Most read stories

Dina Goes to Belfast

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Dina was a woman obsessed. She had endured a three hour layover in Chicago and another four in Heathrow for this. (The flight she had enjoyed with a few glasses of red and an HGTV show about plumbing that she could watch again and again.) She had staked out this corner of…

Sourballs

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Lights of human occupation burn/ in patterns like the growth/ of a bacillus, lethal and prodigious,

EXHALE

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An excited state with undiscovered borders, the almost space -

Grandma Rose Watched the Fights

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I think she later thought about that. Just as she loved her son, I loved my mother. Just as my dad loved her, so the same kind of protective honoring love existed. Right or wrong, it was there, the elephant in the room.

Smooth and Crunchy

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No freebies. You want to read it, you have to read all of it.

The Full Car: A California Saga (1968)

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—They turned him into a time bomb. Listen close, and you can hear the tick-tick-tick. —All I hear is snoring. How do you know he was brainwashed? —Because he can’t remember a thing about the experiment. —I can say this: If he can’t remember anyth

Uncanny Valley, Goodbye

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When not enough is left to utterThe syllables it takes to say,Goodbye--Disassembled and developed,Laid upon the ground,Like the girded gridlockOn your smog befitted brow...Goodbye.And what if I said, hello?What if I said, good day?Would it change your sunken bodyAnd repair…

The Rumble Strip

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But, The Driver talked about speed. Something about pulling her off easy or we’ll blow our tires. “No telling what’s off that shoulder,” he’d say.

Room # 23

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She stood for a moment to think about what happened inside. She had just killed her husband of twenty three years.

A little bit of babysitting

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Roy Williams was his real name. It had been for the last 15 years. Since retiring from the Firm he’d lived innocuously in an apartment near the Old City walls of Dubrovnik doing the occasional quick job for them. You never entirely retired from the Firm.

Vacation

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The week before she left for Costa Rica with her new lover she called me. Often, she did this. We talked for hours. What should I pack on my trip? she asked. Setting out with him …

Assiduity Twenty Five

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" . . . it's overcast with scattered rain along the Wabash River as I approach the federal correctional complex . . . "

What the Other is Thinking

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Six months passed and the lovers decided speaking was no longer a necessary component in their relationship. They did this over breakfast, delicately spooning pink triangles of grapefruit into their mouths. Not a word spoken.

Pathology

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PATHOLOGY How awful it is to dissect a marriage! It lays naked on the therapist's steely table. He makes his first incision into the bloated stomach of our malnourished union. He polishes his glasses and peers, cuts the thin taut skin of our…

Head Holding

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"...a head dizzy from my abuse."

She’s Dead

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Hank: Yeah, the way her head was bashed in, it looks like someone really had it in for her. Did you call the coroner? Bill: Yeah. Boy, you couldn’t pay me enough to do the stuff those coroner and medical examiner guys do. It seems like

1973, what I wanted

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Not the torn magazine page, not the smell of ink, not the sweat of palm nor the froth of irish spring

S.K.O.S.O. vs T.O.O.T.H. (With an update on Jinni of T.O.O.T.H.)

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"What have I done? What in God's name possessed me? Confessions of some college trouble in the 60's.

Stroke One, Stroke Two, Stroke Three

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On Monday, May 7, 2018, at the age of 67, I had a stroke.

Consequently, I Rejoice

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The infinite terrifies.

Elementary

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He, an irregular chap, Was known for his hat with a flap. Had fleet feet and a very strong back.

On The Way To Shabriz

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these dead letters for you... and then they withdrew... something happened on the way to shabriz... my fingertips fell on their knees.

Scarltanua

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The next morning Grandpa said the body was gone, no one explained to him the situation, when he asked about her they all simply said, “Scarltanua”.

The Town, Part 1

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Waiting for the light to turn, his mind wandered, wondering how it was that bridges of this sort collected stories. Old thru truss bridges with grated deckings, or any older bridge for that matter. The stories seemed to have died out since the concrete

Wedding

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It was cold in the church. The Lutherans were freezing to death. The Catholics brought their winter coats.

waves at least this tall

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the mountains did change/became looming purplish waves/their spray washes us/we rinse slow 'neath lifted waves/that must be at least this tall.

Kracton Commons

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Without light it is black.

Mothers

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No, no mother’s tenderness: she shows no sign of that … Do you know that she has them make their own bed? No, not the girl: the boys too! Yes, the boys. She humiliates them.

Downbound A

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Fall came early that year. The edge in the air wasn't just the cold, raw wind cutting down the street — the unity and collective embrace briefly shared after September 11th had faded. The weight from…

When the Moon Becomes the Sun

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While most spread their time in other occupation, I traveled through books and grew my imagination. I knew endless bliss. I was a book eater. I would just devour books that I loved and slug through those I didn't, just to make myself eat the truths and li