Most read stories

Wings

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He knows I talk to angels, what he would call angels. I don’t talk to him.

Legs Unwilling

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Summer bakes the metal playground slide to ripples. Still, kids line up. Sadists, all of them. Lucky enough to choose pain. Max feels it every breath, unwanted.

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…

How To Find A Galaxy In The Dark

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I don't know what I'd expected from the week of mourning after my mother died but I sure hadn't pictured this marathon cocktail party. Our house is packed with people, food, booze and borrowed chairs. People I haven't seen in years keep turning up with casseroles.I'm…

Secrets of Philadelphia

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Bruce Springsteen begins singing from the loud speaker he was bruised and battered and couldn’t tell what he felt.

Jeremy

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My name is Jeremy, and I am in love with a zombie.

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."

Destiny Narrowly Avoided

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Then it started extruding tendrils and tying them all into intricate knots.

Need food for family

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The young man pulls out his wallet, grabs a couple of bills and stops short of handing them to the bedraggled man. “So how do I know you’re not going to go out and buy some crack with this money?”

My Name is Luka

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The first and easiest reason was that he never hit me. Well, if he never hit me, then how could it possibly be abuse? Never mind the threats to stab me in the neck. He was only angry. He really didn't mean that. Never mind he restrained me, or cornered me

Frenchie at the Fair

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Frenchie hustled waffle irons.

Beautiful Are the Feet: Part One

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Naomi hadn't expected them to come in such a big box. When the UPS man tried to hand it to her, she told him there must be some mistake, but then he pointed to her name¾NAOMI BROWN¾right there on the top. When she finally got off all that tape, she had another…

For J.S. Bach’s Three-hundred-twenty-eighth Birthday

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To listen is to feel embodied reason// sing and dance with consummate grace

Bunking off

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He looked like a black paper doorway pasted onto a painting of summer.

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.

Un Americano

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His eyes are wide then narrow and brown. Hers are gray then they look away, toward the back door where a delivery driver has walked in, carrying a tray. Nothing is going to happen today.

Bad Monkey

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The hotel sits on the highest point in Shimla: a place of cedar-scented air, an aggressive monkey population, and summer houses left by the British Raj.

Buy Me Some Peanuts

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The voice on the other end mumbles, not forming words, but I understand: I am to be the starting third baseman for the Detroit Tigers.

Sheep

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Sheep are very philosophical, I hear. Stop this hopeless dreaming.

Begonia {part six}

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Mezereon’s giant dragon heart marveled at the girl’s revelations. First, he was heartsick for her and the sad state of things back where she had come to him from. Secondly, he was aghast to learn she was a princess; for even dragons know and respect r

The Next Best Thing to Dying

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Later, my daughter told me that she hadn't been scared because as I lay on the ground unconscious I continued to laugh, gradually relaxing into a big smile as I came around a minute later.

The Application of Birds

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I know someone in need of healing.

A Quiet Noise

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the sun is quiet like the mountains, the birds except for their wings

In Dubai

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I do not know the species of birds here. / The two I see playing on the balcony at night / I can never call back.

The Ritz

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After oh so many hours the eyes could only close only to view a Ritz cracker marching on a nose

Hunting Season

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A mundane endeavor depicted as a quest. Try it, you'll like it!

A Straw Grasp

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My wife, Sheila, inadvertently clicked my e-mail address, too, when she sent her reply back to him and I read her poet friend's message that her love opened the window of his heart and she replied that his words were knocks that opened the door to her being, then I stood…

Prologue (excerpt from a novel)

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The clip-clopping of footsteps now echoes from the opposite end of the alleyway, and as you turn to face the figure who appears behind you, the figure wearing a fierce Noh-drama mask, you determine that this time you will enlist its aid in decoding this r

Storms

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Sirens wake me, screaming warnings in the dark.

Betrayal

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My brother Herb married his high school sweetheart right after completing college. This was a girl named Beryl, whom he'd met originally in Mr. Reinert's marching band at York High School in Elmhurst. I remember one day in particular in the middle of the