Most read stories

Waiting for a Terrorist

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Tents staked in desert land, a muted building of parched earth, in a thirty year old city with a napalm birth, they wait among gravestones in the sand.

Scuffle

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Last Christmas Eve, my Nana shot my grandfather in the foot because he wouldn't stop boning the woman up the street.  So on Christmas Eve, after Nana drank a bunch of those baby-sized Miller Hi-life beers, she went upstairs, got her pistol, and said, “I'm gonna…

Just a Suggestion.

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[testing ... one, two, three ... testing ... is this thing on? ... ok, here goes:]

Celebrating Difference

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Because they boil bananas and I fry them.

The Elvis Latte

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Elvis at a Starbucks. Some graphic words.

The Death of Tarzan

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Martín stood over the slow, labored panting as if it were a mystery he could not explain. The dog lay on the frayed pillow bed, a knot of fur and skin, in his father’s office. One eye, like an almond floating in milk, stared up at the boy.

Coat and Shoes

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Walking in to work from an unfamiliar direction, I saw her, on a street I had never been down before. I was coming from his place, for the first time, after the first time. The first time, but not the first date. That's not me. I'm not one to... not one who... He worked…

A Course In Positive Thinking

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The debits and credits of life have been recalculated. You are not due tax; you are owed a trapeze. It turns out you have a natural gift for hanging upside down, knees to the clouds.

Killing Noise

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I ate a novel. I digested a film reel. I vomited poetry.

23rd Psaltery

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The Lorelei is my sherris ; Ibibio shall not want. Head count maketh me to lie down in green patchwork: Head count leadeth me beside the still watercress. Head count restoreth my sounding: Head count leadeth me in the pathway of Rig Veda for his Namen…

Why Can’t God Send Us Some New Kind of Animal?

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I guess the ultimate, penultimate failure would be to write a love poem that turned on everybody but you.

This Isn't a Title, But I'm Fingering Your Mother, While You're Sitting at the Computer, Reading This.

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[ETIQUETTE ... DECORUM ... BOUNDARIES ... BAH!]

The New World Act

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It was said that in order to decrease population— and thus poverty, crime and the growing uneducated workforce in Etherage, New World— they needed to limit, if not abolish, the Social Reform Act of 2013 that provided government assistance and aid to famil

1946, What I wanted..

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I wanted to sit in class in Iowa next to Flannery as she recited that first story that stopped the world with an accent so dense with dogwood we had to strain to collect every word.

Phoenix Complaining

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I seem to be at a crisis in this cursed writing life of mine[exclamation point] I am too depressed to squeeze another uncannily inspiring observation out of my pert[comma] sassy self[semi-colon] I waiver hysterically between feverish confidence and a pai

Two Writers play Modern Warfare

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I watch as my character falls lifelessly to the ground. I press the square button and I am instantly revived.

The Six-Second Rule

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The Six-Second Rule They come to the new world, but bring the old world with them – the six-second rule. When their bagel drops face down on the café floor, apparently it’s the old world six-second rule that applies, instead of our own

Alice Invading the Garden

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I'm Alice invading the garden, looking for souls among cards

Disappearing Ink

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They didn’t run out of each other’s ink.

Son of Uncle Sam

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He’s hooked on the pinball / excitements of adolescence

Florida

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In her paper, Emmeline compares Mary Todd Lincoln's crazy, which involved spending lots of money and going to séances, with her Aunt Janine's, which involves wearing cowgirl outfits and running with strange men.

Dr. Nishad

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Sometimes she imagined the piles of Dr. Nishad's medical waste at the end of productive day at the hospital. Stacks and heaps of connective tissue, lung matter, gristle and bone, cancerous clumps of tongue and stomach and ropes of bad muscles like wrung,

Like a Calm Sea

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“We should go again,” said Krishna. But Iqbal didn’t reply. He sipped his tea like he hadn’t heard, but a tremor passed through his right shoulder. His left arm was bandaged, and the wrist and lower arm were in a c

The Thing on the Stair

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Autumn brings It

Fictionaut Is Audited

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Somehow, random phrases and sentences from the stories, comments and profile pages were generated as “replies”.

Unheard

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“Spare change?” he asked the couple heading into the cineplex. They glanced at his brother, saw something was wrong with him, then at him, noting his dirty and disheveled state. They passed without a word, not even a head-shake.

Sunk

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The weight of my heart dragged me in dangerous directions.

What I Remember

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“She’s in shock,” I heard my mom say, so I assume Jill must have asked how I was or why I wasn’t crying. I did not want to talk to anyone or have anyone talk about me, so I just watched the trees go by as we drove back home.

i go to buy folgers coffee & see ninja robots & am okay with it

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I execute my plan (conceived hours earlier while painting toenails) to go next door to the 7-11 clone and buy some coffee. I am too lazy to walk six blocks to the grocery store. I understand that this is a problem but I will deal with it later I swear. …

55 words

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The patient people who work with the insane are not my kind of people. They are too entertained by the oddness of the inmates and act with a superior sense. I, on the other hand, am odd myself, searching for adherents to my view. The inmates knew me as such and agreed…