Most read stories

Nothing to Worry About

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The boss has a serious problem--he's too nice for his own good.

Outré Souls (WIP)

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When the lore of the land could no longer hold the minds of men, they turned their eyes to places where they expected to find no other gaze.

Morning Night (1)

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Sunday Night She wasn't hungry, hadn't eaten for days, wouldn't even touch the food I took time off my fuckin' schedule to bring her myself. I walked through puddles of dirt and dog shit, I did. By the time she opened the door after four knocks, I was drenched,…

War Story: Veteran of a foreign war

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"Did you see any action?" I ask, hoping for a story. He points to a scar ripping through the chevron on his left arm but says nothing.

The Chair

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His thoughts drifted to when he was a kid, to the monthly trip to the barber.

black

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my soul is black and it's deep like heartbreak and heavy as stone and as thick as ink and it is pressing on top of me like last nights one night stand like dead weight so that I can't lift my arms or spread my legs it feels like I am walking through mud but it's…

Departures

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

What Matters Is Round

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How do you do my name is Luigi and I am the Duke of Abruzzi. I love bubbles, strawberries, and sheets drying in the wind and sunlight. Hobbies include bank robbery, kidnapping, and extortion. As you can see, the streets…

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,…

The Tall Man’s Secret

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I turn the corner and come face to face with Ed, who's stark naked at the kitchen sink. He chugs a glass of hot tap water from a measuring cup and belches loudly. “Good morning,” he says, as he pisses in the sink. “I drink 6 cups of hot tap…

Five Acts

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The television was playing reruns of Mr. Ed, but it was hard to hear because of the flock of birds in the palm tree. I’d sometimes imagined the birds coming through the window, a swarming of pink cotton mouths, mawing everything in sight.

Last Stop To Dream

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This time is different. The dream doesn’t continue with endless walking.

Clockwork and Sex Appeal

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And her life runs like clockwork. And the kids wouldn’t get to school without her, and the paychecks wouldn’t arrive and the taxes wouldn’t get paid. And she listens to religion and country and God telling her how to run her life, what to do and when. B

My Stigmata

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“Don’t you think you should tie a tourniquet or something?” she asked as I bled profusely from the points where Jesus was wounded during his crucifixion.

Letter Home

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The pen point sits motionless on the paper...

Out of the frying pan...

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the pressure from my lungs threatened to burst my eardrums.

The Further Chronicles of Mars (tribute to Ray Bradbury)

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And in the dark caves a new secret, hidden from flyby probes and the imagination of men. In these new caves, names for the loved ones, Bradbury, Clarke, Rover

Gray Lizard

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He can’t enlarge the rock—/ can only find its safest distance

Shedding the Skin of Past Lives

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I bow my head and shed the antlers of past lives I no longer butt heads with the universe but I miss my curse and can’t do worse I throw myself in reverse and rehearse the early scenes of science and my full meat diet that sent

Thanksgiving Carnage

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The game is set, thirty pound gobbler at the center; brined, browned, and buttered to perfection. The players take their places around the table: Reagan’s_Disciple and BraBurner38 sit at the head seats, eyeballing each other over a fizzing bottle of dom

Sarah Nell

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There are two, though, that stayed for more than just a little while: Marvin and Oscar. Marvin was married and that's all I have to say about that. Oscar wasn't and it seemed as though he wasn't planning on getting married either. What a petty man he was.

Frank & Frank

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Ok, so I know this guy, he's a friend of mine. A good friend, even though I think he's left too big a tip on the bar more than once. His name is Frank.

Dreamless

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We call it the alley of the shadows, the low sunless concavity of earth between the stalks, the acrid scent of the ripened arrow-points.

The Lonely White Elephant in Rome

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the gambling priest stands in the morning fog/red moon hangs in the sky/the army of seven houses marches over the hill

Almost Regrettably Useless Advice

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This world is always at least as strange as it seems, but usually far more strange, so many non-repeatable phenomena . . . .

remembering

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I remembered because the man took us to see the horses. I didn't see something that set off a series of memories. I only saw the stables and the moon sitting pensively below the firmament. I looked at these and there was spaciousness between the moon and the stables and…

3

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there was the place where the large turtles had their eggs, and it was always a concern because everyone wanted the new turtles to make it back to the sea but the electric lights of high wattage along with sounds from the roadways beyond were in one…

His Bus

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He'd always considered it his bus.

The Bison's Alimony

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The bison know a lot about Longfellow

Roanne Smiled

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With some of these guys it was like propping a kid on a training-wheel bike, then steering the kid down the street til he figured out what to do next. Tricks would come into the bar. Roanne had a smile for all but the dregs…