Most read stories

The Crest

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All I wanted to do was lay in his smell, I had missed him and didn’t know it before now. He got up to urinate at one point and his absence was obscene to me.

By Derangement of All Our Senses

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We will collapse in a storm of images

Alternate Tale

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Suppose Eve, strolling through the sunlit Garden, had not stumbled on that particular Tree at all, the wily serpent twined in its lower branches?

Crazy Later

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A year ago, my neighbor was a sexy graduate student in fashion design, sounds perhaps shabby, yet if it is, then we in the Middle West are all shabby. That girl's father graduated from high school with Bob Dylan in Hibbing, not entitling her to a child.

Moon Backstory

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Today clouds were dancing on the moon Moon had a fit but drew in a breath And let out a sigh

The Suicidal Juggler

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The man wore a bowler hat and stood on an open patch of grass, with a pyramid-shaped stack of baseballs at his feet.

Prophetstown

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The elders of the town will tell you that as soon the prophet mill arrived everything went to Hell. Before the process was streamlined, prophets used to be grown organically in the community. They popped up only where the ground was tilled and a prayer was planted. They…

Unconscious Primate Pandemic Panic

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I wrap my left foot

My Latest Failure

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Jason, the obnoxious host, thrusts his microphone against my nose.

Blackish by Reason of the Ice

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

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…

Mother O'Grady's Last

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Christmas night was closing in at the Cantrips alehouse in Aberdeen, a firm favourite for riggers and other men and women who lived life close to the horizon. Sometimes, on a Saturday night, things might get a bit rowdy but Mother O'Grady would stand firm and bring out…

Axes

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You think about the first time you saw an axe

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.

You Can Keep the Keys: Song

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Here’s the keys to the house Here’s the keys to the car I’m going out and I don’t care I’m going out to buy a cigar Don’t bother locking up after I leave I’m not coming back anymore I’m going to drink whiskey out of a jar Go out and buy

Chicken Noodle

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Damn this airplane

1888: Mrs. Sherwood

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Margaret will take her seven away from his raging Irish hammers slurry Saturday night honks smashing red eyes. They'll board a secret train countryside bound where they sing the songs of her own dead Mam who lived poor in the world but…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 17

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The next day we were sitting at that same outdoor café on the square, trying to savor a peaceful meal of duck plucked fresh from the Vltava River, when the very same waiter passed by and said, “Bet you wish you had some peeg now, no?” There were camer

2001, What I Wanted

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feet that would run until their soles were pages of Gideon’s Bibles, worn too thin to touch

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."

A Fine Life

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It's really not too bad. The personI am was me. We laughed insidethose sacred places at all the monieswell spent. We walked in the gardenswithout any shoes on. Not one singleflower seemed to mind. And now it'sa forgotten mess or so I've imagined.I'd rather you think about…

Sisters

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What Did We Fight Over?

The Code of Hammurabi

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We pull up chairs. I breathe in her Bath and Body Works vanilla, read her paper slowly and aloud because the ears catch what the eyes miss. Her sentences are awkward, stilted.

Gone

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Erased. Like chalk across my body, a fine powder of forgetfulness, with a few swipes --- all those names and faces, gone. The letters burned.

re·frac·tion

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bassackward/in the surreal/bathroom mirror

Should Have Gotten Delivery Instead

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My mind raced at the endless possibilities one could die while driving to get a pizza.

When to Say Pussy

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I have hired a relationship consultant. He helps me through conversations with my wife.

Full Frame

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A month before the real flowers came, amputated trees for 31 miles were festooned with pink blossoms. The petals were tufts of Fiberglass insulation shorn from houses incapable of withstanding 260-mph winds -- more than twice the punch Katrina delivered t

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.

Presage

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I am calling to tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow.