Most read stories

take off your shoes

15311531 views11 comment11 fav

feet soft as eyelids on the tarmac

A Change in Plan

15311531 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…

Whoami

15301530 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.

I'll be Home for Christmas

15301530 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…

Cost

15301530 views88 comments44 favs

I rifled through the bedside table until I found dirty magazines

Burger King Blues

15301530 views11 comment00 favs

Read signs sometimes and you just might get where you're trying to go. When Eddie suggested they stop for a Whopper, Dennis said no. "Fuck Burger King, man. Let's get that Wendy's up there." They got…

Whirl

15301530 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…

Xs and Os

15301530 views33 comments22 favs

Momma pointed out our paintings on the walls, the signs we had learned, but when Daddy saw our friends, their wheelchairs, braces on their legs, he left...

A Little Idea

15301530 views22 comments22 favs

I have reasons to believe she’s been stealing.“ “Stealing what?” “Steaks.” “Steaks?”

Looking at the Light of the Moon on the Sea

15301530 views44 comments22 favs

It was hard, in the crowded vacation house, to make love as they would have alone.

Bring on the Drones!

15301530 views99 comments77 favs

Never mind that they cost millions per year just to amuse the monkey bone in us all or that they spew pollution or that their only real purpose is murder. They are justified by skill and thrill.

A Story

15301530 views44 comments11 fav

The next moment is a convergence made from a single repeating sequence that disappears behind the voice that tells of it.

The Element of Ritual

15301530 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.

Unkilled Jeff

15301530 views00 comments00 favs

"Oh — what is this 'work' thing the philosophers speak of" sort of thing.

The Human Resource

15291529 views22 comments22 favs

I am a human resource, batteries not included

Spitwads

15291529 views1010 comments55 favs

Two types coexist- the sanguine/ and exsanguinated./ My skin is cool/ and pale as moonlight

Dusk

15291529 views22 comments22 favs

Her memory was a faded pastiche of the past, and indeed the present sat uneasily in the middle of the dreams that governed her mind; so it was that often she would forget the day, the time, the year.

Still

15291529 views33 comments22 favs

Later

Venison

15291529 views55 comments55 favs

It is hunting season in Jersey today. They say “There are too many deer in Jersey today.”

My Date with Edgar Allen Poe

15291529 views1313 comments88 favs

Now, if someone is tellin' you that she had a date with Edgar Allen Poe, you might be tempted to say, "Hey, sister, what kind of drugs you be doin' for the last two days?" But I swear on my Aunt Boo's chastity belt that's what went down and with my…

Göttwigg’s Fandango

15291529 views66 comments33 favs

It is not unusual to see Göttwigg with his shirt on inside out.

Luce

15291529 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.

Off the Grid

15291529 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…

Cougar

15291529 views33 comments11 fav

What follows is one of those moments, though to some people, it would seem a fantasy, perhaps a "Wizard of Oz" era tale.

Something for Seniors

15291529 views1111 comments99 favs

For Sale: Clean Depends, Never Worn

A Matter of the Heart

15291529 views11 comment11 fav

Charlie's recurring fantasy emerged from its hiding spot as he finished his fourth Old Fashioned. He'd be on his back; she'd be astride him. A strong, assertive young woman with her hands planted on his chest and her hair falling forward over her face.

The Upstart Apprentice of Golden Mean

15281528 views22 comments11 fav

...I am taut...my ankles ache...

Sacrifice on Maple Drive

15281528 views00 comments00 favs

Sacrificial vic bleeds out . . .

If You Want To Work At Club Arseni

15281528 views55 comments55 favs

I hev my girls shave.

Ode to Flannery O'Connor

15281528 views22 comments11 fav

Gert sat in the car and wiped at the inside of the window while the defroster blasted at full strength. The shards and slivers of ice that networked across the windshield were just thick enough to hinder visibility. Bane wrenched the door open and shoved