Most read stories

Amtrak

17191719 views77 comments22 favs

She had liked her new husband's sternness, and the way he ran his hands over her body, noticed every inch of it, made her feel not invisible.He traveled during the week, wore cufflinks, worked out in hotel gyms. On the weekends, they redecorated her house and tried to…

I'll be Home for Christmas - 2

17191719 views1616 comments66 favs

Warning: contains sexually suggestive comments.

Small Talk

17191719 views66 comments22 favs

Her fingers scampered over the table, practicing the deft stitching of the basilar artery.

Popcorn Tigers

17191719 views11 comment11 fav

The last row of furniture is all black leather. In unison the tigers hop onto a couch a piece, sit calmly on their haunches, and reach for remote controls buried in the cushions. Roaring, they paw at the remotes.

Falling Off The Roof

17191719 views44 comments00 favs

"As the thing lurches upright, I can see now that it is an old woman with snake eyes… a dead old woman with snake eyes and peeling flesh. She is putrid and maggoty. She is coming right at us. She is my mother."

Perdition

17181718 views44 comments22 favs

There existed within them the deeper perdition, of course, the perdition of culture, American culture, the 21st Century suburban version, made up of Strip Malls From Hell.

Klarheit oder Genug

17181718 views55 comments55 favs

F.B.I. then or: "I said later 'for a boob job' and imagined her, a public lawyer, wandering Arizona on foot unable to hide a Playboy-Mansion style rack."

Processes

17181718 views1212 comments99 favs

How to Boil Water How to Cook an Egg How to Eat How to Think How to Love How to Die

A note from Liu Xiabo

17181718 views88 comments66 favs

I think about the weight of those words—how they are silenced by the weight of stone, by the weight of 11 years in a Jinzhou prison cell,

Bliss

17181718 views1717 comments1111 favs

When he got out of sick bay, they moved him into a room with three other alkies. A kid, a tree trimmer, and a Catholic priest.

Rio, 1946

17181718 views1515 comments66 favs

Now his daughter was an American citizen and Max wanted only the chance to board the SS Maua and disembark in New York.

The Big Name Buttons

17181718 views11 comment00 favs

Pay attention: our names were Bobby, Didi, Joanie, Mitch and Sam. It was popular in those days to wear big name buttons across your chest, and we’d line up side-by-side as we watched our reflections affix said buttons, anchoring them to our stiff lapels

Agnés and Albertine

17181718 views44 comments22 favs

Albertine had never loved Agnés. Oh! She had liked her very much. Especially her wit, the skin at the nape of her neck, even the two freckles on her arse that would bloom when licked.

God's Vial

17181718 views55 comments33 favs

The porous bear the anchorite’s vial

The Man who was followed by butterflies

17181718 views11 comment00 favs

They hovered and darted but, after a while, they seemed to be always around him. Lapping at him like the mellow waves that stroked the muddy bank.

Badface Investigates - Fighting

17181718 views11 comment00 favs

I’m lying on the floor curled up in the foetal position and about six people are stamping on me. [...] It’s really confusing down here, what with all the kicking.

Buzz Kill

17181718 views22 comments11 fav

Blood had soaked through his Converse All-Stars, and into his cotton sox. It was the smell of metal, of iron more specifically, that nudged his mind out from the fog of shock and denial, closer to the reality of his circumstances.

Swiss Miss Index

17181718 views44 comments11 fav

Rye goods * Cracker brot: best practices * Recipes: never embellish! * Boughten: what to avoid

Van Gogh: Sidewalk Cafe at Night

17181718 views22 comments00 favs

The heart of those stars is a dab of yellow light. The darkness of the blue night appears so deep because the downward strokes of the actual sky are interspersed with a violet that’s almost black,

That's It

17181718 views22 comments22 favs

I am heading to work. It's early and Clare is still asleep. When I hit the breezeway I realize that I forgot my keys. I walk back into the house and start rustling through the junk on the table by the door. After a moment I sense someone standing behind me and…

Dark Horses

17181718 views1212 comments1111 favs

I'm in Joel's front yard when I dodge the third call from my divorce lawyer. I'm here for Joel; I can't seem to show up anywhere unless it's for someone else. We watch his son, Andy, push his bike up the hill. This is the…

Buzzkill.

17181718 views11 comment11 fav

[EXPLETIVE DELETED]

The Mermaid's Revenge

17181718 views1010 comments44 favs

Lapping salt beads from/ my crackling, ecstatic lips.

Wink

17181718 views66 comments55 favs

It's just another night in the old city, perched in the skeletal radio tower with my collection of telescopes

Nineteenth Century Noise

17181718 views2121 comments1313 favs

The virtuoso tortures a violin/ in homage to Paganini.

Lost

17171717 views55 comments11 fav

I can't find my way back to the library. I've heard of this happening, that if you leave even for just one day and for a very good reason, as good a reason as mine, you may not find your way back. Now why should this be so? I do not understand this library. It houses…

Drive-by Neighborhood Fiction Flash

17171717 views99 comments77 favs

It's about dinner time. My neighborhood is in Sa-bur-bia. Driving my gold 2007 Malibu i pass Chick. She notices me and stares standing in front of her house. We were friends about ten years ago. Chick is still divorced. Tall skinny legs. Educated blu-ish eyes. Wet…

The Polymath

17171717 views99 comments55 favs

Now that I am dead, my god will fight your god...

Water Break

17171717 views1111 comments99 favs

Whenever you act as if you're one of themit makes perfectly sad sense tome; you are one of them; we're supposed to believe there areno shadows in that particular choice? When you areone of them, they say youfall asleep with a peaceful droopinglip to your smile. When…

Some Things You Never Forget

17171717 views00 comments00 favs

Some things you never forget, especially if they are repeated frequently. I cannot hear her voice saying those words, now, I have forgotten its timber, its pitch, but I remember the words.