Most read stories

The Centre of the Universe

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"Look Emily, I’m charging your solar powered calculator and helping you relieve your dependence on foreign oil."

MOTHER MOUSE AND HER BRATS

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

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."

Illinois Route 3

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If this road could answer I would ask her what it is like to follow the path of the rippleshimmery river for too many miles through the slowly ghosting towns and the corncovered landscapes of the dying Midwest

Peanut Time

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A peanut, who knoweth

Deer People

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There was no provision for keeping the post on the door, but I did not have the fingernails to pry it off.

Sorry, Charlie

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Vietnam, Tet, and beaucoup Charlie

The letter.

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I am useless. A freak. Different. They all hate me now. All except you, of course. You will never leave me. Never. I'd kill them all if I could. Every single one. But twenty-four, that's a lot even for me. I'm so sick of the cliques; the special groups and hastily strung…

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.

Cancer Always Calls Collect - Part 2 - Dear Santa

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We all know that sometimes miracles happen and sometimes they don't. Some days are good and some days go by slowly as the fatigue sets in and he realizes that he is fighting cancer.

Mama Blues

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the stars might be the audience or they might not be if the beat sits right next to me and hugs me nasty

Falling Towards Oblivion Avenue

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At some point, you care/ just enough to wake each morning,

One Sick, Two Sick, Red Sick, Blue Sick

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I found a diseased fish / wedged between some boulders near the pier

Love Story

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You are a warm winter Despite the presence of snow

Bedtime Stories

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I want to read a story that ends unhappily ever after: one where the bad guy wins and no one gets the girl.

Natural History

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It sits up tall on its hind legs to take in all of whatever this is, big and bluer than the sky, death's own taxicab parked on its doorstep.

Oopsy-Daisy!

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[This story definitely WON'T be appearing in this month's "Alfred Hitchock's Mystery Magazine"!]

Substitution

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Once there was a man who wrote in code. He was comfortable among substitutions

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.

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…

Accepting New Patients

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You've had some truly awful shit pumped into your brains for years at a time now. The practice started a long time ago. It's not always your fault. The only lasting way to get it out of your head is to go and figure out exactly where…

Misunderstood, Meet Cynical.

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The blaring scream from my alarm clock suffices as my wake-up call. It disrupts me from my dream state that I so rarely get the privilege to experience any more. I've always loathed that alarm clock, so I turn it off in the most sensibly aggressive manner I know how: just…

Girl in 'Nam (Part 2)

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A life in NYC was one I always dreamed of but I found myself turning into a bitter, sarcastic person who was losing the ability to see the silver lining in just about anything.

My Uncle's Last Day in Hospice

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In and out of morphine dreams, he flies through the unfinished roof of Illinois sky. Below, matchbox-sized farm machines. A silo becomes his father's thermos, the silver-capped tower from which he stole sips at ten, his first secret. Back …

Trajectory

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Soon the world is on film that is burning.

Ink Play

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Lying on a high seat in the south study, this is what I see:

Dumb Ass

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I want to tell you how the odor of the flowers/felt her funeral day

A New York Moment

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Harvey C. Hamby was drunk. Usually he held his liquor well, but tonight he was off his form. Stumbling over an ottoman, he landed on the floor in a sodden sprawl. As he fell, his left foot shot out behind him and socked Glenda Steinberg in…

Saturday TV with Dad

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By the sixth - Dizz, Falstaff buzzed - Croons - The Wabash Cannonball

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