Most read stories

The Canoeist's Luncheon. Renoir

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The artist leans back in his chair, smoking a cigarette after lunch, looking away from the table toward the right He is dressed in white, and he's practically stretched out his entire length, to relax after rowing the boat all morning. Sunlight

ace in the hole

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hookers are better educated these days

PERSUASION

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A story about convincing people to do things they don't want to do, written entirely in dialogue; originally published by CHEAP POP.

Sunflowers

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On that balcony, on every other day, she practised her other, more worldly religion - gardening, specifically sunflowers.

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 colour! The power! The vision!

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... and photos of friends from former lives: the Wolfman; Drac; the Mummy; my ungrateful Son; even my gold-digging, coat-tailer ex-wife.

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

Inbox (1)

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The email landed in his inbox.He'd been staring at the empty screen for a while now even though, really, he hadn't been expecting anything to arrive, yet there it was.He sat and stared, not daring to click it. He knew he shouldn't have sent a mail in the first place. He…

Zoo

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It's London Zoo and ten minutes to closing time. The clock walks in and out of cages. I love you baby when you laugh like that at monkeys.Penguin and pelican, wing in wing, approaching. It's some bird act, I know. Two birds from nowhere. One flies, one walks.The zoo…

The Invisible Woman

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"She saw they were absorbed in making faces at each other with a smartphone app that enlarged a mouth."

The Purple Prose of Cario

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I contemplate the words that did not make it; the lost ones. The words deprived of their moment in the sun. These words. These words that are not part of the story.

The Sweetness of Youth

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On my twenty-second birthday, in the spring of 1979, I had a crawfish boil, my first. Ninety pounds of red mudbugs on a picnic table spread with newspaper, my birthday cake sitting at the end of the table like an afterthought.I hadn't…

SNOWSTORM

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long lines, short words

It Isn’t Personal. It’s Business

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because you pay/ for it to matter to me.

"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…

Three Teeth

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Three teeth. You can pick them out if you hit pause just right. Probably not a person in the entire valley who hasn’t seen that video from the Eastern Cheerleading Finals. They even showed the tape on the eleven o’clock news in Scranton, my face ci

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

We All Fall Down

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I didn’t give her enough skin. The world will always hurt her.

Early Tuesday Morning

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The moon hung in the sky, round and pale, under cover of some wispy clouds.

Gravity Does Not Apply

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Gravity? What does that have to do with writing or with this improbable tether of blue marbles?

a parable

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jaws blossoming with drool,/ a captured wolf slinks low/ across the crowded land/ for that most tender lamb/ to catch it by surprise.

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.

even dead body

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I'm a jogger of these parts, but I've yet to discover a dead body, or even dead body parts, or worse yet, discover that my parts will be discovered by some unfortunate jogger.

Batteries For Smoke Detectors

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

Booming

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"I want more grandchildren to spoil," the woman said. Will took a swig of beer at such moments. Maxine only answered with “someday” and looked over toward her husband. She knew it was his fault, didn’t really know why, but blamed him anyway.

The Four Despairs of Lumpy

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children love to push the gas up and down my limbs

Don't move

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The tech turns off the music. The capsule blares. I am in Jurassic Park with Sam Neill. I am Timmy, descending the electrified fence, almost toast. I am Karen Silkwood, a deer in the headlights, then showering off plutonium. A garbage truck is compacting

Electricscooterland

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We were a perfect match of broken pieces of flesh and cobalt. We moved in waves of couch plastic crinkling and clicking.

Blackout

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The blackout lasted longer than anyone thought. From my fifth story window, the whole city seemed to shut down. I heard noises above me. How could it be?

Morning Sounds

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Morning sounds