Most read stories

Hello Cheryl

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“Hello, Cheryl” the voice on the other end of the phone replied. It was strong but raspy, yet quiet and controlled. The fellow sounded like he had a frog in his throat. “How do you know my name?” she asked. “I know a lot of things about y

Gerontophile: An Imposition

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His shirt, striped, fuzzy, is of fabric like velour and wreaks havoc with sunlight. His seat faces the aisle, I am sitting forward-faced across the aisle, we are on a half-full city bus, this afternoon.It is a funny shirt so I smile. I am not smiling because of…

Greenback Fly

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It doesn't take a genius to figure how he sank, in the drink, like Jeff Buckley. Like a stone.

Maxims (Part 1) Taken from Twitter - Iain James Robb

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You can tend to recognise the difference between a good and mediocre mind by observing how each reacts to a misfired original idea.The mediocre mind will praise the merely meretricious, but ignore the more interesting bad art. The higher mind will value the misfired…

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.4 - c.3

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Jumping from roof to roof, Keiko and Rumiko remained quiet after hearing Mayumi’s story. They saw the shrine ahead but they knew they were going to run out of buildings to stay above.

Starting from Scratch

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Each time his eyes closed, he shook off the sleep, whimpered, and opened them wide again. I’d never watched a baby fall asleep before, but I realized at that time that falling asleep could be a scary thing. The world gets fuzzy and starts slipping awa

5 Narratives From The Field Museum (Naturally)

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5 Narratives From The Field Museum (Naturally) 1. The American wife asked her French husband why it took him 50 words to ask which pass they would need. He said, “Because it does,” and they argued more, each in their own words. 2. The child…

Rubber-Band Requiem

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“Now we lay you in your grave There was no way you could be saved You hate our lord Jesus and he can tell Which is why you will burn in hell.”

The River Where His Lover Lay

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“He put his stuff down—sunglasses, lotion and so forth—and I noticed there’s a little notebook that he didn’t have before.‘What’s that?’” I asked, and he said ‘Nothing.’”

Ballerina

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His mother was a ballerina.

Exchange Student

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Sometimes he could feel so small he believed he could fit through the eye of a needle.

I Don't Understand Poets

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I haven’t read many of them, these poets that they speak of – Whitman and his Leaves Of Grass, Mary Oliver and her wild life

At the Jube

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I started walking around the Jube like any other sheep, lemming, or penguin: passing plate glass windows, one after another.

Hometown News: Newsprint Jesus (part 1)

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I had enough judgment, anger and vengefulness from the people around me in the steel town of Pueblo, Colorado, where I was growing up. I didn’t need more from my God.

Moony Star Moony Star

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a lost children…

Back in the Shower

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Naked, we stood in my shower. When she kicked my tool, I noticed she had a toe ring.

Snow and snow and snow and snow and snow and snow and snow

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A tough enough signal to read under the best of meteoric circumstances, this is one maybe I'll keep on thinking about. I might be able to make something everlasting out of this crazy price for love after all. I no longer…

What you're waiting for.

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I figure maybe I’m mostly alone; they are all running down staircases or falling down fire escapes, some of them naked, some of them with towels, mostly probably naked though.

Orpheus Today

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It is only seven-thirty but the night is full, gloom seizing Highway 66. There is a carcass on the road, maybe a human, slumped next to an empty ice cream truck. Several stars hang up in the East, drunken constellations scrambling to find meaning.

The Obsession of Bentley Squeamish

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The thing Bentley remembered most about her was she had no body odor. None.

Still Life (55 words)

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It wasn't so much the softness of the bed that kept her from sleep, or the pungent bleach-scent of the unfamiliar sheets, but the lack of her clock's familiar tick, tick, tick. Or was it a missing heartbeat? Awake, she watched his chest. On the table, an empty pill …

Low On the Hog

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Living lower on the hog than anticipated lower on the hog than previously expected lower on the hog than desired Living on the underside of the hog belly pretty much bouncing on the ground beneath the aforementioned hog belly Living clos

Grand Theft Auto (a true story)

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He took the car out into the middle of Nowhere, Mexico, and drove it at top speed, off-road for a day and a night. I am talking strut-breaking, axle-wrecking, wheel-bending, paint-peeling conditions and balls-to-the-wall, testosterone-drunk driving.

THE KING OF ULSTER

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How does a mixed couple come together in the Troubles?

Excommunicado

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not every punishment proceeds / without a hitch

Wilma

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Every morning, Wilma's husband Richard would cross the street and visit with a neighbor, always after the neighbor's husband left for work. Wilma was a loner, never bothered with neighbors. She enjoyed sitting on her patio in her lounge chair,…

A Christmas Mistake

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But that night we were happy, looking all around at the bright lights of the several cities that we could see.

Ashes (for RC)

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Floating along the ebbs of the ocean,toward the horizon, where time has no say,an end that will never be reached.

That Which Does Not Kill You (Only Postpones The Inevitable)

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Harold Smithe awoke that Tuesday morning precisely at 6 am. He did this every day for as long as he could remember. Even on the weekends when his schedule varied. Well, varied slightly. He lay in bed trying to wake up and mulled over the things he needed to accomplish for…

Crossties

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Regrets lined behind him like crossties on a railroad track.