Most read stories

How to pick up women.

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The easiest and most legal way to pick up a woman is to take a single, writer friend with you to a bar. While there, look for the woman you are interested in. Her? Are you sure? Okay then. Next, tell your writer friend that the woman keeps looking at him when he's…

Did You Get Two

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“106 more miles,” she said.

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."

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

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.

Doctor Eyepatch

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That contraption he’d invited her to pedal, somebody oughta market one of those. The closer you got the harder it got, and her feet kept slipping off the pedals. It was maddening.

Valentine

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

Fun Times at the Memorial Park

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Good times, underground.

Desire

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She said “I have to go”, he answered with his eyes “Don't” and they stepped closer to each other in the kitchen, a step on the tiled floor, the remnants of their tea cold on the counter top.

Private Red

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Your favorite nickname existed only in the bright red cherry smoldering at the end of your smoke.

Hey Old Lady! Want To Buy A Reverse Mortgage?

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Facebook just hit me with an ad for coping with memory loss, probably because I just turned 63. As far as my favorite social media site is concerned, I am now an Old Lady. When I asked my Facebook pals who are also Seniors what kind of promotions have been turning up…

Carousel Horses

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From this distance, he reminded me of a sleazy pink flamingo, waiting for feeding time at the zoo to deepen the timbre of his feathers and hint at the promise of a narcotic aviation before his commune of hens.

The Gift

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Margie sprayed the gift with her most expensive perfume and tucked it into her sweater’s front pocket. This way she could hold it close to her on the subway, so no one would see the pretty wrapping and try to snatch it from her

I Wonder About the Trees

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I stole forth dimly in the dripping pause

Chatter

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The night before his mother's teeth began chattering.

In Distress

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When a multinational big box furniture store opened just off the expressway outside the city selling all the same products at greatly reduced prices, they contemplated the possibility of closing their store.

Yellow

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Slipshod shoes were the first sign of a meltdown. Sometimes she could see it coming. A prickly gentleman washing his clothes on a Thursday afternoon. One week he’s fine. Nothing wrong with owning a sour face. The next Thursday, his shoes don’t match.

The Best Banana Bread

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High Jinks

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“Gorgonzolla!” The remnant croaked, his eyes wild as he thrust an open hand in Jaffron's direction. A burst of energy tilted Jaffron's pod on its axis and sent it hurtling backwards...

The girl laughing in the dictionary.

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Trigger Warning.

The Everyday Juggernaut

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I will go to work in the morning and no one will stop me. I wish someone would stop me. I don’t know if my car will start in this cold. But if it does (it always does), I am going to drive to work.

Kate

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It’s that laugh of hers that gets me...

Salinger Pays Caulfield a Visit

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Out in the world again, pretending to belong.

A Good Man

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Charles tapped the anger management code on his steering wheel. He rolled down his street and saw Jack Watson throwing stuff into the trunk of his black Volvo coupe. He waved, but Jack did not wave back. Jack's face was blazing red. He looked like he might have a…

ghosts

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conflicts in time

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 chat between Li Bai and Du Fu

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graves left or graves lost, into silence death sinks:/it's leaving the living that leaves us such pain.

Snowed-in March Against the Beautiful Pain Memory of Love, A Ghazal

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Infinite patience, tempered glass hearts—is this what it takes? / Shatterproof backtrack, slow march through reversals—too, what it takes.

Vegas Elvis

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I followed the curve of the etched Koi, its filigree scales arcing across a taut midriff toward the indent of her pierced navel, where a collection of water lilies drifted on the surface of her skin.