Most read stories

Cranshaw Engages in Debate

14541454 views1515 comments99 favs

They were discussing reincarnation, what animals they would come back as. "I'd be a vole," Cranshaw said. Is a vole even an animal? Connie asked.

Grannies

14541454 views66 comments66 favs

The four Grannies say, “GO!” and leap from the window. King's pickup is below, and he has lined the bed with his mother's throw pillows. Sundresses fly. Blue plastic diapers billow. They want cigarettes. I light their smokes with King's pearl-handled lighter as…

Mobiles

14541454 views88 comments88 favs

My stories are ramshackle; they lurch along in old sweaters with holes and missing buttons, drinking from mismatched cups and saucers.

Things Like This

14541454 views66 comments44 favs

I'm an older guy. She is still quite young. I tell her I may be too old but she giggles and tells me that she did the research and it said because there is snow on the roof doesn't mean no fire's in the stove. She proved it. Things like this. We excite ourselves,…

Pen Pals

14541454 views1414 comments1010 favs

Sitting together at Starbucks, we composed a long love letter which we've been mailing back and forth to each other, signing our name upon each receipt and returning it for the last nine months and it has grown to eighty seven pages, barely fitting in a shoe box.

The Lycanthrope Fun-Time Activity Book

14541454 views11 comment11 fav

an elongating boy with butter-yellow flecks in his eyes, and skin patched like a tabby.

Strawberry Swirl

14541454 views22 comments11 fav

Keisha selected a strawberry swirl cupcake from the waiter's tray, so pretty, from the hottest, coolest, newest patisserie. Moist strawberrylishious cake, swirly pink frosting, sprinkles. Keisha was one lucky lady, scoring a bizdev gig at recession-proof…

Like Picasso

14541454 views00 comments00 favs

lying back on inviolable sheets, your breasts spread apart like a child’s open hands you’d look up at me and smile

Screaming Woman - Excerpt

14541454 views11 comment00 favs

Bree was mean as a bag of snakes and had done laid out most of the eligible bachelors in Culloden County at one time or another to the tune that at this point no man who’d heard of her wanted much truck with her.

Where's Waldo?

14531453 views99 comments88 favs

Over his usual ham sandwich and skim milk for lunch Uncle Waldo used to always say, “Going out in the dead of night without a flashlight is dangerous.” But I knew what I was doing. After dark, I'd slip out and sneaker on down the path to take a dip in a…

Falling

14531453 views22 comments11 fav

Sometimes when I fall I see a ...

“The Confession of the Sorcerer of Darkness”

14531453 views00 comments00 favs

A dark and mysterious account of an ancient traveler seeking arcane literature, and the miserable results to him after he receives what he sought.

Rough Cut

14531453 views88 comments22 favs

He bites and imagines, numbed by want.

Norm Bladdon, Private G.I.

14531453 views00 comments00 favs

I'd had a long, hard fall from the pinnacle of the profession. I made the mistake of accepting a mouse pad, coffee mug and a fleece pullover with the logo of Upchux, an anti-reflux drug, on the left breast where you'd get heartburn.

Music That Tastes Like Blood

14531453 views11 comment00 favs

It is your music that makes me want to crack open my ribcage and rip out my heart as it still beats, to cauterize my carotids, and shove the mechanical insides of a clock into my thoracic cavity.

The Tourists

14531453 views33 comments33 favs

He thought of his field trip from the previous year, of Prague’s museums, statues, squares, architecture, restaurants, and various modes of transport. The town offered none of these and surely no cinema, no crowds of people, not even an old church.

The Rodeo of Doom (Excerpt)

14531453 views00 comments00 favs

Today is the last day of the semester. It also marks the end of my tenth year as what is referred to as an adjunct, an appendage, a necessary but unidentifiable tentacle in the College of Architecture at Andreas Tangen University in Los Angeles.

End of an Arabesque. Degas

14531453 views00 comments00 favs

Holding a bouquet of flowers wrapped in a tissue in one hand, a round shape that balances the round yellow burst of light that is her dress. While the flesh of her chest bulges forward and she balances as though in a holding pattern in flight.

before Creation

14531453 views88 comments66 favs

Before Genesis, digesting the primordial soup.

surrogate

14531453 views33 comments11 fav

the vigilance that informs a parent's every hour had momentarily lapsed

The Body in the Other Room

14531453 views1717 comments1111 favs

I couldn’t parse the grammar of her body nor decode the secret softness of her neck.

A Song To Lose Your Shoes To

14531453 views33 comments00 favs

You’ve got me standin’ on my knees, A’searchin’ for a beggar’s alms, From folks who’re deaf to all my pleas And blind to open palms.

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

14531453 views55 comments11 fav

It starts with a letter, down the back of the couch, ending, ‘love, always.' I read only the kisses aimed at me - a firing line running off the page. How long has that letter hidden there? It secreted itself in a corner of the house…

How Things Fall Apart

14531453 views33 comments33 favs

The leaves/ seek reunion with the ground// and leave the oak tree naked/ in December’s cold.

Aftermath

14521452 views22 comments11 fav

Oh sweet, sweet morning light

Taken from 'A Story of Me And You'

14521452 views44 comments00 favs

No one commented on her altered appearance, although Will in Accounts said he quite liked her hair like that, so she assumed that no one could see the snakes. But she still felt self-conscious, exposed. She had to remember not to talk to them when she was…

The Tribe of Women

14521452 views22 comments11 fav

One can’t predict the final cadence of one’s life.

Safe

14521452 views77 comments66 favs

Safe does not ride horses at sunsetSnorkel in MolokaiRaft down a swollen river.It does not steal kisses in a darkened theaterTouch the inside of a thigh under a restaurant table.Safe does not declare war.It chooses dinner every night at sixMass every SundayConfession once a…

Dear Friend

14521452 views44 comments11 fav

Dear Friend: As a visitor to Wonderland in the past, you are truly among our most treasured friends. It is the enthusiasm for whimsy such as yours that spurs us to continue to provide perplexing chaos for which we are so widely esteemed, the better to

Knott Travel

14521452 views22 comments00 favs

The next post card was of gondolas in Venice. “Have never not enjoyed ourselves less,” wrote Sylvia. “Sylvia can be hard to please,” said Angelynn. “Those boats could use a coat of paint,” I said.