Most read stories

the Case of the Smelly Rug Adventure

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I didn't know what to do, really, but I had to do something. After all there was no one left to be the real bona fide hero to this story, except for me, the guy who wasn't any kind of a hero at all. I mean I could hardly move an inch, rolled…

The Thief of Words

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That's my memory, kept and clutched as with a sixth sense, that it was a prim Oriental afternoon, with the pink streaks in the sky going God-knows-where down across the park, but very far away. Ghostly, melancholy travellers. Birds met and crashed headlong somewhere up…

Unintentional Hermits- Becky

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Suddenly she feels the urge to go, the TV lounge, with its flat Ikea furniture and black sofas where two young men glowering sprawl, is unknown territory. She can imagine those eyes, mouths, hands all over her. One of them looks up and there is an unspoke

A Sudden Keen Nostalgia

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Junior year, word got around that Eric had lost his virginity to his sophomore girlfriend. She rode him on the back seat of his car. Eric wasn't keen to discuss it - he seemed to feel a certain blushing shame. It was almost as if he was raped.Eric was a scientist, first and…

full moon over econolodge on I-70

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There was no hope for the writing desk. Even if it had not been for the splintered leg held together only by duct tape, there was no way Ron could have fit into the back of the station wagon with the rest of the luggage. He asked the Mexicans across the s

The Day of the Dust Devils

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The main street has turned into the lowland of dust devils, with the red sun scorching, continuing to serve the living like a giant blood pentacle.It looks like a heathen ritual invoking an ugly looking God with wings or horns, but beneath the whirlwind of rising…

Rite-Aid

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It was the most prestigious cashier position in the entire state!

The Busy World is Perfectly Happy

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to continue to crumble its way through another grinding cycle of slowly walking to the edge of the universe ancient treelike beings, like gentle ghost buffalo, and our own thundering buildings by the hundreds of thousands, …

Nan Sequiter

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there was no mess she couldn’t manage, / no chaos she couldn’t tame.

April

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Well, hello hunger: what a sweet surprise.

Satellites

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The end, she thought, when did we end? She knew it had to end. Ten months in and it was no different from the day they met. Then again, the day they met it seemed as if they’d known each other ten years. That was the nature of their relationship she

In the Life

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You had autumn in your hair I liked the way you sat at a table And drank champagne My past years have carried me To sixteen countries Christ, we have so much to share Listen, I know how the other half lives And we can’t live like that an

How We Open Doors

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-- as if I had / only rung the rusted bell --

The Dialogue

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"Aren't you free to say whatever you please?"

Two Snapshots of A Drowning Girl

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One fine afternoon a few months after her husband's death, Susan awoke in the porcelain tub of her gigantic, empty house with: two champagne bottles, one only half-empty; a Xanax bottle, completely empty; and a loaded gun, which was most startling

Take Two Llamas and Call Me in the Morning

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A Massachusetts nursing home that doesn’t believe in antipsychotic drugs uses a llama named Travis to calm patients.

sediment

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I'm re-invented on Main St. every single day.

deja not

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I haven't felt my soul leave my body

If Ted Hughes Rewrote Shakespeare

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The Phoenix Asks the Turtle-Dove if He Can Get a Drop of Water: After Shakespeare — In the style of Ted Hughes Let the bugling bird come up that burst a big loud lay, On the solitary tree of old Arabia (sound its thunder!):…

Homeland Security

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By the time I got back to the island only Henson was still alive. He didn’t speak; the gun said it all.

We shall wait and see

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Then there is Ethelbert's husband whom Ethelbert hasn't met yet, and who has literally weighed in, as if fed up and tired of waiting for a long, in full length, needless, wake up story. That is when Ethelbert asks, "Amy who?" related to a different group

PTSD

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the queue for hell

An Introduction...

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"I don't hear anything..." whispered Hannah. We had just reached the hatch at the top of the maintenance chute. "Open it quietly, take a look around and if it's clear we climb out as silently as possible, OK go." Responded Pedro. His caution betraying h

Cherry of Menloves

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Miranda laughed. The cream of the retail industry laughed...

With Every Word

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The bedroom was still as our conversation dissolved into a heavy silence broken only by the ticking of the clock on her night table and the occasional sob that hadn't yet been swallowed in her pillow. I stubbed out my cigarette and leaned forward in…

Hyperbolic Doubt - And Wherever After To Discover The Truth Behind That Some Timely And Malignant Demon Bad Luck

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The toilet paper had been the least of the issue. It was just something else for her to yell about. See, what she was really upset about was the bank account. The bank account had been his, then theirs, and now it was his again.

Cold, Cold Night

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I thought I heard Follow your heart On the cold, cold Night of the soul I thought I heard Follow your heart, follow your heart On this coldest night Of the soul Leaves on fire, leaves on fire They told me look Into the flames To

Have to Find a Way

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I have to find a way To evolve To become To grow into something else To become something else I have to find a way To let go Loosen my firm grasp Watch it all fall away Let myself fall away Drop this act This weight This mess of a life This mess I…

Sundays

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Sundays I drive her to the cemetery to visit her husband of fifty years. I've had her for two, and when I tell her I love her as much as he did, she laughs. I have to hold her elbow and help her over the bumpy grass. Today it's raining and we brought just one umbrella, so…

Whataboutery

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A scene.