Most read stories

Corkscrewing, Pt. II.

16381638 views00 comments11 fav

Well, just put your hand on my knee, alone in my room, perv, unasked-and-unflirted for, go get a date, you coward, you limp-dicked male bitch . . .

The Widow Teasdale and the Ineffable Warmth of Personal Services

16381638 views11 comment11 fav

Her cash. It smelled like seven-dollar-a-quart gardenia perfume and cave aged cheese—like hope overgrown with mildew.

The Hound - Part 3

16381638 views00 comments00 favs

The bullet split her head in half before she could finish her sentence. Her blood sprayed out onto my face and covered my lips. The taste of life as it suddenly ended.

The Sweetness of Youth

16381638 views99 comments88 favs

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…

Desert

16381638 views77 comments55 favs

On a trail, Richard and I came upon a saguaro cactus that had dried in the shape of a human figure. Its arms were lifted and its back was stooped. I said, “It looks like my mother.”

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 14: In Which 500 Fucking Words Appear

16381638 views22 comments11 fav

This was before the cancer, years before. He did this every day: up at five, before Astrid and Max. Four cups of coffee in the machine. A bowl of granola. Five hundred words. Five hundred words no matter goddamn what. Five hundred words on Sunday and Chri

Three More Micros

16381638 views1212 comments1010 favs

Three micros

The Four Despairs of Lumpy

16381638 views11 comment11 fav

children love to push the gas up and down my limbs

Painting with Big Mama

16381638 views44 comments33 favs

I still see Big Mama leaning over her garden to pick a zinnia to put in her still life. Her old pink slip, hanging diagonally a foot under her hiked up, ragged, stained dress, half covered by her paint smock, which matched her white, faux fur, bedroom sli

Hands Like White Porcelain

16381638 views1818 comments88 favs

Jesus is for sale. But he’s heavy.

The Tongues of Spring

16371637 views1717 comments1010 favs

Another new spring and the leaves

My Back (Facebook) Pages*

16371637 views88 comments55 favs

It's all over now, Baby Blue...

Okay

16371637 views88 comments77 favs

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.

Inbox (1)

16371637 views22 comments33 favs

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…

What People Do With Their Hands

16371637 views33 comments33 favs

I said, “If this rose doesn't grow another petal in twenty minutes, I'm burning down the neighborhood.” “Just let it go,” said Paul. “No,” I said. “That's what's happening right here.” “You'll try again next…

I Wonder About the Trees

16371637 views66 comments55 favs

I stole forth dimly in the dripping pause

Ransom

16371637 views33 comments00 favs

The Snowman grinned malevolently as the Sugar Plum fairies shook in their tiny powdered boots."Santa has one more hour and then you're all marshmallow toasts!" the Snowman said. He laughed and he laughed. His evil plan? He wanted the key to time delivered to him personally…

Chatter

16371637 views2020 comments1616 favs

The night before his mother's teeth began chattering.

Monsieur, Monsieur, Nous Avon Pamplemousse!

16371637 views77 comments00 favs

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’

Salem the Dead

16371637 views44 comments44 favs

My father's cousin is Salem the Dead. Famed, an infant Lazarus of Libya, he was brought lifeless from the womb, yet awoke to the chill of a mortuary slab.

The Creative Use of Meal Time

16371637 views44 comments00 favs

We’re more into the punishment that works its way in through the skin and coats the heart anonymously.

Some Assembly but No Singularity Required

16371637 views1818 comments1414 favs

The phone rings. The oven beeps./ The locomotive whistles and howls.

Vacation

16371637 views88 comments77 favs

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,

Staying In Place Staying In Place

16371637 views44 comments00 favs

The way each intersection in a city where you’ve lived a while becomes layered with personal archeology. The cafe that replaced a liquor store you avoided, and the friend (or lover) you broke up with there, and the way on the day of the big fire you

Bestiary

16371637 views1414 comments1010 favs

A woman posted a story on Fictionaut about discovering that her husband was a werewolf.

A Few Good Band Names

16371637 views44 comments33 favs

Auto and the Grease-Pits Sugar Cube Full Frontal The Holy Grill Crazy Al and the Squirrels Talk Is Cheap Grilled Cheese Sandwich Cold Zippers Destiny Howl Epiphany Critter Cold Kneecaps Crepes Pulled Pork Baby Seals and the Club

Relics

16371637 views33 comments00 favs

Theresa Esposito woke to the smell of pignoli cookies baking. The sweet scent made her stomach rumble. She was ten-years-old today. And she felt ten. Her hair, her ears, her eyes, her toes — everything felt ten.

Startle Reflex

16371637 views77 comments77 favs

I’m decades in and it hasn’t gone away. In all other respects, I am normal. Life is hard, but I’m not complaining. The thing is, I am in a constant state of falling.

Electricscooterland

16371637 views00 comments00 favs

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

Tick

16361636 views1010 comments33 favs

Palms planted firmly against his temples, Travis paced the room like a caged animal. Giant black bats screeched in his brain, their pointy wings scraping at the edges of his cranium.