Most read stories

Tomorrow

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

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 12

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Frank was happy to leave the art show and take the train back to SoHo.

On Being Choked

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I was sitting at my desk at work and couldn't figure out why it felt like a person with a very weak grip was trying to strangle me. Then, I realized I was wearing a scarf.

The Nurse

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I lay on a table in a cold room in one of those little blue gowns that open in back.

Cheney Had Plans To Light Off the Reichstag

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The whole human race was in trouble. As I said in another story a couple of weeks back, Zork the Galactic Destroyer had plans to make Planet Earth a nice, toasty snack for him and his boys. He'd sent his most illustrious spy, the Good Captain Zeep,…

Write me a Will

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Write me a Will you laughing boy,

A Study in Plastics

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She sat Indian style against the strawberry tree. In her hand she held a little mirror and a note that her father left her that morning. What a night, eh? See you in the morning. That’s what it said.

said the fury to the shade

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let competitions in crime ensue let every madness bring let every sword be drawn let every furious rage flow free let anger know no shame let all blind rage inflame . . .

How to Tell if Your Loved One Belongs in the Booby Hatch

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It is well known around town that Ray's dad went crazy. Today, when asked, everyone will tell you that they knew all along he had a screw loose, told their wife, “That Mick Borkowski's gone bat-shit.” But when it was happening, no one paid it any…

Kandie Contretemps

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She sat in a tall chair and there was only one time in the interview that she took her sunglasses off. She didn't really take them off, but just pulled them down for an instant with thumb and forefinger in order to look out at something going past the window. They said…

The Shredded Carcass of a Small, Helpless Animal

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It gets eaten.

The Games We Play

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During the hangover, I crawl to my desktop computer and then Google “rapid STI testing” and “speedy divorce”

"Your face seems faint against the violet glades..."

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Your face seems faint against the violet glades; The long winds echo once, then fail to start. Some wounding scent has stripped my hopes apart That dwelled to scent you. From the cavalcades The leaves make, bare at times since eve's sting fades To…

The Swindler

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John Davies paces nervously around an empty parking lot...

Elizabeth Karlin, M.D. and U.W.-Madison’s OB-Gyn Chair’s Cash Window

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Sad to tears, not bubbly, ordered as all in Madison, outpatient by Elizabeth Karlin, internist, later a bullet-proof vest abortion provider.

Bar at East Capitol Road

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My friend, drunk, spoke to me / outside a bar where we hung out; / and his eyes were red from tiredness,

My Insides Are Made Of Water

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I am the ocean. My soulless organs live in all of its motionless movement. I am the low. The high. The in between. I am nothing. Back and forth, I simply float along: existing, rising, and then falling into a life that can be considered one big decision left…

The Great Divide

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On the ridge in front of them, appeared a creature, neither man had ever seen before, standing taller than their horses, the strange beast walked on two powerful legs...

Sensoria

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For Takama this created the second conundrum of the day. One even bigger than the first. When he’d first learnt that sensei and he would be boarding a flight together for a series of demonstrations in Geneva, little had he expected he would be locked up i

The Majesty of the Infinite

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The other night at work, some kid was in for swallowing a snail's shell. He was nine and, according to the computer, did not have cognitive insufficiency. That last bit was probably put there to make us all not feel guilty about laughing at him.

Face to Face

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The face had become a chilling death mask.

The Lizard King

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Jim Morrison moved ever so slightly in the cold of his grave

Lola

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I know you through the rich dark brown soilcrumbling in my fingers like chocolate cake.I imagine you nurtured bell-shaped papayas,coaxing their smooth, leathery skinfrom green to yellow,while mangoes, the colors of the island sunset,hung with their tantalizing sweet…

Natchez Shrapnel

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I was like a bullet shot from a university tower

On Deciding Not to Be a Bitch

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Deny yourself that pleasure For my sake; that feeling beyond measure That you get when you finally, and with much angst, Decide not to be a bitch, to a round of general thanks.

Boundaries

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Hands and fingers feeling down Cross the boundaries I laid

(give me a real moment with a living god and I’ll go all the way)

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I remember, when I was selling real estate, how you could always tell when there'd been a divorce. One room was conspicuously left emptied of its contents, and these rooms were never swept or tidied. Instead they were left just as they were when the par

Atrocities

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My table offers up the gutted calf/ with carrots and potatoes yanked / alive and whole

After all

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The questions piled up so high I thought I'd neverget through the door.The ease of alcohol, the incline of submission. Guttural sounds and spittle.Wipe down the morning afterwith a shower.Redress in last night's clothes.There's coffee if you want it.Sincerity too -no,…

flash

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okay fine, on the count of three