Most read stories

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 Coin, Two Coins

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It hangs unspoken in the sadness he pushes through his harmonica, while his hands work the old, beat-up guitar that tries to be a Gibson for his fingertips.

A Scalar Boson a Day

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. . . the empiricism of the mechanical had wound tight into her, lessons her few calendars could never impart without aid from sundials, hourglasses, clocks.

Route 346

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Route 346 is the way Pop drove to Troy long after everybody else took Route 2. Today Charlie and I drive in the opposite direction. Back then, Pop drove us to Troy on Route 346 on Sunday afternoons with the car windows…

The Best Banana Bread

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Animal Shadows

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One day when they were sitting on the curb together at 4th Street and Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa and Joe was calling out to passers by in a singsong voice, “Spare change for cigs,” she had persuaded them that they should try to join the circus.

Spider and Fly Cafe

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I saw it coming from five feet

The girl laughing in the dictionary.

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Trigger Warning.

Exit 30

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They meant no harm when they flooded farms in its swirls and eddies

Roy and Ray

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Roy Carver owned a big tire retreading outfit over on the Mississippi.

In the Stream of Space Expanding, Eddies

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Microscopic purposes emerged// with their combinations and permutations

Gravity

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"seventy five degrees longitude submerged in holy rivers out of my mind emerge anointed paramahamsas"

Stitch

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He refuses to answer his phone, preferring the safe medium of email or his answering machine. He only eats pre-cooked, pre-packaged food, only drinks bottled waters, sodas and juices. He has cable, but only watches late-night infomercials and shopping cha

OF ALL 2,000 YEARS

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OF ALL 2,000 YEARS 10 Point The city after the snow was Medieval, the thousand paths wound as browsing deer. Inside her coat what wild heart. Lethe The beads were rolled-river at her throat, milk blue on a yellow string. I…

A Life of My Own - 4

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"Middle class workers and working class poor and the unemployed will soon be forming a revolutionary movement to break this stranglehold of corrupt elites."

Language Lesson

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I smoked my cigarro under his watchful eye. We were never able to make too much conversation even when I was teaching him at Educenter. Now that David had opened his own school, Evert had come to learn with him because it was much more affordable, but he

Anonymous Hackers

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A university student who triggers a flash mob in the heart of Silicon Valley to prove her hacking creds finds herself in deep trouble when the colorful members of Anonymous Hackers prove their hacking creds to her.

Goddess

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“So, do you still think I'm hot? I mean, do you think men still find me attractive?” Jenny asks. This is never a good question to answer, much less entertain. I know this as surely as I know anything. Still, let's break it down. I am married. Jenny is…

The Masquerade

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Atlanta, 1990The night we almost died,crushed at a one-hit wonder concert,comes back to mewhen the club announces it's closing.An ancient excelsior millturned industrial dance hall,I spent three years mapping every dark corner, finding secret places for sex and…

Road to Nowhere

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I could smell a bold combination of cheap perfume, stale smoke, and sex excreting from her weathered pores. The bus engine hummed as we climbed a winding road. She scratched her neck and tried to finger comb through her knotted hair. I caught a glimpse of

Wall talks to wall

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Wall talks to wall. One has a clock, the other a window, the third a cupboard with bandages etcetera. The fourth a door that opens and closes a thousand times a day.Chair is across from chair. Occasionally the one looking for care picks the wrong one to sit in, and there is…

from Presence

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we gave divided houses / child stand up anyway

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 24

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When Frank entered Michiko’s apartment, Michiko was not there.

Vacation

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I imagine you in the States, pushing stacks of work papers and our memories to the side, sense your enjoyment that you won’t see the worry of your behavior reflected in my eyes again. That you can buy and bang and be whomever you want,

Alarming Apples

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I struck up a conversation with the cricket. We talked about Super Nintendo and cookies and we fell asleep on the boulder. The next morning, I woke up and offered the cricket a donut. He enjoyed the donut thoroughly...

A Memoir

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…she smelled of sunflowers.

Remember to Sing

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“Not all the birds are to be trusted, and there are other spies more evil than they are.” —J.R.R.Tolkien This may well be our own about time, time to walk out that comfortable front door forever into danger. Nothing will ever…

Mr. Kunitz, Mr. Lowell, Mrs. Craig

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Although I think we can easily work it out because we are not here in the Yale graduate school, and diction is the theme of the story. Diction is a choice in language.

Ghost Returns Home

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"Do you know how long they've waited for you?" Elle asked. "At first, it was every day after school, waiting at the windows. They wouldn't go play with friends because they wanted to be here, in case you returned. Then, they used to believe you would come

Okay

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I supposed reluctantly that Princeton is soft as Macalester College is soft. A person could die just for having attended U.W.-Madison or Yale.