Most read stories

Our Merchant-Ivory Weekend

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“A shibboleth is a test—a way to separate da wheat from da chaff that's as old as the Bible, but as new as the latest trend in men's fashions,” Gus says.

Bash

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Luke was in the gutter, his face in stagnant water littered with cigarette butts, condom wrappers, and green shards of glass from broken beer bottles. A man was kicking him in the face with a boot the size of a U-boat, over and over and over again. Blood

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.3 - c.5

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The sound of the crowd’s excitement, their smiles, and laughter started to turn Mayumi’s thoughts about life in the Magi world.

Something New

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You see the ocean for the first time on our honeymoon. Your large feet dig deep into the muddy sands of the Maryland coastline as your blue eyes swell at the infinite water before you. I wrap my…

Another Etiquette Lesson from the Jungle

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I lie on the floor of the hut and for some reason I start to think about the Harvest Days carnival and that game where you have to toss a dime in a dish to win a stuffed animal. Next thing you know I’m a little tiny guy in there in that world of plates

I Hate You

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go ahead stick one more morsel into that piehole

Your Love Life

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Maintaining a healthy love life requires effort and professional advice, and Your Love Life columnist would be happy to assist you.

Myra

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When I got to Pete's house he was sitting on the curb smoking a cigarette, bruised and dirty, with a smoking pile of rubble behind him where his house used to be. I hadn't heard yet, but his ol' girl left him and blew up the house when she left.

The Cracked Sidewalk of Kentucky

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One summer night, as I walked alone down the cracked sidewalk of Kentucky underneath a canopy of maples where the moonlight fell through branches and lit my path with uneven lines I wondered: where does the residue of lust and desire go when everything you want to…

The Next Landscape

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The day came shyly up to me like a rolling orange thing. Perhaps of alien origin, but not if the Buddha of our foolish hopeless dreamer inside has anything to say about it. It said, pick me up. I did. It looked like forever on the inviting horizon with trees as…

The Man Who Defied Gravity

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Let us be stranded in the Andes and have to eat human flesh or at least toothpaste to survive! Let there be an earthquake! Let there be a flood! Let there be a tornado, a new ice age, an invasion from Mars. Only: let me survive.

Wandering the Streets of Fitzrovia

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I’m deathly afraid of the pub crawls of my ancestors, through Bohemia and Fitzrovia because of the ghosts of alcohol already etched inside my veins and the headlong loss of oxygen

The Beauties Abandon You

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The skin will stay but you won’t see it,/ camouflaged by creases, tags, and curious/ deposits of renegade fat and pigment.

The Land Collector

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He liked owning acreage.

The Big Name Buttons

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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

SNOW ANGEL

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I do this when I think of you. Today we took the first steps towards you're never here.

Etienne's Voice

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And suddenly, I have this crazy impulse, so crazy and so puzzling I do not possess enough vocabulary and grammar skills to describe what is invisible and what is visible about it. The reader must excuse me and be attentive.

The Outlaws

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"So, what do you do for fun around here? I mean, other than each other?" Carlo's smirk broke into full-fledged laughter; Yuri feigned shock. Iris leaned forward and breathed into Bronte's ear: "We misbehave."

Arcana Magi Wisp

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Gon found himself slowing behind everyone. His wings slowly tired. The bird took a chance and pulled up. He could feel it behind him.

Jack-in-the-Box U-Haul

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“When I was six years old, Dad came home from Vietnam and picked me and Mama up from her sister's house in Boston. We packed a U-Haul with everything we owned from T.V. to toothbrush. Dad hitched the trailer to the Rambler and drove us South, back home to Carolina. A…

The Sleep of Trees (Three Parables), part 3

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in a puddle of water, the butterfly rests on a stone

Foundations

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King's splendid stronghold Pressing down the earth below Broken by the grass

Teleprompts

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In what appears to have been a coordinated, coast-to-coast attack, country clubs across America were attacked last night with firebombs and heavy contaminations of herbicides.

Age is Relativity

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Albert Einstein was probably the genius of our age. Joe Biden is a close second, yet Einstein not only had better hair but a keener knack to think of things that no one else could, or would, or would ever want to, since if they did, their brain would shockingly combust in a…

Location

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A sunrise over the dark Atlantic, on a perfect beach day, tasting of salt and warmth and powdered sugar; of last, desperate kisses of youth, still shivering from delicious night, is beautiful.A sunrise over the dark ruins of Syria, on hot dusted stones, tasting of lament…

Serving

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patience is....

a supermarket horror story

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stoned,/ i made the mistake/ of walking to the store across the busy street/ to find myself in the middle/ of the pep-up/ for a basketball game/ or something like that.

13 machines from the Bird King's private collection

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1. The sparrows' heads revolve slowly when you press the red button, but the boxing glove attachments don't work.2. A weird weaving of voices, unmusical harmony. One phrase punctures the texture: “The empty slot.”3. Poems are processed into more useful verbal…

You'll Stand At My Graveside (after Mary Elizabeth Frye).

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Don't throw earth on bones.

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…