Most read stories

A Skeptic’s Faith in Four Parts

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The universe will fuck you over in the end./ That’s what it does, what it’s good at—

Tax Tips From Tila Tequila, Professional Bisexual

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“We’re never going to get off the treadmill of paying ever-higher taxes," I said, "unless we get some creative suggestions from a professional bisexual tax advisor.”

Blackish by Reason of the Ice

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"Sara, do you taketh it with your eyes?"

The Widow Teasdale and the Ineffable Warmth of Personal Services

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

My Whole Life Story (Again and Again)

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When John wakes up, the first thing he does is run a bath, because his shower is broken, and while the bath is running he gets his breakfast ready.

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 Window

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Just beyond the tree, beyond the fence, close to the grey clouds that hung almost to the earth, a boy sat on another tree's stump. Beneath his crossed legs that he moved up and down rhythmically, under his bright red, Superman shorts, inscribed in the stump, a symbol which…

Sand Dollars

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“Life is on life’s terms,” she told me once. Her arm, wrapped in clear cellophane, was freshly adorned with a green-pigmented sand-dollar: a living shell.

Some Assembly but No Singularity Required

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

At the Reception

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"Check out these dudes,” he says. “They're all wearing kilts. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as they're wearing underwear.

Migrants

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She is too stylish to be crazy, is what the migrant probably thinks. And he's right.

By Derangement of All Our Senses

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We will collapse in a storm of images

needs

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addict for validation and cat tongues

to a gregarious stranger

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Three lines.

Far As You Want

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At a rest stop in Montpelier, they stopped to buy Cokes and gum from the vending machines. He was showing off, trying to jimmy one of the locks with a safety pin but it stayed locked and she laughed at him and he said goddamn, look at all a them Milkyways

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Gauguin

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Two angels walk in a dark cloud arm in arm discussing the nature of good and evil Walking along in flowing robes now that nakedness is forgot, and they both stare at the same eternal thought with their heads bowed as serenity is the only thing

Confession

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Tomorrow, they'd bury their daughter . . . and still, so many questions. Why would a beautiful fourteen-year-old choose for herself such a horrible, painful death? In life, she appeared the antithesis of suicidal ideation: excellent grades, well-liked in school and…

On Not Having an Affair With a Flamboyant Minor Dadaist Poetess

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It’s just that—well, I don’t know how to put this— With a Dadaist poet a non-affair is the height of erotic bliss.

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.

Chicken Noodle

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Damn this airplane

Freelance Your Way to Poverty

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Buyers of freelance writing have a well-deserved reputation for responding slowly, thereby increasing your pleasure in much the same way that the Pointer Sisters longed for a slow hand.

Winter '69

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One minute Rudy was sitting up close to me, asking me how could Geppetto make a little boy out of a piece of wood, and the next, Steve was pounding up the stairs, yelling, "Carla, get blankets, warm clothes; we're leaving, we won't be back."

Brothers of the Sacred Circle: A Prayer to Ares

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When our body falters, deny us rest. When our minds crack under the strain, forbid us sanity. When we are too tired to fight give us war.

re·frac·tion

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bassackward/in the surreal/bathroom mirror

Summer, 1995.

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I am no different to her, living seven days ahead of myself, looking forward to looking back, as we Irish do so fondly

At the Juvenile Bubonic Plague Telethon

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We’re not like a lot of your fly-by-night disease-based charities. Every pence we raise goes directly to St. Bartholomew’s, where 90% of it ends up in the pockets of doctors so they can buy expensive horses.

Canyon In The Clouds

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It was two days to town. His horse could only go one.

Ladybird

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On the other pillow is a ladybird which escaped from a dream. It reminds me of when I was a tiny red polka dot. And then bigger, and other colours. And then… I stare at the ceiling, searching its soul for little things. The ladybird touches my arm, whispers…

shakey

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You held my hand when I hit the ground and told me the shakes would start soon.

Robots Among Us

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Father hands Billy a length of rope. Billy builds his resolve, fights back his tears, heads into the kitchen. It's time to become a man.