Most read stories

Whoami

15401540 views1616 comments1313 favs

A woman with fallen breasts is attempting to hang her laundry on a string. Two tall men mount horses and ride them into the meadow. A squad of children wrap themselves around a playground.

Peggy Guggenheim Visits an Operation

15401540 views22 comments22 favs

To pay the bill.

Saga For The Eyes

15401540 views44 comments22 favs

Stars fat as the stars that Van Gogh painted on his easel in Arles, a ring of candles burning on the brim of his hat. Stars that fill the night with delirium.

How Sturdy Is Your Sick Bag?

15401540 views77 comments22 favs

A wave lifted me from my seat, scattering more drops of vomit around, and I thought nastily about bringing the motion sickness bracelets back inside, dripping bags in tow, to ask for a refund.

just not working

15401540 views44 comments33 favs

some days you wake up/ to feel horror/ wrapped beneath your blanket./

The Vermeer of Shoes

15401540 views44 comments44 favs

My flash kept going off. The museum officials are strict about such matters. Sans flash! Sans flash, Monsieur!

You Don't Listen

15401540 views00 comments00 favs

What time is it? 3:47. Adam says before 5 is too early. Maybe he should stay home with our daughters once in a while. Let’s see him make it to 5 o’clock. It is Friday. I’ll mix it with orange juice. He never notices. I better check on Debra.

Bandit

15401540 views33 comments33 favs

I didn’t see the little boy run up to Bandit until it was too late. The kid was about four and was excited to see such a big dog. He reached out his hand to pat Bandit’s head and Bandit lunged at him. The leash was wrenched from my hand, leaving a bloody

When the buck stops (3-Minute Fiction entry)

15401540 views33 comments11 fav

This was looking down from what we know as The Grassy Knoll.

Quintet in a Minor Key Near the End of Time

15401540 views1818 comments1010 favs

The one thing I believe in is collapse./ Abandoned buildings collapse. Civilizations// collapse. Financial bubbles collapse./ Stars and galaxies collapse. Falling// is something that comes quite naturally/ to puffed up things.

Luce

15401540 views22 comments11 fav

Lucy shrugs into the corner of the train's seat. She envelopes her IPod in both hands as if she's praying or holding a conch shell: safe, secure like when she visited a Morcombe beach in the school holidays. The only giveaway's the white headphone cord.

The Element of Ritual

15401540 views00 comments00 favs

Nurse Smithers straightened Dr. Baumgartner’s feathered head dress. it had slipped down below the caduceus so carefully painted on his forehead by the medical ritual staff.

A Change in Plan

15401540 views1313 comments1212 favs

Times were tough back then. Just a few jobs. This was in the late thirties. It's the story of how Albert hooked up with Iris. Their unlikely meeting took place when they met out on the Highway 61 right-of-way just outside of Natchez, Mississippi, each trying to hitch…

Dispensation

15401540 views99 comments55 favs

My life was growing on me like a soft Scottish moss

The Tongues of Spring

15391539 views1717 comments1010 favs

Another new spring and the leaves

You're All Knuckles

15391539 views22 comments11 fav

Her eyeballs are made of fur, like plush little bumblebees at home in her sockets.

Osama, Osama--He's After Your Mama!

15391539 views00 comments00 favs

Captain Zeep came to Earth at last century's end to help pave the way for a Zorkian takeover by 2012 at the latest. Key to the game plan: Earthlings had to get dumber than eggplants. When George Bush stole the White House, Zeep figured, Bingo, dumb…

STIFF NOW! The Early Embalming Craze Sweeping the Nation!

15391539 views44 comments44 favs

Originally designed for para-morticians and pre-professional undertakers, the Protocol has now been certified and approved for over-the-counter purchase and is completely safe (check local regulations for sales to minors: not approved for veterinary use).

Tales from the Golden Age

15391539 views66 comments11 fav

Fucking buffalo, the curse of the writer.

Happy Birthday Mr. Watterson, Wherever You Are!

15391539 views77 comments44 favs

Bill Watterson isn't just the creator of the world's best comic strip. According to the book “Looking for Calvin and Hobbes,” a biography of the elusive and reclusive cartoonist, Watterson is also a world-class introvert. Watterson refuses to make…

The Best Kisses

15391539 views1111 comments55 favs

So I told her think of it this way: you’re my unlived life.

As Poetry Month Ends, Prosaic Types Get Their Turn

15391539 views55 comments44 favs

“I’m going,” O’Bannon-Krim says with exasperation as she throws trinkets such as Dylan Thomas beer coozies and Edna St. Vincent Millay hair scrunchies into a cardboard box.

Present Tense

15391539 views88 comments55 favs

What fascinates me now is now, this instant, this moment. This fugitive, this delinquent, this indiscreet, this forever elusive now. Now now. Now is now and now it is not now. Now is the adversary of time.…

Whirl

15391539 views1212 comments1111 favs

Wanna,wanna, whoop de loop. Hold my baby, kiss my mom, dance the way I used to do. Desktops, blacktops, cut and paste, speed down hills, learn the rules, Sister Saint Marion, married to Christ. Sixteen, life-green, pink tights, Swan Lake, an…

Hungry

15391539 views1111 comments1111 favs

Why do people kill themselves with food? It’s obvious, I suppose. They’re hungry.

Off the Grid

15391539 views1212 comments88 favs

The slicing is easy. Blade barely touching skin, flesh separating into two clean parts. A breath, and blood fills in the space, an old friend materializing in the shadows. I am redolent with hope and desire. I can't stop thinking of how he excised himself from my…

D.H. Lawrence Ghazal

15391539 views88 comments77 favs

How many shadows in your soul? Close your eyes, my love, let me / make you blind as the wings of a drenched, drowned bee.

Hardware Store Tour

15391539 views1515 comments1010 favs

The Plaza had a chess-board floor, green wood booths, and the lights stayed up. I might be combining a memory of Fitzie's in Binghamton. The Plaza felt like a preppy soda fountain with beer.

Shakedown Street

15391539 views33 comments22 favs

The combined smells of ocean breeze, grilled cheese sandwiches, incense and sweat and burning herb that wafted over from Shakedown, along with windblown notes from tinny car speakers all rolled into a potent sensory cocktail he hadn’t tasted in far too l

I'll be Home for Christmas

15381538 views2121 comments66 favs

She hasn't called me in days. Before calling her, I search my memory for something romantic to say. Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 says exactly what I'm thinking. But she doesn't need to hear it. She already knows, as all human efforts come to an end, my core energies are tapering…