Most read stories

The Instrument

14681468 views88 comments22 favs

She wore no bra. As she jammed the truck into park and pushed against the heavy door, he saw the points of her nipples against her dress. Ice filled his belly, the most beautiful pink-colored ice.

The perfectly banal postcards...

14681468 views55 comments11 fav

“There are so few uses for Crisco, that to keep it in the house seems an unnecessary temptation,” said my health teacher.

children

14681468 views33 comments22 favs

today on the bus/ a man in his fifties/ smiled at a baby/

Query

14681468 views99 comments77 favs

time timed times time

Nothing

14681468 views11 comment11 fav

I dream about the boy in The Neverending Story, the gate of mirrors, and the Nothing, a dark cloud that floats in the sky, takes away everything.

An Orb for a Better World

14681468 views11 comment11 fav

Max sighed. Solving for x was boring, so mind numbingly boring that he didn't notice the flickering blue light hovering in his room. It crackled and popped, growing until a shimmering rectangle stretched from floor to ceiling.A hand pushed out from the rectangle, and a…

Meeting for a Drink

14681468 views11 comment11 fav

But the profligate are blameless now Those who conflate sex and love the way dumber animals mistake heat for light have moved freely back to some primal zone where if I’m felt to be contradictory to the surroundings it’s because I wanted t

The Girl I Danced With Is Now A Man

14681468 views44 comments11 fav

You can't always be everything you were expected to be

Cymophiliacs: you are one.

14681468 views00 comments00 favs

Let me guess. You're reading this because it's dark or there's no surf or you're at work dreaming about surf or you're broken in some way that prevents you from surfing. If I'm right, you depraved little human, then you have come to the right place. Here we…

Sunset

14681468 views00 comments00 favs

Behind the bellicose façade lay a soft, compassionate soul. He sat within a swirl of rosy twilight hues, buoyed by the gently creeping tide. A dark wall approached and he mechanically spun and began stroking into the glassy canvas of light and ocean that lay between him…

Waves of Memory

14681468 views33 comments22 favs

"Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. It doesn’t mean anyone is to blame - It just is."

Prelude to Pain

14681468 views00 comments00 favs

Grayson Warren is living the American Dream: a 15-year career as a city cop, a great wife and two kids. And then one day his dream turns into a nightmare.

When Bad Things Happen To Other People

14681468 views44 comments22 favs

Years ago, I was involved in a freakish tragedy so startling and heartbreaking that it made the front page of not only my local newspaper, but “People” and “The National Enquirer.” I'm not going to tell you anything about it. This means that…

Dream World

14681468 views33 comments22 favs

I don't mind being dead. It's ok. Really. I've discovered a whole new way of being based on non-being. What else can you do? I like being invisible. I like groaning and rattling chains. I used to be a writer. Still am. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that…

Death Along the Jersey Rails

14681468 views44 comments00 favs

like old discarded snake skin, dry and coarse after the bite... immortally tortured by broken glass bottles.

The Neighbors

14681468 views00 comments00 favs

The first apartment Troy and Lynn lived in was managed by an alcoholic former army officer, who lived in the complex with his wife and teenage daughter. He was a lush who didn't do much in the way of management. Lynn had barely noticed him before Troy moved in with her.…

The Birthday Jump

14681468 views77 comments77 favs

I remember the first & only time I parachuted it was 1964 my 16th birthday a rite of passage if you will from the old man an aerospace engineer & former WWII B24 bomber pilot I practice-jumped from oil barrels taught how to fall back then when the time came…

Cancer Always Calls Collect -- Part 23 --- Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

14681468 views44 comments33 favs

In the end nothing could bring him back because I tried. All those weeks and months, yet all I have left are the tears and memories. He said when he asked the final questions to those in charge he was confused.

Tabula Rasa

14681468 views44 comments11 fav

When I was younger, I tried very hard to be myself, but it never worked. I'd close my eyes, wait a beat, open them and slowly bring them into focus. This is the new me, the only me. Never worked, not once. It could only last a minute or two, so I…

The Bludgeoning of a Burgeoning Young Artist

14681468 views11 comment00 favs

There was an implicit understanding, made clear by Athena's gentle stroking of Freddy's silky blond hair, that he would share her canopy bed with its frilly fuchsia pillows. He didn't mind this, despite despising the color of the pillows.

The Secret Life

14671467 views55 comments44 favs

The silver urn of ashes inscribed with his unknown name.

Oopsy-Daisy!

14671467 views00 comments11 fav

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

The United States of America

14671467 views11 comment00 favs

In the United States of America children everywhere are waiting for summer vacation. To a child in the United States, there is summer vacation and then there is everything else. Summer vacation is freedom. The united states was built on the foundation that one day we will…

Strange Humidity

14671467 views22 comments11 fav

The kitchen is full of old girlfriends. I avoid them. They are munching on cheddar and sharing stories I'm sure I don't want to hear.

Secure

14671467 views99 comments77 favs

This is the Minuteman tine/ of the three-tined fork// we can stick into the modern world/ when it’s done-- a MAD triad.

Rope & Bone '86

14671467 views66 comments55 favs

His shirts he hangs on the back of the chair, one on top the other so they won't wrinkle.

Authenticity in a Time of Consolidation

14671467 views1919 comments1111 favs

Culture gives what it feels you deserve/ in the cul-de-sac of your time and place.

Digging

14671467 views22 comments11 fav

I came to a field where, scattered around, were quite a few men digging holes

At the Brooks Brothers Hip Hop Summit

14671467 views00 comments00 favs

I pat my pocket to make sure everything’s in order; a Starbucks blueberry scone to sustain me, a $50 Brooks Brothers gift card from my in-laws, and my “piece”–a fully-charged BlackBerry handheld device.

OUT ON THE EDGE OF VICTORIAN CIVILIZATION

14671467 views00 comments00 favs

Lottie was a slim, fine looking woman. But Dale thought her breast implants were the worst case of overkill he had ever seen.