Most read stories

FEAR OF LANDING

13411341 views11 comment11 fav

“Omaha is filled with fine clothing stores for men,” he says, “all of them doing very well. Whereas Minneapolis is a different story altogether.” I am trying to sleep in seat 26C. 26B is occupied by Mildred who has already introduced herself,…

It's My Birthday

13411341 views77 comments22 favs

and the President didn't call.

Alfamadog

13411341 views44 comments44 favs

It was that special ache between heart and stomach that made me stop things. That ache that cannot be caused by the mere knowledge that you have steered your life into a completely wrong direction. To feel this pain, you also need to have no clue why and how it…

Hey, Boys, Bandits!

13411341 views66 comments11 fav

I remember one time that summer I was with you (1964) going to a bar in maybe it was Melrose Park, or Northlake, or somewhere along Roosevelt Road closer to Chicago, not as far as Cicero though. I went there with a crazy gear-head named Roger Hudson, wh

The Rat, His Treadwheel

13411341 views88 comments77 favs

The rat had been informed, assured, cajoled in order to gain his assent—duly lied to, in other words, by the researchers with not one tear of remorse, with no smudge or smear of conscience . . .

Get a Hold of God, Will You?

13401340 views33 comments00 favs

Get a Hold of God Get a hold of God, will you? I have seen a lot I saw a Great Dane licking the dew off an orange bird of paradise Get a hold of God and tell him that Get a hold of God and give him a piece of my m

NO IDEAS FROM HERE

13401340 views33 comments11 fav

NO IDEAS FROM HERE Tape The knife that tore the envelope tore the apricot. What was it? Water The boxes ranked against the open room. Watch So it was cut the water bright the tub. Say …

Midwestern Charm

13401340 views55 comments33 favs

He slathered the glue on my scalp and talked non-stop about Harlem. Electrodes or nodes, I never asked which, would measure something inside my head. I doubt they actually did though, measure anything. I've had the pleasure of having wires glued to my skull before and have…

Timmy's Singularity

13401340 views55 comments44 favs

Suddenly, the room was filled with a screaming vortex directed at a pinpoint in the corner. Timmy's bureau was gone and everything loose in the room was flying towards the spot it had occupied. Timmy stood up in horror. He tried to seal this rent by tossi

Carpe Mentis

13401340 views11 comment00 favs

machine utility of thought, intangible aesthetic of sentiment.

Intelligent Design

13401340 views66 comments55 favs

Posit butterflies/ as evidence of heavenly design.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Coda

13401340 views44 comments22 favs

—Man, what a tearjerker way to end an interview, said Ben.

The Oral Tradition

13401340 views33 comments33 favs

No preview available due to the brevity of the piece. In fact, this comment itself is longer than the piece.

Violet Hour

13401340 views55 comments22 favs

“My name is Violet,” I add. I am trying to stop lying. Going without cigarettes has been easier.

Sisyphus

13401340 views55 comments33 favs

I build pedestals.It's hard workHeld together by sweat, love, and lofty thoughts - an unsound foundation.The tiniest bit of heartbreak,and it comes crashing down. Always, I blame the builder and not the vandal. The next one will be…

The Shirt Library

13401340 views00 comments00 favs

I hate buying shirts. There's no point. You need a shirt, you go to the library.

Shaken not stirred

13401340 views33 comments22 favs

The warmth of the sun

The Exiled Realm

13391339 views00 comments00 favs

destinies bring me to a damned desert

Fragment from an Unwritten Diary

13391339 views66 comments44 favs

It's not stories the quiet lack, but inclination...

The Vessel

13391339 views00 comments00 favs

For so long as I think I shall live.

The curtain

13391339 views1414 comments88 favs

In the evening the curtain recounts its day. Faces, images, incidents it has observed from the window. Its voice is nuanced, modulated, quivering, for it is made of lace. It appears to crochet its words with needle sounds. My eyes, during confinement, are not wide open, not…

A Flat Sheet and One Standard Pillowcase

13391339 views00 comments00 favs

this is your hair, this is your stare, this is your voice

Everything Foreign

13391339 views22 comments11 fav

In college, I made friends with my Jewish roommate. Her name was Leah and she was from Brooklyn. When she asked me home with her for Thanksgiving, she mentioned we could go to synagogue together. I asked if there would be other black people there. "No," Leah…

Sorrow

13391339 views55 comments33 favs

It's not a funeral. Nobody to mourn over.

Like Five O'Clock

13391339 views77 comments22 favs

She pulled the book off its shelf. It meant something else now. He'd quote her in the mirror, at the backs of buses that kept her moving, something she'd said without saying. He would remember for them. She'd forget, without him, the way she wanted. Garland and lights were…

Rags to Riches to Rags, 1

13391339 views11 comment11 fav

1 Al Capone was ruling the backstreets and alleyways of Chicago during Prohibition, and we lived in a little house right next door to a speak-easy. I could peak through our curtains and see right into the bar next door when cops came in to get pai

The House on El Nino Diablo Court, Part 2

13391339 views00 comments00 favs

Inspired by "The Dunwich Horror"" by H.P. Lovecraft, this excerpt concerns the events in the life of a man who is coming to the awareness that his son has followed in his grandfather's steps and begun the process of conjuring a spirit that killed him.

The Master of the Air

13391339 views88 comments44 favs

He thought of it as magic, but magic that he understood, the way a magician knows about the hidden compartments in his hat and trunks.

Survival

13391339 views66 comments33 favs

When nothing's coming in All I have are fragments Cloudy memories Uncompleted projects Disappointments loom large and threaten to define me I am only as good as what I produce And now I feel empty So how do I shine How do I find the spark that…

My eHarmony Profile

13391339 views55 comments22 favs

I’m up to my ass in social media.