lake. Now there is an open channel, and his thoughts roil the…

The Adventures of Tequila Kitty: Chapter Two: Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady - by Aimee Hamel

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He took off his sombrero and playfully placed it on my head. “And really, don’t be upset. You’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with loving your cat.” He was right, there is nothing wrong with loving your cat. But there is something wrong with owning a di

Robert, The Architect

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Robert Townsend had planned his suicide for ten years, and on July 10th, 2010 he took a long, hot shower to set the mood.

Crescent City, Spring '97

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It takes almost an hour before I drift to sleep on the bus. When I wake up in Crescent City, I’m surprised. Maybe I was going somewhere else in my sleep. Walking out of the station, it feels like a strange place. Somewhere I’ve never been before. The

Intangible Vectors of Influence (from "Emergency: Three Romances")

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The young cop says, “Sorry ma’am, you’ll have to wait.” In the strobing red-blue glare he looks like a teenager. Melissa wonders if Tony had looked so young when he started, all those years ago.

Missing

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... he led what might be called a quiet life

Full

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The trash is full. Again. I open the bathroom trash—because the diaper genie is stuffed—but there’s no room. I try the kitchen next. The lid swings open, catapulting carrot shavings onto the floor. I lay the diaper on the counter for later.