Most read stories

On Senior Prom & Being Profoundly Unpleasant

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When I was in high school, we had a prom. The juniors were paired with the seniors; and when I was a senior, I recall meeting my date for the first time. You can imagine she was not enthralled.

Burial of the Dead

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No canopic jars and fine Egyptian cotton.

How To Dismantle A Bell

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Pictures of war correspondents from The Tribune, and colonial photographs in a fruit crate

An Eventful Inconclusive Evening

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. . . I just didn’t think to call the mortician from the phone outside the grocer’s store, how gauche that would have sounded to any passers-by, a call to a mortuary from outside a grocer’s store!

The Forest is Falling

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another paper saving 55er

ALL SMOKE RISES. The story of Lilly and her need for MILK-BLOOD

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Lilly was anything but a white flower. Her skin had been blackened and burnt. Charred legs and arms stuck out like tiny tree limbs, the knuckles on her fingers barely covered by skin. The child’s face is frozen in the beginnings of a scream. She seems anc

AUTUMN LEAVES UNDERFOOT

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Goodbye comes in stages. At first you recognize that you will “miss” someone when they are gone. Then you have to accept the fact that they are leaving. And finally accept the fact that they are gone; and not particularly in that order. If only it

Destiny

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With a madman’s laugh, she realized her mistake and discarded it as irrelevant.

Backhand

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"You are stuck in the past like the jiggling leather of that wrestler's skin."

Day One

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I lounged in my captain’s chair growing a beard. Things continued in this way and then the president called.He wanted to know the meaning of virtue.

Condos Dumping Lawyers for Paramilitary Death Squads

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“Honorable condominium association members,” the leader begins. “I apologize for not having a PowerPoint slide show tonight, but me and my muchachos travel light.”

Spiders on the Wall

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Her eyes creaked open in the misty morning sun seeping through my dusty window. From her facial expression, I could tell she thought I was watching her sleep, but really I had just woken up and coincidentally looked over at the exact moment she did. I decided against …

Unlimited And Limited

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Despite kryptonite not actually existing it became possible to buy, for 300 dollars, pieces of kryptonite on eBay. Personal protection, the sales pitch said. The pieces of kryptonite looked suspiciously like green plastic.

Picked Up

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Tucker walked the long and lonely stretch of highway in front of him. The loneliness didn't matter; he had his own way of handling that feeling. The walking, however, was wearing away at his mind. How…

Can a Hummingbird Sing?

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I'm the first child she ever knew that couldn't sing.

Portrait of the Author as a Poet

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I am an awful poet.

Pharaoh's Revenge

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The first intimation that something was afoul was when his computer crashed.

At the Balcony

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I was setting up a mattress and a lamp in the balcony of my house because a boy, G., told me he was coming to fuck me.

Dream

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Lately, instead of the images of dreams waking me up, as has always been the case, it is sounds that jolt me awake. The thumps and roars and slithering of creatures unseen. The ghosts that slam cupboards shut. The apparitions of robbers breaking down the front door:…

His Bus

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He'd always considered it his bus.

Elevator Music

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Of course, no one can control what goes on in an elevator.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 73

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The pawnbroker sat behind bulletproof glass at the rear of the display area, a veritable potentate of hope and cash, exchanging expendable items for derisory cash.

Feb 5

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He peels the garlic while I stir the lentils; he chops the cilantro while I peel kale leaf from stem. Also, the rings. Also, no one is going anywhere.

First Things Go First And End Up Being Last (the Big Enough Picture)

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I don't have to show you how to fly. I don't even know who you are still possibly trying to be in this crazy grounded world. But the words make us family. I can't help that or what you might do with that public tweet tweet…

Call Me

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The woman took a small note card from her purse and wrote on it. She then stood, handed the card to the doctor, and said, “Call me.”

Departures

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Fingers scrabble idly at pocket seams, forage between teeth, grasp for tepid cups, patter a drumbeat on knees.

In The Place Between

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We played and had joy. As the seasons changed in that peripheral world, we did not feel it. We only saw the snow a bit, only felt the wind a bit, we were not really in it. We still kept ourselves busy. There was something that I did begin to notice. I cou

Lilies

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Every spring, outside on the back deck, my mother and I have the same talk about how time flies, and she always waves her hand in the air as if swatting at a fly, but there's never anything there. She thinks the lilies will live all summer spread like a rainbow,…

Of the Terrible Angels and Their Fleshy Conduits

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Other pathways are more satisfactory. They are more closely attuned to music of the other world. Even so, the heat eventually burns them up.

Fernando

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“It's not him,” Kelly says. “I think it might be,” says her Mom. The three of us are sitting on the long sofa facing the wall which is one …