Most read stories

Hook

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“What the fuck!” Duke muttered, amazed at what he was seeing in the darkened store. A thin curtain of smoke was rising from under the baseboard like an inverted waterfall. It stretched the entire length of the left wall. Holy shit, the joint's on fire! I…

Off We Go Then

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Wish more than ever there was a more perfect way to mean everything I say. If I could I'd certainly walk all my words right up to your face now and give them over, hand to hand so to speak. That's the point at which I'd very much…

Why Men Compete

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It starts on the Fallopian Speedway:

Famus Peepul

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Famus Peepul Ellen and her boy, Larson, were on the second floor of The Monsters restaurant, searching for the fortuneteller. Larson had decided her signature was a necessary addition to his autograph book. He hadn't asked for her autograph…

It’s a compromising situation...

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It’s a compromising situation... The would be Bride of Christ begins perspiring before the crowd. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring echoes through the antique church just one more time, a little loud. With every added verse and every flickering vigi

Celebrity Sighting

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No, that can't be him, Joe thought. The guy was messing around the displays in back. He had walked in three or four minutes ago, by now, and he certainly looked the part — or at least Joe thought…

When Deer Attack

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Carla woke up from her hospital bed screaming. "Somebody please help me. Please save me. I am begging you."

The 0th Parallel

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These are the days you wish would never end.

Canvas

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The artist with fork and trowel. The paint; soil, seed, seedling or plug.

The Gatekeeper Of The Pathogens

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It was in his teeth. A blackness, a subscription to an outsideness, a painful contraction of burnt out trees scattered there among sand drifts and tidal debris. His face, lightly weathered and troubled, a tightness built into eyes of thought and separation. His arms, strong…

Groceries

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Your son is six feet tall in the sixth grade. By his sophomore year of high school, he outweighs you by a hundred pounds. He's been offered four football scholarships and one for a sport he's never played. Every morning his mother, your ex ex-wife, makes his breakfast of a…

And You--And You--And You

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“Good to see you, old man,” Greg said. He was like that, an investment banker, a latter-day Tom Buchanan without the polo ponies, self-consciously fusty.

Sunny And 78

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Tombstone is a tongue of stone in the mouth of the desert. The desert is a living entity. It speaks. It speaks with a tongue of stone. It says: Tombstone.

An Elevator Door Opens

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What’s your favorite emotion? Mine is ripping the sky apart and standing on a star outside of time.

Carpe Mentis

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machine utility of thought, intangible aesthetic of sentiment.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 14

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We both looked toward the house. We could just make out a light that was barely visible coming from the side where their bedroom window was. Slowly an evil grin appeared on Darrell's face. He looked at the knife in his hand. "This will do it!" he sa

The Fine Madness

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A phrase, a sentence, a stanza,/ sounds among the sums and lists/ and starts a scratched cascade/ of syllables and other approximations--

These Dreams We Are Having

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It is just a little break from the colicky baby who has finally fallen asleep. Just a little break, maybe a half hour. And the faulty heater, that wolf at the door, knows that and will take his chance. The two of you are lying on your backs, both of yo

Prairie Flowers

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As a kid he had run away from the family farm and shoveled coal back East to put himself through college. Now he was just another old man in a nursing home, desperate for a drink, his blue eyes bleary, a sticky goo filming at the corners of his lips.

My Not Entirely Serious Predictions for Season Four of Sherlock

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The BBC's “Sherlock” is among the most popular shows on TV, and there has been much speculation among die-hard fans like myself about what the upcoming fourth season will hold. Having consulted my own crystal ball, here's what I see happening: Irene…

Carmen Scarpino, Pioneering Wise Guy, Dead at 78

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Breasts were developed after World War II, the result of improved nutrition and the additional muscle mass that “Rosie the Riveter”-types acquired through manual labor in jobs that males abandoned to join the war effort.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 47

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—Mr. Martinelli, can you explain how you developed your painting technique?

The Anchorman

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Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of what we mean when we say "Tsunami: A Very Bad Thing."

The Mission of Dimitri Kastratitov

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A nuclear-plant fuel rod engineer, Dimitri Kastrotov, had an axe to grind, so invented an atomic deterrent, to counterbalance mankind. He targeted the filthy rich, greedy sons of a bitch, breeding war, weapons and nukes at a reckless fever pitch After …

Menelaus Supporting Patroclus

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He remembers, he touches, he lifts and kisses the mouth.

Fossil Beach

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hiking to Fossil Beach

Counterproductive

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A fat kid running; the sounds of an ice-cream truck —counterproductive.

The Cusp of Leaving

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She waited on the hot, broken pavement, arm outstretched, her thumb a ticket to a distant, refracted horizon. Waves of heat danced like undulating snakes under the spell of a charmer. She pictured herself passing through them, abandoning the green of home for the…

Brief excerpt from the Fantasy thing I'm writing.

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Lucien Lucien Tidesquall lay almost sleeping amid the soft green grass. His eyes irradiated green midnight under vanquished brows. A plover hovered somewhere in the distance. It reminded him of a poem he had written as a teenager, a haiku that went as…

Stump the Nuns!

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“It's a combination of ‘Survivor' and ‘College Bowl' says Sister Mary Agnesita, the show's host. “We take four very strict nuns and match them up with boys who were cut-ups in their grade school classes."