Most read stories

He Invented Carbon Dating for Seniors, and Couch Potato Chips

10631063 views33 comments22 favs

I saw an older writer in a slouched-down Fedora, gray beard and long scraggly gray ponytail, who had empty chairs pulled up all around him, at the Loser Café, maybe for his imaginary friends, or maybe those who were already gone.

Breath for Nick Cage

10631063 views44 comments55 favs

But El Roy Never listen no so

blog - Feb - bad month - 42 cents

10631063 views33 comments22 favs

Let’s see. February. Bad month. Made 42 cents on book sales. Sherry’s mom died. 98 years old. Holocaust survivor. Everybody’s dying all around us, it seems like. Somebody told us a portal has opened and people are making a dash for it. Hmmm. Portals. I wo

Blueprint for a tale

10621062 views22 comments00 favs

Remove with care, then slowly lay the string, wide well-soaked end at left-hand edge, to start, and allow to curve, to bend, to almost loop and wind its way at rest across the mottled, patterned green

Out in the Street

10621062 views44 comments11 fav

As kids, we grew up in a city that we swore was suburbia. Nearly every street had a few houses with a kid or two that was missing their front teeth. There were kids we knew well and kids we'd wish we'd known but they lived a few…

Order

10621062 views22 comments00 favs

Still worried. I could use some more hope in my oatmeal.

we were not deer

10621062 views00 comments00 favs

The crescent moon lies with anyone (in case you wanted to know.) And the rain – as cheaply! I don’t think anyone knows this, when they are young. When you are young, very young, you want to be included in everything. “The young that the sea took, ki

Wherein the Air

10621062 views22 comments22 favs

He inhaled the spears of aroma...

Smoker

10621062 views33 comments11 fav

I inhale the smoke from a burning cigarette held between two stained fingers that are not mine.

Firecracker to the Dome

10621062 views11 comment22 favs

pulling my bones apart, fingers are supernatural beings

Five Million Yen: Chapter 31

10621062 views00 comments00 favs

What do you Americans say, here is ze kicker?

Advice from the Receptionist

10621062 views33 comments11 fav

The president is truculent today.

4 Scars

10621062 views00 comments00 favs

Within 3 seconds the replicant Abraham Lincoln now knew everything there was to know in this world. The errant input function had created a memory leak that lead into the network. First local systems, local networks, to city, state, government, then world

anura

10621062 views1212 comments77 favs

still to early to dodge leaping bodies on misty roads at night

done

10611061 views22 comments00 favs

...

Mrs. Smedley's Art Class

10611061 views22 comments11 fav

THERE ARE TWO PARTS. FROM PART ONE: (Later the police escort the students out, directing them to keep their hands in the air, as they file out into the parking lot. They wrap Mrs. Smedley in a blanket as she stares out blankly in shock. "How is Linda? Is

the way you make me feel

10611061 views33 comments33 favs

out in space/ platonic forms/ dazzle with/ voluptuous grace

Reunion

10611061 views22 comments11 fav

You’d think we all would have learned something in our hearts since the towers fell, he thought, as Amy slid away from him. You had to get some perspective on the city, some view from outside, far outside, maybe from space, which would have afforded them

Left to our own Dvices

10611061 views44 comments22 favs

No one knew why DVices were so hard to find. No one knows for sure anyway.

At a Reading

10611061 views55 comments33 favs

His wife leans her head against a beam with her eyes closed while he reads out loud. Her mouth shut tightly, almost twisted shut. She's so weary. She raises her collar and sinks further into her neck. When he shouts, or explodes — nothing. Not

Street Lamp

10611061 views22 comments00 favs

An old man leaning over his stamp collection. His burning face glows with bourbon. Underneath, children try to stretch moments. Each toss of the ball, turn of the handlebars a deliberate time shaping exercise to see how much distance they can…

Trio

10611061 views1111 comments99 favs

With green and silent industry, the plants/ convert our shit to fiber, food and breath.

On Reading Yeats' "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory"

10611061 views33 comments11 fav

Two logs to make a fire burn, one real, one fake, for we have learned that's all an evening fire takes.

The Dummy Drop

10601060 views22 comments00 favs

I looked at my now silent cell phone feeling like an idiot. Thad was standing next to me, that shit eating grin plastered on his face like gravy stains on an old shirt."So Genius Jones, what the fuck did he say to you?" asked Thad, sarcasm dripping onto the floor. "She blew…

Saturdays with Satan: Desperately Seeking Evil

10601060 views00 comments00 favs

“Grow some fucking balls, Satan!”Did I just say that? To the prince of darkness?Yes. Yes, I did. Let me back up.*It was around 10:30 Saturday morning when the phone rang. I recognized the caller id.“Hi, Satan,” I said as I picked it…

A Flap and a Flutter from a Belfry

10601060 views11 comment11 fav

After our visit to Phoenix and following our inspection of the Grand Canyon, our seminary octet continued its twelve-thousand mile sojourn across the country as a quintet.

“Because a man has read a book does not mean he is a wise man”

10601060 views22 comments11 fav

That night in the stable the three wise men were the only ones who had read books. All the rest became victims of circumstance. Characters amazing in their own right. To be written and talked about for centuries. Totally…

Lotis

10601060 views00 comments00 favs

1A voice scratches her ear: Come here, petal.Later: …

Song Without Wonder

10601060 views44 comments44 favs

What I’ve got is priceless, but no one wants it. Hmmm. I wonder if I can give it away, or have to haul it to the dump? What I have is priceless. Priceless. What I have is priceless, but no one wants it.

The Last Last Ride

10601060 views44 comments11 fav

You’d stay on this small roller coaster ride all summer long if you could and if I were a rich man, I would let you. Is it fun riding around in circles? You’re only nine; of course it’s fun.