Most read stories

Watercolored Different

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Simon Ridley only had one special power. Whenever he walked into a room, an awkward silence would descend.

Big Secrets

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O’Malley imagined the blissful, narcotic innocence of Toby’s world where soft-shell crabs crawled into people’s mouths and hummed a happy tune as they were chewed and swallowed.

Peach

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She's standing outside the 7-11, skirt up round her ass. Ripe. She could be a whore but she looks way too classy. Plus she has a huge soda - I'd guess diet - and a Twinkie.

The Human Car Wash of Self-Esteem

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It was one of those dinner parties where everyone had had a little too much to drink, and the conversation around the table had grown more . . . shall we say, spirited.

watch

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what drives them here?

My Voyeur Life

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It's the way an earnest five-year-old boy pronounces every single letter as he whispers. Something about octopuses, something else about peas.

Role

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The pieces of bread dipped us humans in cheese, the cheese made by cows from our milk.

Dream of Burying My Grandmother Who Has No Grave

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We buried her upright, in the stance of warriors.

500 Words or Less

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A brief commentary on the uselessness of endings.

LOTUS

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Make cartography with your mouth...

The Boys

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The Boys The Boys, they call my brothers in the neighborhood, or Those Boys. The Taylor Boys. Sometimes, Mom calls them Thing One and Thing Two, like in The Cat in the Hat. Those bad boys. Nobody has brothers like my brothers, kicked off the school bus, barred…

THE GIFT

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If you run into my Aunt Lucille, put your head down and keep walking. She knows when a person is going to die. She knows when a fatal disease is heading your way and she doesn't keep it to herself. She told my best friend, Mary Lou Pierce, don't bother

The Understanding

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The young boy picks up a coin that has rolled to his feet. It is warm, too warm considering the cold air streaming around him.

All-Night Cartoon Party

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'Hey, are you supposed to be from a cartoon or something?' said the Grim Reaper. I had to take a big drink before I could reply. I didn't know what to say, so I said 'Could I see your watch, please?' He looked down my dress while he thought about it.

5” X 6” In A Sturdy Frame

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The first morning we met—I remember the rain, soft the way I like it—was a series she later attributed as a fourteen-frame sunrise.

Tree Voices (revised)

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Shhhhhhhh...

A Walk Down Delancey

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my exposed flu-ridden head

Literate Reply

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an oven mitt in Dachau

LIGHT FINGERS

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Like gymnastics, shoplifting is a discipline of youth.

Hunting the Thylacine

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“Ah, there’s the Tasmanian tiger,” the visitor says in an American accent, maybe midwestern. “It’s called a ‘thyracine,’ right?” “Thylacine, yes.” “Un huh. Thylacine. Extinct now, isn’t it?” “Oh! Let’s hope not

Panthera pardus

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A cruel panther gets its prey.

What You Catch a Glimpse of, Forget As Soon

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There are gestures, unmarred by the words put to them after all has failed. When Y. stopped you from talking to apply lip balm to your dry lips. Or she sidled up to you to read what you had written for her. When you lay on the grass together she put her head on…

A Course In Positive Thinking

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The debits and credits of life have been recalculated. You are not due tax; you are owed a trapeze. It turns out you have a natural gift for hanging upside down, knees to the clouds.

The Mommy's Girl

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Her mother dressed her like a little girl would dress a doll.

Five Uneasy Pieces

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Eighteen-layered canvases were prized by both of them, regardless of whose work appeared on top.

AN HOUR EVERY AFTERNOON

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This is the only time she feels she can be herself.

Arcana Magi - c.15: Chisame Murakami, Sentinel of Genbu

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The water burst into droplets of rain and fell on top of her. Chisame laughed out loud, a joy that overwhelmed her as she repeated this feat over and over.

Divinatrix

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Hooking up.

Pieta

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Come home, my love, and live.

Abomination at the Shilkie

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That I own one of the world's largest collections of occult references, including a clutch of rare and ancient grimoires, ought to suggest I'd have been prepared for the shock. But nothing in my studies left me meaningfully prepared. . .