Most read stories

Impetuous Daffodils

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...the daffodils will fling/ their yellow petals, taunting winter

Googling A Ghost

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My buddy had been in the computer business, a systems analyst. Surely there would be some mention of him online. But there was nothing. Nothing, that is, until I saw the obituary.

Confessions of a Closet Hoarder

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Many years ago I visited a nude beach. I undressed at the car and walked with my companions onto a California beach as naked as the day we were born.

The History of Strands

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We cannot love the past...

Winter's Presence 2010

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A short triangular plastic shovels into the/White plastic container filled with topaz crystal-like/Salt granulars. Scratchy sandy sounds echo.

Catching Forks

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Last night Jim taught me how to catch forks. Meaning, he taught me how to throw them. But he called it catching forks. It was late, and we were low down 3rd street, south of the Bay Bridge, the baseball stadium, all the people and cars, on top of a warehouse. There were a…

Sixty words or less

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She wakes up sad. She can't shit. She spreads out the foil. no creases. folds it in half. She puts the stuff in the crease. holds a lighter under it. A zippo. then smokes it. Well smokes the smoke. It's like kissing god or the…

Liz

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I catch a glimpse of myself in the small mirror on the adjacent wall and find myself becoming shy at my own reflection, which is ludicrous in theory, shying away from oneself, but as I lock onto the few freckles I have spread neatly on both cheeks...

The Rug

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Marge bought the rug on-line.

When Hadrons Collide

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When hadrons collide they’re not always Swiss. They may be cheese or neutral but that isn’t of my concern. Look at them, touch them, feel them, the quirks of the antiquarks, masonic mesons, baron baryon.

It Seems You've Stumbled Upon My Bildungsroman

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Why yes I began writing this, my bildungsroman, Who is Mitsy Jackson, in spring, 1974 or thereabouts, and thank you so much for asking.

Barnyard 1961

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The boy heard loud barks and squeals, climbed on a chair, and looked out the window at the barnyard and the faded blood red barn.

Date Night

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Content may contain ordinary, everyday, and all around average happenings.

Emma Louise

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Emma Louise is walking over a concrete bridge when she spies, out of the corner of her eye, a man fishing, waist deep, in the river tumbling below. She is thinking that the water must be very cold on this autumn day, when she sees an extraordinary thing.

Bearing Witness

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I hold them to the light...

Supersymmetric: Almost but not quite

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As black as his socks with a hole in them she used to sew while watching. The octopus has three hearts you know. Yes, No and Maybe. As black as inkpots, inkjets, as black as typewriter ribbons and the Gutenberg press, as black as the ink of a trillion

A World of Hurt

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Cat fight. I rush outside and swinging my trusty broom I charge the rolling yowling ball of black fur.

A Conversation With a Ghost

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This must never get out in the press, for it would cause widespread panic. The priests would surround my house, not to mention the police and possibly the army. Castor Desayuno has come back from the dead!

$5 K a Day

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We are all in big trouble. Here's some fiction to let your soul experience the beast.

The Hound - Part 4

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My gaze could have gutted any man. Any man, but John Marcy. History would write that John Marcy was a traitor to his country. Public enemy number one in the state of New York. When that probably couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Things I Learned But No Longer Believe

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Shakespeare had red hair / Van Gogh never painted a nude

Barbarian(s) Within the Gates

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This writers' conference (sponsored by VQR, which had run its banner ad atop the Fictionaut home page in the summer of 2014, which begins to explain both my attendance and this essay) revealed itself as an apt subject . . .

Safe

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She left knives and hot pots with handles akimbo. Like a guardian angel, he turned them in. Like an ungrateful Eve, she turned them back out.

If I Were a Chemist, Not Now, but Maybe In The 1920s

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She said, “I think I’m pregnant,” but I thought that the sidewalk looked cleaner than usual,

The Misfortune 500

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When I first started out in my working career, I made it the habit of obtaining jobs with companies that were about to go under. (I wrote more books while on unemployment than by any other method.) I was a real bloodhound at sniffing out the pre-dawn od

Kanha's Dream

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"Look at the grime on those curtains. Not fit for an Emperor. Pull them down. Put up fresh new ones. Not a spot." "Oh! Look at this throne. All uneven legs. The gems are not shining. The gold looks dull. Fix it, fix it, fix it!"

COLLEAGUES, ACQUAINTANCES SUSPECT MARK ZUCKERBERG IS A MASKED VIGILANTE

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COLLEAGUES, ACQUAINTANCES SUSPECT MARK ZUCKERBERG IS A MASKED VIGILANTE

Things to Do while Waiting for the Toaster

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For you have waited. And waited and waited. And soon your slice of bread will be ready.

Tostoi's Last Fiction: a footnote to a note

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The note was a lie, multiplied through each member of its potential audience....

After

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The next week, she sends a small white box in the mail / with tissue paper, a ceramic mold the color of bleached bone—