Most read stories

The Palace of Nansi

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It's advertised as a romance. The poster shows a Sudanese woman with a child at her side collecting gum from Acacia trees.

If Only it Were So

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In the moment I crinkle the aluminum foil, The sandwich now a deeper Part of me

Two

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i am two / one part me / another part them

1 col 24 point heading here

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I had ink for blood then and “the news” was my oxygen.

The Truth Of Jello

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Franz Kafka opens the refrigerator And removes a bowl of jello With the face of Bella Abzug in it

The Brevity of Anthropology

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In time's embroidery, the human storyis a short stretch of a short strand within the thread of half a knot-and that stretch of strand's defective. What will mourn us when we're gone?Not the plants which live so lightly on the earth.Not the scorpions and not the ants.Perhaps…

a girl's mane

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Wild bore the wind down on me, coming out of the heavens that turned around the stars of the evening. The longing and the appetite at work in the body, all tickling to open a girl’s mane, gaping, health-giving crossroads to the body. Hail and farewell t

Red Lady Octopus

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I hand one of them the octopus and run out of the room.

I Don't Know Why I Bother With You

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I think we had parties with cats before— you were Mr. Gallant, and I Madame Sunshine—we would drink tea laced with toilet spray, and you would complain:…

Taking it Easy

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At the Winslow Funeral Home in Winslow, Arizona, just like in the Eagles’ 70s song “Take It Easy,” only I’m not taking it easy.

I am going to shoot you, but first, an Essay

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Quickly enough, it became clear, however, that this was really all about offers you could not refuse, allegations you could not contest, arrests you could not understand and acts you would not survive.

In The Place Between - Conclusion

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You know what happened. You heard about it. We were considered unuseful to the Nazis and were gassed in those shower rooms. It was all over so quick; I had hardly a chance to understand. I really did not feel anything because before it was over, I, being

Ish

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The feline apotheosis of Ish - Shroedinger’s cat.

Every Mirror with Two Sides

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She was gazing down at her two hands holding the peach seersucker top, but without blinking she saw four hands—ahh, idiot, the mirror! But in the next moment no, it was four hands . . .

Beehive

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Like when she said the word 'but', it came out ‘bet’.

Cold Blooded Moon by Paul D. Brazill

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Jason poured himself another glass of Burgundy and tried to flush Jenna from his thoughts

Meat and Bones

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The man who put up the clothes line left his kids upstairs at night and came down to my bed.

One Thousand Incarnations and One Thousand Deaths - Part II

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The door flew open, hitting the wall, and the woman seated in the corner across from her pressed herself against the bench. Loretta saw that down through her petticoats came a trickle of yellow liquid, which pooled on the floor.

Tomorrow

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You hold me now, and pay attention. Everything is new.

Edward Ogle the Ninth

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Vanilla bean trampoline

My Cyber Companion

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Jannsun started working for Matrix back when he gave up on writing the next great American Novel, which was about five years ago, right after the war. He was old for a Web Zone designer but who knew? Who cared? His work was all done via satellite and as l

The Executioner

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No one knows where the wind comes from, but sure as hell it comes. The executioner glances round the reception area. Nods to himself. Function versus form. Anodyne, instantly forgettable, like hotel rooms. Perfect.

Origin Story

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My father taught me how to solder and that's when I first started to write. Now, when you hold the soldering iron in your hand and depress the trigger, the tip of the gun heats up. Novices uncoil the solder and place it on the hot tip, but that just results in it…

The Good Son

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They’ve deduced she’s still of sound mind and body. What do they know?

Diorama

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In the center of the big diorama, the real world hangs in the air by a hook.

In the Air Tonight

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But that last night in Europe, getting ready to fly out of Amsterdam back to the States, I heard this Phil Collins song, “In the Air Tonight,” which expressed some of the turmoil and confusion and whole-life hysteria I was feeling inside. Waves of fru

Going the Way of the Dodo

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her expressive sigh releasing. Sated. The last of our kind, evolving flightless we remain on the ground, culling through corpulent consumption.

Dragonfly

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Dragonfly She danced out of the burning rubble, wrapped in a shawl made of iridescent silk. It must have been her grandmother's. Her arms were wings, the silk translucent and fluttering. Fire fell from the sky. Thatched roofs, walls of mud-daubed sticks, the huts…

Cold

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Winter will be cold this year, you tell her. You read that. She says she is with child with her new husband. You tell her she's forty-five, it is selfish. The baby. It's fine. You demand to be at her tests. Evan may let you, she says. He's a doll. She would never use that…

EXAMINATION

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I had the idea while I was in the county jail. I would get jail glasses; I wouldn’t be me; I’d be some other person. I could pretend that it was someone else rotting away in that 8x12 cell.