Most read stories

For You, For Me

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...mark every buoy...

Query

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The murder of two teens late one humid night on a tiny rural Virginia island brings a dark, malignant mystery edging into the village known as Leicester Court House.

Superman and the Best Vacuum Cleaner Salesman in New York City

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I remember driving to New York City the summer of 1964, just before I met you. That was the very first time I ever smoked a joint. In those days it was happy dope. We got high and everything seemed so funny! Those were the days! I drove into the city

One Man's Post

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There was a bottleneck ahead. We slowed down single-file, me behind, to wait our turn to pass the doorway of a vacant storefront church. In it, a lone black man sat atop an empty plastic milk crate. Nobody looked at him; they were all slowing down and cro

(There) You Are(There Again)

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looking like you never once purposefully disappeared from our view. Like a river running clean through a fog's lying heart. Like standing thunder, suddenly gone solid enough, within a crazed hungry countryside, like a smile's radius, to be seen and heard …

Blackballed

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When I was a small child, my father was just barely a man, and he was independently wealthy. So it didn't matter that he was an adolescent inside. There was never any mention of "working." No notion of career. Just the girl he knocked up and the amusing…

Encounter with Lover's Daughter

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What happens when you accidentally run into your lover's daughter on a plane.

Buzz

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Why is this woman smiling? Because she’s the Real Mona Lisa, that’s why

Results

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“I don't want to talk about this right now.” “Oh you don't want to…

Ten For The Devil

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Horses pulled carts loaded with valuables at backbreaking speed. King Street was one of the steepest in the city making the steeds’ task most difficult in deed. Their chest covered in foam and their eyes wild with fear. Their clattering hoofs gripped

Hospital, or Depression III

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Yes sir, I confess there have been timeswhen I did not care how young the earth isor take pride in how she sprang back to greenregardless of how hard the snow fought.There have been times, yes, when I lacked the willto notice such things and knew that belowthe water's…

Crack

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It's the kind of neighborhood where the bar above the hot dog stand functions as a drug warehouse. Lowest prices, biggest selection, friendliest — highest — associates. I live here, a block over in the midst of sushi joints and frat boys, but I live…

Moulin de la Galette. Renoir

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Light seen as sunlight through a Japanese shade Red through many of their mouths, and often their hair but also spots of a duller red on the back of this gentleman's coat and the back of his head The woman stares at him without smiling from thre

Hide and Seek

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In September she had been wise.

Leave It To Cleavage

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Thus was Rent-a- Rat, Inc born. At first it was Rent-a-Rugrat, but we changed it so the Army wouldn’t be onto us. Our first headquarters was out of a damned tent on Red Square, but we would get the hell out of there as soon as we could muster the necessar

Good Grief

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Slowly slowly the veil is lifted

commitment

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but isn't that the case in most long-term, committed relationships?

An Exquisite Fall From Grace

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He lay on a wooden pallet, which he had placed inside a cardboard box that might have once held a refrigerator. Except the box was labeled “Robotic Endoscopic Surgery System.” His head was propped on a gym bag that contained all his possessions. Outside, it…

the plight continues

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but at least I wasn't drinking as much anymore.

1 Mil = One-Tenth of a Cent

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Thankfully I don't have to share my Jim Beam with the cat.

Oh Captain, Good Captain: Part IV

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Oh Captain, Good Captain I went where you asked of me But now I'm back home And things are so clear to me The liquors been drained So my eyes have dried finally I'm seeking her out So her voice can stop haunting me When I see his face I'll…

Vivian Considers Vivian

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She's been considering her breasts more now.

Treasure Hunting Brings Sunnis, Shiites Together

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Muslim factions are getting a helping hand to bridge the gap that has divided Shiites from Sunnis since Mohammed died--a new version of the Peace Corps that uses recreational metal detection to build friendship.

Nehwareven

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In the switched-off time of day's blackest rest-

Nascent Talk with the Gypsy

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She was having a laugh, but I didn't know what about. We were sitting in a big house that was on the top of a large incline. All these books were scattered around, and the walls and the kitchen, the doors and the quarter round and every other thing, was old and…

The Affair

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Mine lasted 90 days. But don't they all? After we made love the first time, it was early November, I remember, some internal part of me shot upward with a laughter that would not stop. Something…

You leave me

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laying with you, thinking with you, breathing with you

Trope City

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If the pen travels over a sheet of paper, it is not long before a metaphor appears. A fast, beautiful metaphor like friendship, or deformity. Think of the pen as a penis and the ink as semen. I just sit and laugh. Time impregnates an opportunity and a lon

Lazarusfish

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Scuttling on his knees now, he crossed to the other side of the boat and dropped the fish into a bucket of water. He knew what he had to do next.

WHAT I LEARNED IN HEBREW SCHOOL

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There was a big pile of dirt in back, where the little Hebrew School bochurs would play King of the Mountain—tugging, tearing, biting, punching, using whatever weapons they could get their tiny hands on to topple whoever scrambled up the mound first.