Most read stories

Showdown at the Okay Corral

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I hauled out my Norton Anthology and threw caution to the wind.

Eating Dim Sum with Di

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Lindsey and I are both talking loudly about things we would never talk about in real life, under the impression that this is all somehow instructional for Di. But I think it's really more about us. Di gives us an excuse to talk like two people unjustifiab

The Funeral

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Over the years, Morgana had grown. She was so much more than what Xavier remembered. So much different. She had an astute, almost shrewd air about her. She didn't seem nearly as fragile as he had left her. No, she had an eye out for herself now.…

Broken Vase

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Once was when we were in Vegas on layover from L.A., I told her I thought we should go to the Elvis Chapel and get remarried.

The Man in the coat

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A man wearing a dark green coat closed the door loudly. Tanu sat up straight, and stared at him. He looked around till he found her face and sat down in front of her.

The Evening News

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When I got home from work I parked my briefcase in the hall, acknowledged our dog and immediately went into the kitchen where wife, Sherry, was cooking supper. Without turning around at the sink, she said her usual, How was your day? I said, Fine, and yours? She turned…

77 Words Sparked by Insomnia

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Mice dreams are a reality ...

The Bird King's Eggs

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1The Bird King's eggs are subatomic particles created serendipitously by a sneeze in a quantum physicist's dream.Occupying a space between existence and nothingness, reason and madness, broccoli and…

Nathaniel

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sometimes i have to be in the other room just so i can breathe easy away from you.

Arcana Magi Zero + Pure - c.3

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They followed the crow up a hill, where lights were at its brightest below. The teens stood frozen in time.

Birds of a Feather

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Contention over market share/ is bred in them and we are cousins

Double or Nothing

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Wednesdays were humiliating. Third graders had to bring in twenty-five cents for class dues. If you forgot, the teacher would write your name on the board and it would stay there until you settled your debt. My family could afford the weekly quarter; the problem was…

Love Stories

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I've got an appointment to see my shrink next Wednesday. She's pretty sharp. Not bad looking, either.

Sisyphus of Anacostia

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Big Girl always stops on Talbert Hill.

Beer, for my Gravediggers

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It's cheap beer, but cold you welcome that rushing hiss and the following long drink of chilly wetness washing away the parched, dust dry, cotton mouth of grave-digging in the desert sun

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 52

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In his dreamlike state the pianist turned into a preying mantis.

Oh, You Silly, Silly Putty

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Aw, cheer the fuck up. I'm Silly Putty.

Cheap Date

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Lady, if I were going to hire a whore, it wouldn't have been you.

Christmas Email from an Aging Wicked Stepmother

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Your stepsisters send their love. All three are still on the wagon.

Women on Motorcycles

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Do you want this, you ask, and hand me a blue silk shirt of hers with small yellow flowers. I'm afraid to say no, in case it makes you remember all over again.

On and On

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The world is crazy that way— two people close to me gone around the same time and I'm supposed to go on and on like those dryers and smile still and do my schoolin' still ...

White Noise

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I don't like listening to the radio anymore. Nothing is clearer than a live voice with something to say. Give me a big field with no one around but the birds and I will send the bees away from me. I will deny all bugs to buzz.

Lanyards

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theme songs for concentration camps!?

The Unbearable Thickness of Meat Loaf

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This morning I found A big black crow Working over a flattened Squirrel in the middle Of the road First day of winter Longest night Shortest day No problem The rest of the year Should be a breeze

Acclimation

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Before I grew used to it I would wake to the sound of the Amtrak whistle echoing down along the tracks behind our trailer park and wonder who was hurtling where through the dark night and across this wide Illinois prairie

The Cost of Love

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I was, so I was told, the product of much hard work and a lot of invasive procedures. Initially, I'm sure my parents were making love, but then came the slog, the repeated failed attempts at getting one of mother's millions of eggs fertilized. Those tadpoles just couldn't…

Threads of a Dream

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I'm gonna go find a hole to dwell in deep in the mountains where the Indians used to live dig a cave into my subconscious learn to be less secretive

Doctor

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I asked her how she came to be at our little party. We all knew she was an intern. What would she want with the likes of us, the orderlies and techs and strays? She just held up Ed's flyer and said, "Why not?" But she didn't look happy. We fired up and someone said, "Let's…

1939, What I wanted

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...when suddenly I was pushed from behind, smack into the deep end.

Sole Music

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You're on the good side of thirty, probably with a little girl or boy of your own sleeping at home, and here you are dragnetting at three in the morning. We're all broken, and the scars we trade are all that remains of our fragile, once complex lives.