Most read stories

Two More for Akutagawa

10881088 views22 comments22 favs

Heading for the fields one morning to paint haystacks, Vincent noticed his neighbor’s house ablaze.

Frostproof Suite: Clown Car

10881088 views1818 comments1616 favs

My job was take the falls, act the dope, finish at the wrong end of the slap stick for the blow off. I was Auguste, the fool; I drove the clown car.

You leave me

10881088 views44 comments00 favs

laying with you, thinking with you, breathing with you

Nemesis' Rainbow

10881088 views22 comments11 fav

The moon has a cloud pass before it. The strop has a razor pulled up-and-down, up-and-down, up and down against it.

Topsy Was a Flip Flopper

10881088 views00 comments00 favs

Topsy was a flip flopper ... Topsy was a crazy complainer.

WHEN YOUR HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED AND THE HEART OF THE OCEAN IS NOT IN YOUR POCKET

10881088 views44 comments11 fav

Her heart is the color of fuck. Not the color she'd imagined; the soft pink of parting lips, the fading hand print on steamed—up windows, like Leo and Kate in that fancy car the night it sank. His car was a dented jeep…

Agrarian Joys of Ornamental Lawns

10881088 views77 comments66 favs

The leaves/ that clung through February/ fall, dung brown,

Vivian Considers Vivian

10881088 views22 comments00 favs

She's been considering her breasts more now.

From Day One

10881088 views55 comments11 fav

On the first night I met you, you fell in love with the waitress. She had a loud voice and a strong Irish accent. She wore an oversized t-shirt to minimize her large breasts, and baggy jeans. No makeup; crooked teeth. But you…

Cleopatra Goes Shopping

10881088 views22 comments22 favs

Cleopatra fills her cart with food and cosmetics until it is overflowing. She proceeds out of the store. The clerks stop running products over their scanners and gaze in incredulity, and confusion.

Quay 19

10881088 views22 comments00 favs

Through by the sands and the rocks we were going and the lake liquid had tumbled the stones by the thousands so that while the water was still we could see agates and yellow jaspers and other or even the odd and misspent piece of rounded glass green or white safe…

Leave It To Cleavage

10871087 views00 comments00 favs

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

Second Steps

10871087 views88 comments88 favs

The train station offers a pleasant atmosphere, though it exists as an in between place. People only come here to go somewhere else.

Surprise!

10871087 views22 comments11 fav

We were fleeing Hurricane Katrina We stopped somewhere in Texas at a roadside diner But found a sign that said it was closed All of a sudden as we sat there in our car The shop’s owner knocked on the window And asked what he could get for us

Swan Dance

10871087 views00 comments00 favs

The house stood quietly in its surrounds. Unnerved by the beauty that enveloped it. Green forest trees loomed round the house protecting it from the outside world and in front of it lay a sweeping lake that disappeared into the trees on…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 56

10871087 views22 comments11 fav

Airports are always a casino, said Oriana

This Was Called War at One Time

10871087 views1111 comments66 favs

The woman broke the law with that scream. I would say that there was pleasure in it, for her. I would also estimate that ten or fifteen men saw it, ten or fifteen men plus me.

Rent

10871087 views1717 comments1414 favs

My real parents lived about 200 miles in the other direction from where we came. But long ago I determined they were too real.

Wherein the Air

10871087 views22 comments22 favs

He inhaled the spears of aroma...

I am very few of the things I used to be

10871087 views11 comment00 favs

Focusing on reflections of clear lines on scummed glass, reflexes not quite as fast as they used to be, seeing things but not clearly, straining, these muscles worn out servos, grunting, can't quite bring things together, but why do this to yourself. More pointless than…

Terror Management Theory: The Joy Knee

10871087 views00 comments00 favs

I could reach out and grab this world by the p...

No More Little Bridget

10871087 views88 comments99 favs

I spend my time sitting on the back step—poison oak reddening my arm—under the eaves, waiting to escape.

the absolute pearl of existence

10871087 views00 comments00 favs

I see it now. This is like the blind flash of the mind going off inside, where memory begins to make up its own stories. And the women are often drawn, painted, sung about, while the men are not, so often. What is it about us that they cannot resist loo

Twentieth Century Chats, in Six Acts

10871087 views99 comments55 favs

M. CALLAGHAN: I’ve got a lot on my mind. You’re drunk, aren’t you? COL. MORD: Good idea! DEATH: Well, there is no shame in that. J. KIDDING: Everyone suffers. Can you lend me your cat? T. BURKULAR: I don’t know, sir. I don’t follow political issues .

Transmitter/Receiver

10861086 views33 comments00 favs

Valerie had purchased a new cell phone in late 2007, and, say a few months afterwards, in the beginning of 2008 a demon briefly took up residence in it. She had just returned home from running a few errands, and set her phone down on her desk. She had been focusing on…

an exhibit of nature

10861086 views00 comments00 favs

I’ll widen a wing out of myself, if you want. I’ll wash out the more volatile salts of man’s innate salt. I’ll awaken the milky sense the night sky’s made of, under Van Gogh’s heaven. Use the same salt wind sailing over all origin, the rim of the cup an

2-100-Words

10861086 views66 comments55 favs

The woman who lives on the first floor once loved dancing naked for her lovers.

Time

10861086 views00 comments00 favs

The sky was painfully blue that day. So bright, so cheerful that attempting to look at it, to probe its depths would cause one's eyes to tear up. There was not a cloud in sight, just miles and miles of blue as far as the eye…

Dead Uncle

10861086 views33 comments22 favs

When Roy had seen the first of the movies in his dorm's weekend double feature that night (the University of Maine at Orono — as Stephen king once quipped, “that crossword-puzzle favorite”) …

Oh Captain, Good Captain: Part IV

10861086 views00 comments00 favs

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…