Most read stories

You'll Never Get Anything Accomplished on an Empty Stomach

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The Star Trek marathon ends, and he flips channels. An episode of Full House is on. The cheesy plot lines and attractive women (specifically, DJ Tanner in the late seasons) have become a freakish comfort. In today's episode, the Tanners are baby sitt

Sort of Like Bukowski, But Completely Oblivious

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My eyes don’t close but hers are shut tight, and something inside tells me that to this girl, I could be absolutely anyone.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 20

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The Gropers of Prague were there, all around us, in spirit if not in fact. Was it KGB? Was it a ghost from my past? Or my own hand? Stop guessing. It was Einstein himself. The KGB had taken him into custody somehow, though by what authority? All the

The Arms of the Sea

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The water lapped against the sides of the small boat, their rhythm all that I could think of. Sweltering rays beat down, frying my flesh, the insipid salty breeze that occasionally stirred my only relief from it. Gulls circled overhead, like white ravens,

Ichthyology

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The doctors said, when she was born, that the gills would eventually fade away on their own. Nothing to fear, they said; no more unusual than the rare child born with a tail, or a dense pelt of fur, or a single sharp tooth jutting from its new pink gums.

Those Things

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For me, it was that kind of moment. I got to come back. I had been here before and now, well now, I could come back. I had a chance to do it all again, bigger, better and well, just better. I hoped I could remember all that I learned the first time.

19.

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They made posters and hung them everywhere. With the passing days she became the photograph at its center: hair always in the same ponytail; always with the same smile

Style Shifts

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Style Shifts “Oh, yes, my cousin. We were rude boys until the armed gangs started to gather. Used to be we could pass a night driving, playing our songs, acting tough. Yeah. We'd mouth off, flash some teeth, spark some anger when we felt like it. We…

All About the Guns

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Been looking for guns. His guns have turned up missing. He’s been looking for the guns. Looking for guns. The au-pair must’ve snuck back in And took the guns. And the baby. The baby must be crawling off with Guns again.

Metamorphosis Revisited

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When I met Gregor Samsa he was still a cockroach, erratic and skittish whenever the light came on. We often spoke in the dark. I empathized with the man. I mean bug. Ok. That isn't fair. You can't call a man a bug because he chirps and eats dried skin cells. A…

The Washing of the Quilts

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Sweaty feet, drool from the weighty sleep of mid-afternoon naps, the inescapable perspiration of the South: all combine to create the entwined scent of socks and stale toothbrushes...

MOTHER MOUSE AND HER BRATS

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Oh, you aren't going to lecture us, for heaven's sake?

The Continuous City

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The night sky was washed gray by city lights.

Folk Music Returns to Roots, But Some Try to Keep Them Buried

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“Sandy likes the way Bob spanks, when he’s done she gives him thanks."

It is Midnight

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It is midnight in Utah, but I can’t tell. It always looks like midnight in a cave.

The Gallery of Wounds

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The blood is memorable/ as is the copper taste of that/ momentary certainty of lockjaw.

On Clearance

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She clutched her fat rolls and tugged on a pant leg. "I'm so embarrassed! You caught me on a bad day!"

My Belgian Waffle-Hound: Song

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I was walking my Belgian Waffle-Hound Past the Belgian waffle shop I found a penny on the ground And did a tiny little hop I spun around and went inside The Belgian waffle shop And bought a little waffle For my Belgian Waffle-Hound

Lessons from Survivors

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You cannot go back, you cannot go home, you cannot cannot cannot…Only in memory is it possible to travel back in time. We all imagine it. We relive happy moments, sad moments, we exist, time exists and it passes. We cannot stop it.

The Perfume Of Wisdom

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I give you the rattle of the rattlesnake. I give you a daub of creosote. I give you the metaphysics of glue.

FWA (Fiction Writers Anonymous)

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Sebastian and Janice had been a natural match. They sought to deny this at first because a recovery assistance program was not a place to forge intimate relationships. It worked out wonderfully in Hollywood, but Hollywood, as everyone knew, was just a facade. So…

The Humanists

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“She’s very sick. She’s dying,” and he smoothed my hair along my neck. “It’s leukemia. A very rare type,” his hand reached my shoulder and stopped there. “She only has a few months.”

Have You Seen Me?

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It’s as she reaches into the fridge for the carton of half-and-half with the grainy waxy photo of the little girl—Last Seen 10/2/06—that the memory surfaces: “Hey. That’s mine.”

Sinking to the beat

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I'd wear my pajamas too, fitting for the big sleep

Thanking Harry

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At a candlelit table near the back of the restaurant, Jack and Lois greeted the waiter as he delivered their drinks, a diet coke for him, and for her, a vodka and cranberry. He apologized for the slow bar service and promised to return in a moment to take their…

Meal

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When they tell you to choose your last meal, it probably hasn't dawned on you yet.

I Once Knew a Sparkledrop

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"And then I, and I believe, I alone, saw this small child run..."

Water Hitting Water.

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Jenny was certain nobody saw her when she took the slinky shirt from her father's store. It was blue with buttons shaped like cherries, the fabric light as air. She balled it up in her hand. Her father owned a chain of boutiques called Body Electric. The racks were…

Resource Management

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’m sure they have their/ cleverest working on it, though.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 34

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—Now that’s a hell-of-a-painting, Frank, he said. Those colors are engaged in warfare. How the hell did you do that?