Most read stories

Never Trust A Thief

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His looks were polished like his shoes, his hair as black. No one would have guessed he made his living as a thief.

But It's Been a While

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When I first met Luther he was sitting on the sidewalk, his back pushed up against a vacant storefront wall, thumbing through the “help wanted” section of a few-days-old copy of our local paper and I was moved to offer him a couple of dollars for which he said,…

A Breviary

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Whistle for silence.

Caster Knox

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Caster had always imagined the Consensus as a big room, as big as the world, filled with white space and people with quantum wings, flitting about, creating information. There were tinted bubbles for people to share for privacy, and the lights never went

The White Dogs Of West Emerald Street

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I wondered if Mr. Slane even knew/ how many dogs he owned

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.

Rinds

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I miss Mother gentling the small of my back. She has forgotten me. Her little girl. Whose thumb she fussed over when a rose thorn scratched it and blood spilled like a secret. Whose smile she said was her morning sunshine, whose hug was incense. I yearn for her lips…

Zorro

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

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.

"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…

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.

The 5 Senses of the Apocalypse

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

Girl With a Typewriter Mouth

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The Girl with a typewriter mouthhas a body like a single sheet of blank white paper. I wasobsessed with the Beatles, she tellsme. Well, there are worse things to beobsessed with, I tell her. No, shesays, I mean REALLY obsessed. Oh,is all I can think to reply to…

A Terse Invocation of Cuttlefish

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Once the limits of human commitment to logic are conceded, cuttlefish may in fact be deemed superior logicians to all other aspirants.

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

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.

Only Temporary

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

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

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 Star... an excerpt from The Exile of Gaspar

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The night is very clear and unusually cold. We are so near to the star that its light banishes the darkness that tries futilely to extinguish it. A small village twinkles in the foothills to our east. The cry of a lost sheep cuts the night like a blade

1958-1961

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In those years, you and I were told to leap for a world suffused with sound and industry.

Hara-kiri

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unwrapping the gauze from her wrists....

The Ghosts of History

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

Early One Morning at Denny's

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Throughout breakfast Quebec kept watching this investor fellow, John Lytle. She tried remembering something about him, about when they'd first met. Her first impressions were very nearly always correct. But all she could bring to memory now was that it

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.

Walking on Water

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After his chemotherapy failed, he went water skiing.

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.