Most read stories

I Was a Cat Once

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This is a 50-word story.

Profiling Robert Allen Zimmerman

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Since when has it become a crime to walk about a neighbourhood? No one will ever convince me that it 's okay to follow, harass, or approach any unarmed person with a gun and shoot them.

Fealty

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I wander toward the midnight dock a neon sine curve stabs my eyes

Only Temporary

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It was the middle of May when I found out my teacher was screwing my mother.

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.

The Bombs & Blood of Texas & Boston

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Running into the fire, the smoke and the chaos; selfless first responders, innocent bystanders, and dedicated runners

Making Time

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Sleep left him like a fragmenting illusion. Suddenly, he was awake, like something pressing but fleeting had awoken him. Once awake, though, all he had was silence and stillness. His pulse quickened, his…

"The Misses Moses," from my collection Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives (Norton 2010)

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The Misses Moses by Brad Watson from Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives The Moses sisters lived together, alone, in the fine old brick house near downtown where they…

The Ghosts of History

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In this lab, where I work 40 hours a week, live the ghosts of questions asked.

The Plinktonians

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Brian had spent the morning filling out applications all over Knox County, and by noon he was more than ready to call it a day. But apparently there was one last squirt of virtue in him, because heading home he saw a Help…

The 5 Senses of the Apocalypse

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The Rapture comes and goes unannounced in carbonated soda bubbles spicing the air.

Hello and Thank You!

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She didn’t think of herself as an undesirable, no, she didn’t, but did find herself cowering in face of the presumed judgment of those around her. They had more money, more clout, more everything.

Sniping

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Snipers wear camouflage clothing to avoid being seen. It wouldn’t do for a sniper to be seen because then the sniper might become the snipee.

Lost In The City

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They found it naught however as it was lost at metro stops, canceled appointments and in ever dimming light that failed to reflect what was instead of what could have been.

Shadow Play

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I read it all wrong. In writing her novel, I thought Marilynne Robinson was writing about twins — writing, in some way, about me. Instead, these characters, Lucille and Ruthie, were standard sisters, one older than the other. In fact, Robinson explains th

A Breviary

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Whistle for silence.

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.3 - c.3

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Mayumi and her friends arrived at the beach. The sun was near setting for the night, and a few stars began an early peek in the twilit sky.

Too Early, Too Late

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Things don't always go to plan. Gem knew what people would have said back then, of course. She wasn't stupid.

Monsieur, Monsieur, Nous Avon Pamplemousse!

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He came running out of his narrow little shop, Berthillon and chased me down the Ilse St. Louis street, saying, “Monsieur, Monsieur, nous avon pamplemousse! It’s ici, Monsieur. Your pamplemousse. They just come in this matin, morning and I’

Batteries For Smoke Detectors

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Crack open the roof-- raise the battery on a platform with chains up into the lightning

Sometimes, an audience of one is enough

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not of time, but of all the clocks/ that tick along toward the end/ of all the possibilities.

The Small Blue House

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She allowed him to wash her hair. Touching it in a wet state, running his hands through it in a soapy state, wringing the water out when he was finished—he was ecstatic.

The Apartment House

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Everybody called her The Crier because from time to time we would hear her crying.

Cousin

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“The beginning was good. That’s what he likes. The moment when you’re driving in the open air and your hair is flying and your skirt is whipping up around your knees, and he’s smoking, of all things, and happy and looking at you."

Zorro

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Zorro lived in his mother’s basement until he could get back on his feet.

Oh, Baby!

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One of the drunk men, a dear friend, hunk, as he updated me, now living the existence of a poet, called from San Francisco to say he would take the plane to Minneapolis, do it, then leave me to raise the baby.

Hara-kiri

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unwrapping the gauze from her wrists....

Achieving Inner Peace without facebook

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There was an empty box on his facebook page asking to be filled in with, “What’s on your mind?” He thought. "Hair?"

Ornithology

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Harpo was there with his wife. Harpo’s girlfriend came up behind the couch where I was sitting, and I ran my hand up her leg underneath her dress.

Valentine

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"His middle name is Valentine, and when asked about it, he isn't sure why."