Most read stories

Charlie's Travels

12791279 views1010 comments77 favs

Charlie Hancock missed the bus. Started walking.

James

12791279 views00 comments00 favs

And I mean part of me wanted to let him eat me, I thought maybe I owed him my body because I couldn’t enter his mind and I really wanted to on some level but we both knew that him eating me would just make us both feel awful—him because he’d wake up

The Sound Invisible

12791279 views44 comments11 fav

“Behold!” cried the Lord, on a late September morning,

Table for One

12781278 views22 comments11 fav

He keeps re-reading the menu but knows already how it ends..

Taking Leave

12781278 views44 comments22 favs

A walled city doesn’t let you out any more easily that it has let you in earlier.

An Orb for a Better World

12781278 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…

soften the lazy honey

12781278 views22 comments11 fav

Pots of wine crowding the forehead until irrational thought crowds out the stubborn lizard of sanity and, God knows, my elegance. What else is left? As the young seeks change, so will I. Seeks the carmine lip, so the white bud seeking God, the unchanged

Swimming Lessons

12781278 views55 comments55 favs

We spend our days on the beach, working on our tans. My pale wife hides under a big floppy hat. The water is crystal clear.

Conspiracy

12781278 views1313 comments99 favs

I was convinced that enemy bombers were on the way.

July Night At Greenlake

12781278 views11 comment11 fav

In the vaultwhere no one had daredsince your first stillborn screamsI swept out your deadThe gnawing thingsboneless and dustyand stinking of churchesYou came to me thenand I took youthere in the shadowsunder the tree on the grassnear the reeds by the lakeI dived in your…

riversong

12781278 views66 comments55 favs

pulled the wool off my head found i was almost dead

Secrets / Cigarettes

12781278 views44 comments11 fav

We gave our cigarettes names.

Fat Cats, Happiness and Laptop Love -- What I Learned From Magazines This Week

12781278 views44 comments44 favs

The Utah State Attorney General's office recently stated in a court filing that there is no constitutional right to marry a laptop.(Time, 6/19/17)Smartphones are spreading head lice.(New York, 7/10/17)People are less helpful when it's hot.(Time, 7/24/17)Online virtual…

Icehouse

12781278 views55 comments44 favs

It was noon and cloudless when I pulled over next to the icehouse, wedged in the X formed by two dirt roads.

Twilight of the Trotters

12781278 views22 comments11 fav

Neither you nor I is old enough, of course, to remember that America’s most popular athlete once was a horse.

Story Story

12771277 views44 comments11 fav

It was one of those sweltering afternoons that San Diego endures only several times a summer. I'm riding on El Cajon Boulevard, with my friend John in his old Chevy pickup. John is a lifelong San Diego resident and fanatical Charger backer. He's talking up some…

To Whom It May Concern:

12771277 views00 comments00 favs

Now, we can argue about how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, but there is no doubt that it takes eight spritzes of Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner, three spritzes of Lime-Away, and then a 30 second spray of Oust to incapacitat

The Shopkeeper

12771277 views1212 comments88 favs

His eyes are closed yet restless, as if too many thoughts loop beneath the lids.

Naked Coffee

12771277 views55 comments22 favs

My wife makes coffee naked. Didn't used to. Back then, before the accident, she hated her body. Says that's why she gave it to me. She's serious about it too. The coffee, I mean. Developed a whole ritual around buying, measuring, pouring. Every day it's the…

Knott Travel

12771277 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.

Found Out

12771277 views44 comments44 favs

The other day my friend, Donald, said Shirley always tells him she loves him and she probably does in her way, but it didn't comport with what he walked in and found her doing again last night. She was back at it, hunched over her computer, having chat sex with the…

The Cherry

12771277 views00 comments00 favs

He then spent his walk home to his single apartment spitting up various textures of red, combinations of cherry and blood mostly.

Good Belongs to You

12771277 views22 comments11 fav

I hope you enjoyed the celebration last night. Good things always come to you. I thought your family would never go home. I didn't get to sleep this morning until 2:59, although I had set my alarm to 6:10. I didn't want you to miss your plane. At daybreak,…

Decision Mountain

12771277 views77 comments66 favs

For decades the land the village sat on had switched its allegiance between two countries.

Sixes and Nines

12771277 views00 comments11 fav

"I understand."

The Young Woman Swimming

12771277 views1111 comments55 favs

She stepped inlike ice alonecould save hershe dived,slicing the wavewith her body her fresh pony tailsubmergedlike a silk scarfthen swam moving thewater awaylike whirlpoolscould hold her buoyantly save her from the headachewhispering wordsThey had been there all…

I, Betty Crocker

12771277 views22 comments11 fav

I was born at the age of 42. Some of you might regard that as a handicap, but at the time I assumed everyone was born fully grown in a corporate test kitchen. In fact, I still think of it as an advantage; like being born with a silver spoon in my hand.

Have You Seen Me?

12771277 views55 comments11 fav

It’s as she reaches into the fridge for the carton of half-and-half with the grainy waxy photo of the little girl—Last Seen 10/2/06—that the memory surfaces: “Hey. That’s mine.”

The Green Eyed Lady in the Glass Café

12771277 views88 comments44 favs

Is this sought sea dream of the Arctic fox? The green below the circles of the white, above her eyes? On Formica tables where the woman smocks beneath glass borders of their vacant smiles, they pass by windows formulating styles,…

In The Place Between - Part 2

12761276 views22 comments00 favs

One day a girl with blond hair was walking along the fence on the other side. There were just a handful of us left and I was the only one to notice her. I watched her. She did not see me. The next time I saw her, I went to the fence. I thought she might y