Most read stories

The Thousandth Day

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She pictured the President leaving the hospital a few days later, hobbling on a cane. Jackie beside him, Caroline and John-John dashing from a waiting limousine. He couldn’t die. She’d looked into his eyes. John F. Kennedy spoke to her.

The Dream Shop

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From nine at night until five in the morningthe mannequins staff the Dream Shop.Customers sleepwalk in and murmur their enquiries.Some of the patrons are very demanding.They queue outside before opening…

Girls U-10 Soccer Yakuza

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“Jesus Christ!” the man screams in pain, and a chorus of “Ewww” is heard from the girls' bench, where the severed body part has landed in a Yoplait strawberry yogurt.

On being offered a seat on the Bart train

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Remember when I entered a room and turned heads is my youthful charm a sputtering fire in the hearth

I fall out of love, learn not to worry, and get ready to embrace the foreign war...

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Love hurts... Really.

Poem for My Wife and Three Daughters

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Last night Ariana our second daughter, only 8,wanted to baptize you for your birthday. Her hair shimmered and the face of her joy reminded me of Two Oceans Plateauin the Beartooth Range in southern Montana.As she walked from the sink she carrieda large…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 7

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The logic of the impoverished was amazing. Like Rita telling me I owed her fifty cents for a token after she stole five million yen from me.

Water Break

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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…

A Writer’s Ramble

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In every writer's room there is a bogeyman born in the closet, growing with every blot on the virgin sheet, feeding on the pain of writing, of solitude, the failure, the rage, the confusion, the helplessness, the fear, the humiliation. The narrower the…

That's It

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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…

Arbitrary Dilettante

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Every damned time we came back to Richland County, I told JuneBug to just do whatever she had to do but to leave me and Skeeter out of it. And every goddamned time, we ended up somewhere like this, the two sisters hook-armed and conspiratorial, and Skeete

Bigfoot Walks into a Bar

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Some claimed seeing him that first time in the grocery store staring in at the pints of Haagen-Dazs, his breath fogging the glass as his head rested against the heavy freezer doors, stinking in his Sasquatch suit. The second time he was…

Nineteenth Century Noise

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The virtuoso tortures a violin/ in homage to Paganini.

Crack in the Cosmos

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There’s a crack in the cosmos, and pink is leaking through. There’s a crack in the cosmos, fix the sink, the toilet leak. There are many cracks in the cosmos, numerous. This is how time escapes. Good grief, they’re going to suck the cream

Klarheit oder Genug

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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."

Haiku Haiku, Fattened Feral Kittens, Hobgoblin Test

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and watch the bird play and squirrel play/ and the twitching of cottontail noses

True-Life Microaggressions or How I Learned To Live In America

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You speak English so well.

Chicken

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Puddles—not his real name, as you’ve probably gathered, but the kind of nickname a fat kid got tagged with in our neighborhood—kept stopping short, picking underwear out of his ass or taking a breather. This had the unfortunate byproduct of my crashing in

Time Flies

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Time has wings. They are bright and beautiful, like those of a butterfly. They are delicate wings, and they carry the years away from my decaying mind. I would break those wings if I could, for tomorrow I turn seventy-three, and I grow weary of their ince

Amtrak

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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…

A Brief Conversation With A Man Who Fell Off a Cliff

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I asked him where he hurt and he said everywhere.

Quinine Tablets

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a little bitter for the better

Not Even Know It

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I remember the man well, though he didn't notice me.Even though a million tiny things happened to cause his hand to brush me away from his neck, he didn't notice. Much like the way his eyes bounced off women's bodies as he hurried down the sidewalk in his blue wool…

Swiss Miss Index

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

Four Stories I Cannot Write

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“Per­haps instead of a book I could write lists of words, in alpha­bet­ical order, an ava­lanche of isol­ated words which expresses the truth I still do not know” — Italo Calvino albu­men before child grit secretlyshame august blood …

A Bitter And Unseasoned Business Attorney Makes His Case That "Crazy Heart" Is The Perfectly Nasty Ending

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In closing, Your Honor:After the interview Bad Blake, a/k/a "Otis" takes "Miss" Jane Craddock back to his hotel, ties her up, and gives her a Cleveland Steamer. For reference, please refer to my Brief, Exhibit A, showing a thespian named Ronald Jeremy…

Parallels

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“I honestly can't believe how much you eat, honey.”, Lenora said as I put down the fork after gorging myself on breakfast. Twelve pancakes, four eggs, two cups of coffee, a glass of milk, and half a pound of bacon had passed through my lips this morning. …

Losing Things

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I infuriate myself with this gift.

The First Snowfall

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the smell of the small cedar chips burning in the fireplace

Until We Died

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. . . hot sand and quiet ocean only.