Most read stories

The Flame Child

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Lupe drove. She didn't know where she was going, but still she drove. The Mustang whined because she did not shift gears. The street was wet from a night rain and if…

Thanksgiving

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Unless we see it, probe it, Name it, star by star, and feel This awful, tenuous gratitude.

9 January

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Side morning lightthrough hydrangea crab, reachand shine off patio ice

Identity

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We’re forty-three.

Optimum Condition

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I have hate and it is black not midnight, crisp fresh clear. Unadulterated. It is dirty, poor, gritty solid rough like unripe stone fruit. A peach, mealy and dry. The killing, effete, endures. Silent, my repugnance, sick, eats…

Silly Soliloquy

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If I had alcohol in me right now I'd be singing out loud. I'd turn this boat around & turn it into a karaoke bar. Why is it even worth mentioning? This is why people gaze abstractedly at the ground. Ambition is thirty gallons of gas & a red Silverado. Wishing, on…

Split Decisions

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Many colored eyes move slow between the mirror and my heart, begging questions. I offer no explanation. None suffice to breed either my content or theirs.

Kathy

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"Happy New Year Willie."

The Flower and the Sailboat

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She looked at the flowerthat grew through the stone hedgeon a cliffwhere the rockswere stacked to the edge of the water.It was a polka dot spot of fuchsia, Petals peeking through the green briar bush.On the bridge,Staring hard at the deep water,Ripples of blue that…

The First Several Chapters of His Memoirs

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He went for long, quiet walks. These seemed to quell the seething rages swirling about him as he exhumed and reconstructed the truth of himself.

Twenty Percent

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That September, he had enjoyed drinks in the company of now-dead utopians.

Fate

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decline the prof­fered hand

The House on El Nino Diablo Court

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On a cold, dark night near to All Hallows' Eve in October of 1930, I was summoned by Constable John Wakefield to the house of Vernalier Driscoll. The constable was wild-eyed and very nervous, his hair appeared to be standing on end.

A Good Provider

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She looked over from the passenger seat at her husband and smiled. It had been twenty years. She hadn't expected him to remember. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, placed her hand on his thigh.“We'll be home soon enough,” he said. He was not…

Twisting Destiny

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And so, many ideas and stories and wonders crash onto the shores of my conscience...

Spider on a Red Thing

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Equality became the next goal, rendering gay redundant in describing marriage. Gaelic life is ringed with sharing and lent the word slogan.

Error Message

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Would you take a job living in a computer? What if you had to?

The Threat of Distance

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The lone young man walking in the distance,/receding silently,

War Story: Alternate Duty II - crash landing

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I was only allowed ten hours in the tower a month so the Army in its infinite wisdom gave me lots of alternate duty which in the I-Corp area mostly meant loaning me to the Marines. That worked out because the alternate duty the Army came up with tended to

Freedom

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His senses were heightened. The scratching on the table with his finger nails, intense nervousness, the noise magnified every second, the ball point pen was piercing into his sweaty palm.

Me and Frisco on the Road

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I don't think I minded so much watching the trucks hit him, one breaking his spine with a decisive snap, and the other finishing the job by splitting his skull. I don't think I minded watching as much as I did watching those two boys poking around at his

Each Planned to Kill the Other

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What was heinous about it was how easy I assumed it would be. That was truly heinous, and it was a mistake in the end to think of it that way. But I’ve learned from what’s heinous. I’ve bought a plastic cylinder filled with nylon zip ties. They’re great f

Margaret, Pleased

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Grace looks at her cell phone. It had been about a week since her Aunt Margaret fell, slipping gracefully down the stairs and pulling her shoulder out as she grabbed the banister, her hand caught in the holiday streamers spiraling down the railing. Every

Miriam

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When daybreak comes, it falls a pall pást mé, For it descends too soon for woken sight to see A shade of any gladness in its dew's first blisters: All my dreams of daylight are in darkling whispers Of…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 68

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Ben’s tactic for diverting Monique’s thoughts from the encounter with Zoë and the horrific episode in his dressing room was to dance, dance, dance.

Weeknights, Idling, Candlelight

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I find that I am keeping silent more often. I don't like repeating myself.

Magdalene's dream

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That night Magdalene dreamt about Jesus.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 29

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-Ben, you mean you could get whacked for a couple of paintings? -Well, Gabe, there's more to it than a couple of paintings, but my lips are sealed.

All About You

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Sometimes you want to strike out at me. What is stopping you? There is no stopping you. You know I will not retaliate. Gone is all that I will be to you then.

Edith Head's Heady Day

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Rain dressed for winter, a win, she thought