Most read stories

Allergic Reaction

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On his way to his first fishing expedition in the Bay Area, the man remembered the rustle and shimmer of the willows by the muddied Jemez River in New Mexico, cold beer, the clean camaraderie of childhood friends. He walked along a path choked with greenery to the San Pablo…

The Human Phenom Project

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I sat at the vast graveyard of broken hearts on the mending fence of wonderment unsealing the silence of the wounds I began to put the pieces together like a puzzle against forgetting

The Roman Twin

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Reverend Peter Roman could stand it no more. He stopped his speech. He felt a fire burning through him, a hatred for humanity and all the weaknesses of beings not perfect before God. He stood a long while, staring at the congregation. Then, he slowly spok

Jade Cicada

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Jade in the emperor’s death mouth – to the grave – all openings closed – no breath – no air – no life to enter to leave – the end should be silent – you stop my mouth

Kinky Eggs

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She plucks two eggs from the carton, weighs and measures them with the cup of her palm, the curve of her fingers.

The Invention of a Curse Word

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I saw his face

Mo Band Names

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Her Majesty’s Glasses Umbilical Chord Linger Finger Okay Inkjet The Dragon Flies Horny Free Spirit Good Footnote Buttery Clams You’reUp Empty Bladder Star Butter Karmic Impulse Mr. On-the-Ve

Double Vision

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To conceive of them separated was unthinkable to every wet-eyed soul at the burial.

Buck, naked

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Buck, naked, has no words. The best he can manage is a dopey strangulated cough. His wife, who is clothed, stands before him, next to the waterbed that took Buck half a day to force into the trailer.

Brown Plastic Bag.

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[ADVERTISEMENT: If you look for it, Google search, for 'html special characters,' the UT Austin page will come up, and you can just Cut & Paste 'em. Fuck the code!]

Harried or Employed

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Irony is written sarcasm. Sarcasm is spoken irony: the opposite of what is meant. Catholic irony in fiction seems deeper and more related to theme. Protestant irony starts with P as do other þing.

Rubber Chains

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He turned metal chains to rubber with the force of his mind. He prepared tacos for the paperboy.

Trot fast, my dapple gray!

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It was night. It was Massachusetts. It was an interview in a snowstorm that Detective Vivian Diaz wished would go away.

Honey Nut Cheerios and Chocolate Milk

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Charley calls to say he hasn't heard from me. The blinds are gone, so I take a lipstick off the living room table and draw a circle around his head. I make a half-circle for his gut, a squiggle for the telephone cord. He can come over, he says, just to …

Pura Vida

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The girl lifts my head, and I sit up straight once again. She hands me a pair of old work gloves, helps put them on my swollen hands. She wipes my face with a wet, warm towel. Her thin arms tremble. She cries. I cry.

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…

Moving Out

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Lying in the blissful glow of young television. Idly sleeping, eyes open and ears closed.

Cause of Death

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“You sure?” He nods. “Maybe it was pneuomonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” Flash of a smile, sobbing laughter, like an abandoned seal.

Fourth World

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Where are you going, boy who never was?

A Man More Like Your Mother

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Does he pack you a lunch when you're running late for work? Even when you're not running late? Does he insist on regular medical check-ups, for which he'll pay because you don't have insurance? Will he disapprove of your objectionable behavior, and not turn the…

Returning

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YOU cross the park as the evening gathers, the playground is deserted, streetlights spark up orange beyond the trees that veil the main road. You feel your journey pushing at your back, the last scraps of the energy of a train hammering north. At the far edge of…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 15

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There was a motley assortment of customers in the restaurant. Mostly casually dressed young men and women who looked like freelancers of some persuasion.

The Vessel

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For so long as I think I shall live.

I want to hear the man talk

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I remember going out to a restaurant with some guy and a friend of mine who brought her little boy along. And suddenly her boy said, “I want to hear the man talk.” Well, that stopped us. Smart kid, I thought. He was fed up hearing her women friends talk

Old Photograph Stuck Between Documents

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I spent the evening looking at our old pictures. / We were never happy. I realize that now.

Rechargeable Batteries

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Was he really a Secret Service guy? No time to think now! Quick as lightning, Rachel bounded over the sleeping matron and sprinted up the aisle.

tremendous thousand years' charisma

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Okay, I’ll admit it, the earth was shaken on the world's underside, when you left for California. And I sometimes slept on the shores of Lake Michigan and Fox River for your tremendous thousand years’ charisma. To say I cried out in pain would be lettin

Bear Weather

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Man, this bearskin rug was a big, awkward sonofabitch on his back....

A Slick Story

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After Slick Daddy — aka Billy Ray Thompson — gave up driving his log truck and took up with playing and singing the blues full-time he was what you might call a hot property around the juke joints along Highway 61. The women didn't seem to mind…

Chalky goes to night school and studies the Classics

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I don’t even want to think about Aethra shtupping Posiden and Aegeus