Most read stories

Better Boys, Early Girls

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... tomatoes swelling and turning pink...

To the Bear in a Neighbor’s Tree

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In the night, a several-hundred-pound Black Bear scaled our neighbor’s back fence, bounded down the gravel footpath between our houses and, confused by the people and lights, followed his instincts up a large pine tree across the street...

On the Way to Your First AA Meeting

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The memory of thinking in some other language

Arcana Magi - c.3: Five Months Later...

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Oryn’s eyes opened wide as her smile removed the sadness. She stood in awe with what she saw, as the sound of footsteps drew closer to her.

The Year Michael Got His Own Page in the Yearbook

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You can use your shoelaces or an Ace bandage. Loop a belt around your neck and toss the loose end over a shower curtain or closet pole. Pull. Try to lift yourself off the ground.

A Facebook Love Story

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This is a story about Jim and Robin. They are strangers. Or at least they were. They are at the same party, but standing on opposite sides of the room. Robin is standing near the door thinking, “I wish there was someone here to talk to,” when she sees Jim. …

Athena 2.0

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The story goes that the night before I was born my dad had a terrible headache.

Often I think on who pulls the strings,

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In a plush leather chair, / high up a shiny skyscraper,

Dunes

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I went out through another cold still morning erasing my steps behind me not because I did not want to be followed but because I did not want to find my way back again.

The Sodomized Dictator

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Ghosts.

After Bukowski

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The night she left she claimed she fucked Bukowski.

Ain't Comin' Back

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He told of the wilting heat, the fulgent landscape, the people....

The Hole Between Them

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Opposite the foothills, on the field's southern edge, was a stand of old eucalyptus trees, each one a gnarled sentry with bark like burnt skin peeling from its trunk.

The Circle of Life

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Maybe you could buy a Volunteer,” Carol suggested. Ma huffed. “You know we don't have the money for that. And besides I never liked the idea of Volunteers — taking advantage of the poor like that.”

The Last Words of a Genius

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The crowd gathered around the dying man's bed, waiting for his last words. He was a genius. The most prolific writer and philosopher to ever live. He wiped his ass with the words of Shakespeare. The thoughts of Plato, Socrates, Descartes, and Nietzsche w

Dinner at the Bigelows’

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Mrs. Bigelow loaned Tessa a black tulle maid’s uniform and helped her pin it in at the sides. She tied on Tessa the stiff white apron. Slippery, pale, opaque stockings of real silk oozed through the girl’s fingers, secured by a heavy satin garter belt

Simmer Time

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Usually the predawn light means bedtime for wicked guitar players, but not that bloody Sunday.

My Other Mother is a Ferrari

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******WARNING: Long-ass story****** Click at your own risk.

Creep

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Every one of them will tell you I drank so much malt liquor I could barf up a distillery and that wouldn’t be a lie.

Women Making Love to Monsters

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I started dating the Minotaur because of Colleen; at the time she was going with a friend of his. The whole thing was a surprise to me because I'd never been attracted to Greek men. This is how it happened. Colleen's new guy, Ian, was known by many…

The Accordion

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If I play my accordion too loudly while you're painting, you complain. You stamp about in your room under mine. You fetch the broom from the closet and use it to thump vehemently on the ceiling. I feel the vibrations through my feet.

The Fault In Our Three Stars

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So there are these teenagers and they're all dying of cancer, or at least were dying of cancer, or might be dying of cancer, and then a couple of them fall in love and lose their virginity to each other, and these teens, they're all smart and charming and only a little…

Roadside Attraction

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There is a certain stage of sobriety among men who drink every night. In that stage, they are their best selves: they write novels, fix cars, care for their young. Then they change.

What Einstein didn't say

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First you must accept / the speed of light as constant. / If you can’t do that, stop reading.

Clover Grill: A Short Story

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I'm somewhere on I-10 in Mississippi, barreling westbound at 80 miles an hour through a rainstorm on a late Wednesday afternoon. The last road sign I remember was for Beauvoir, some Confederate general's…

Le Sucre Brun

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The commandant pried her lids open with steely thumbs.

Eleutheria

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She watched an inky cloud suck all the color / from the trees.

White

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“White,” he says. -- “Black,” I answer.

...And Nail

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For twenty-eight years, Cochran Baines removed a tooth from the mouth of every dead child that spent time on his table.

Anhedonia (excerpt)

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Things have happened. It’s a given. What, are you crazy? Of course things have happened. It’s the world, for Christ’s sake. Things are happening. I am consistently missing most, if not all, of them.