Most read stories

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 26

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Friday afternoon. Angelique Brody knocked Francesco’s studio door.

Arcade

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My father owned a penny arcade. I worked for him every summer all during my youth. My job was to hand green tickets to customers who achieved a certain score on Skee-Ball or shuffleboard. The coupons could be redeemed for merchandise which we had on display on…

Another, Another, Another

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It’s just another Day where I feel tired, but I Don’t know why it’s so.

The Price of Empire

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I saw three kids the other day, two girls and a boy, crouched in conspiracy

Matchbox Car

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Clatters and clatters ensued, and the splash destroyed all denial.

One Story Above the Boy in an Old Car

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Near dusk today a car backfired on the street beneath my office window

Bible Stories for Atheist Babysitters

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What the five-year-old I baby sit for wanted to do yesterday was torture his Barbies. “Why would you want to do that?” I asked.“Because we're bad guys!” said Hanina. “Can't we be good guys?”“Not today. Today we're bad…

In the Pink Distance

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in the pink distance / a boy in a corduroy shirt / sits before an upended electrical spindle / and drinks a vodka gimlet

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

Model Home

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In the living room of a model home, Mr. Jorgensen lived. He was a mannequin. He spent his days in display windows. He spent his commutes displaying the latest model cars.

Losses in Translation

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One/ can’t always trust the eye and ear// in such matters but what can one do?/ Mistakes will be made.

Are You A Handywoman? Take This (Not Entirely Serious) Test and Find Out!

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As I was reading “Not Your Mother's Book on Home Improvement,” a new collection of light-hearted essays by (primarily) middle-aged female do-it-yourselfers, it became abundantly clear to me that, unlike the women who tell their stories here, I am not a…

My Life on Discord

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I’m on Discord but I don’t know how to do anything.

Incivility for Breakfast

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I gently honked my horn and gave her the kind of friendly neighbor wave that only friendly neighbors can give. She didn’t wave back. What the hell is her problem?

Gun Play

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The guy – it’s Billy Krazik - turns and aims at Jamie Stockwell, sitting there calmly as if he’s in the play or something and he takes two to the head.

Love Is All You Get

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"All these people," Rammstein complained, "seems all they wanna do is write about love, and sex along with it, you know? And I think it's because it's all feelgood shit; you know, your sweet baby loves you, and he or she's hot as Angie or Brad, and…

Metropolitan

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Metropolitan I. Atlantic harbinger of this our swaddled dawn: Mistaking moon's sea sweep for this the frown The sky's plain-countenanced creatures maytimes weep Upon the surface-sundown of our lawn, When gaily surfaced for…

The Blueberry Man

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It was a Thursday. That's when I found out about the blueberries. Those precious, round little wonders, now forever untouchable.I left the note on the ledge of the balcony, taped down so it wouldn't fly away.It was going to come to this, eventually. After…

Myra's Cigarettes

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I know from the experience of too many odd sideways glances that folks are seldom interested in my brand of observation. No one else seems to wonder how many commas there are in the library or how many other people own that exact shirt.

"Daddy, Can You Find the Cheerios?"

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Why, these were the young hands that I kissed only last night.

Payton, Pelt & Hargrove: 3 (Sorta) Young Lions of the Jazz Trumpet

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It’s the middle-aged jazz musician who tends to get lost in the shuffle; no longer news, and not ready for the marble statue-treatment.

Damaged Goods

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As she slunk to her topless Mercedes sparkling curbside, wax job hand rubbed in Hamburg, testosterone heads turned wishing similar treatment.

Yamoussoukro, 2012

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He is underneath them. His head is like the head of a worm.

Meticulous

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Have you measured the cups, the conveyors' yield? Do you know the span? I am the LORD your God, she murmured.

Notebook (excerpt)

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I try as much as I can to write but only in as much as you believe―am I successful.

The Lizard King

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

We Must Save Ourselves

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We Must Save Ourselves I'm looking for my savior on subways, Is he this man pushing half himself On a skate board, from car to car, Singing I have no Legs, I have no Legs, I'm looking for my savior in coffee shops Of…

Buzzard

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what lies, in my eyes

Jack Noodle

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So you printed your resume on this coffee cup - that’s something - I wanted you guys to think about me every morning - while you were getting your coffee

the genes of Edouard Manet

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was entering into a new phase of its existence, a peculiar paradigm of the wider world where, presaged by science, economic and political ideologies were conspiring to displace the old verities of religion and aesthetics, but where…