Most read stories

No Respect

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I roll over on the gurney or bed or whatever they call it and pull down my pants and underpants. The nurse gives me a shot in each cheek.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 4

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There was no one there, but the smell of cooked bacon permeated the hall, triggering borborygmus in his stomach. He loved that word, but not his empty stomach.

Office Visit

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I was at the doctor's office, having my blood drawn. I was talking to the medical assistant. She was tying off my arm to tap my vein. She was almost 8 months pregnant with a girl, though her belly stuck out straight in front of her enough to be told she was having a boy.…

A Dialectical Digression

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It performs the dialectic that intertwines real and ideal through her mounting concern about being choked to death then eaten by a very large pig.

Pet Sitter

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We didn't know him from Adam...

Tails

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"I found a dead bunny one morning. This was about three weeks ago. Its tiny round pom-pom of a tail was missing."

What I Learned From Magazines This Week

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At least ten people have been shot by their dogs since 2004, usually in hunting accidents. (AARP Bulletin, January February 2016)If somebody phones you claiming to be with the IRS, it's a scam. The real IRS will only open communications with a taxpayer via the U.S.…

Blemish in the Blood

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Warning: some of this is true, some of this is not.

For My F-Fellow St-Stutterers

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Funny, funny stuff. She'll be here all week--be sure and tip your speech therapist!

Santa's stuck

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Santa’s stuck/you say? In the chimney of course./The lard-arsed ol’bastard struggling

Attention, Stargazers

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And in the end we're crouched over like children / sifting through this tide-pool

Scooping the Fat of Time

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I lift up my sweatshirt and reach with a full fist into my belly button. This is where the fat comes out.

Late at Night

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My eyes hold my mother. It's not easy being human she tells me. She always told me. Sure, but the stories are lovely. We all know that. We generate the tales, tell the tales, kiss our children. Live on in their eyes, though, don't…

Louise at Christmas

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My brother used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them ..

The Star... an excerpt from The Exile of Gaspar

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The night is very clear and unusually cold. We are so near to the star that its light banishes the darkness that tries futilely to extinguish it. A small village twinkles in the foothills to our east. The cry of a lost sheep cuts the night like a blade

At Last — My Dream Come True!

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Some fiftysomething woman with a small dog in her arms was waiting for him, backstage. Security hadn't succeeded in restraining her. Strange.

The Unlucky Thirteen

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They were working on the factory floor when they died, the auspices of mayhem filtering out to a host of ravens gleaning the neighboring fields. Clouds of them fled the scene around the time of the incident turning the day into twilight…

Raymond Chandler and His Wife

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One day it was boring / to be alive.

First Date

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Both men sip their Cabernet Franc.

Canyon In The Clouds

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

The Facts of This Life as Its End Approaches

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The knees remind you: you are old,/ and broken, and unlikely to improve

The Lookout

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I had never seen anyone die. For first time in my life, I was afraid, even more than when my step-dad got drunk and roughed me up. When Dale Franklin got shot last year standing on the corner outside the laundry-mat it took the ambulance forty-five minu

The Hound - Part 2

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The temperature would drop rapidly once the sun hit the horizon. I had about an hour before this would happen. I stood and put on my coat. The fire had gone out. There was no smoke...

Souvenirs

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It is a hot August night — the same kind you remember from that summer after high school graduation. A cool breeze blows in off the ocean, sweeping across the boardwalk just hard enough to dry the …

Shooting Smoke

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In our first conversation, she tells me love is a dragon: she has come across it’s destruction, hears of it’s size, mythology, of it’s immorality. I sip my hot cocoa (God, I pray she thinks it is coffee)...

a mouth in motion tends to stay in motion

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I remember a big Walgreen’s Drug store (maybe in Elmhurst, or Oakbrook Center?) and this shopping expedition we went on. That’s where you bought your first Dust Buster, I believe (or was this another man?) Anyway, you made me carry everything. We didn’t

Simon The Sex Trafficker

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While he was in there he saw another man walk in, five years his senior. He was ushered back by a woman with bare legs and a white coat, as if she was role playing a professional masseuse. He'd caught sight of the man's ring finger and it hand a plain gol

Every Time a Bell Rings

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I could feel the old house skulking in the shadows. In the basement I used to play in the dark, shine a flashlight on the angular black widows creeping in the corners, feed them ants and silverfish and flies with the wings pulled off so the web wouldn’

#2 Feeding Fire (Poetry)

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It is like truth on the battle field. Muted

The next hour

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I allow myself one hour every two weeks. Devoting 335 of my 336 hours to her and the kids is beyond dutiful.