Most read stories

War

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We borrow a flag from a neighbor. It’s sitting on top of the TV in the den. We haven’t figured out where to display it yet.

French Vanilla Death - Seconda Parte

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The lead man, who did not seem to be the most important or distinguished, just the one walking in line before all of the others, knocked twice on the door and opened it quickly. He stepped gingerly through the doorway and the others filed gloomily in afte

ANYONE but Shakespeare

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Shakespeare was Shakespeare, after all, the greatest poet the language has ever boasted: why did Shakespeare’s contemporaries even bother with their paltry efforts?

Full Tilt Boogie

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Your tongue is enlarging... wait, it’s growing hair. No, wait, it’s planarian flatworms, an earthy taste oozing down your throat. A terrible itching spreads from your solar plexus, under your skin everywhere. You know if you scratch even once, you won

King boy

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“He had emerged from slavery, -- not the worst slavery in the world, not a slavery that made all life unbearable, rather a slavery that had here and there something of kindliness, fidelity, and happiness, -- but withal slavery, which, so far a human aspiration…

Dream Life (flash friday)

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Virginia hated herself for every moment she spent wondering what it would have been like if things had been different. How would her life be if Glen hadn’t been misdiagnosed, if he hadn’t died when she was a year married and four months pregnant? Not

Smooth Criminal

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In an early scene in Marvel's 2015 movie Ant-Man, the film's protagonist, Scott Lang, a convicted felon and former burglar, is summoned to his boss Dale's office at Baskin-Robbins."Three years at San Quentin, huh?" says Dale."You found out," Scott replies."Baskin-Robbins…

Peeling Onions

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I was in the kitchen peeling onions. They stung my eyes, and perhaps I was crying. I heard my dear husband run into the room and turned with the knife in my hand.

Watercolored Different

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

Night at the Reservoir on Airline Drive

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Del and I watched my brother toe his way to the edge of the cottonwood branch that arched over the reservoir.

The Black Hole

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Matilda went wild at sixty-five. Legs left unshaven for the first time in fifty years, hair still and proud, knotted with forgetting. She’d roam the streets at night, a traveler without design. Matilda was a gardener of sorts, digging up all previous assu

Boys of Summer in Yonkers (Memoir Excerpt # 1)

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Boys of summer in Yonkers played stickball and baseball.

D Evil in the D

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when the devil dies he divides enough evil for everybody

The Fortune of an Accident

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Staring at her horribly disfigured face, I envied her.

Coffee Shop

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He inhaled all these sensory impulses like they were so much illuminated, fluorescent pollen which jostled for space with the strong aroma of coffee in his nostrils.

Seventh Floor Ward

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Hers is the kind of crazy that can't be masked. She's worn it on her sleeves since tenth grade.

Fat Tuesday

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She likes his smile and Cajun accent, his earring and dangerous ink.

An Observant Man

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How much more attuned he was when surrounded by forest, consigning meaning to each tiny sound.

Unheard

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“Spare change?” he asked the couple heading into the cineplex. They glanced at his brother, saw something was wrong with him, then at him, noting his dirty and disheveled state. They passed without a word, not even a head-shake.

Why I Want To Go North

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we all want to go down / because nothing north can be good.

Mental or Medical?

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“We wouldn't mock the recent Tornado victims, right? Why mock the mentally ill?” Jennifer Donnell, Fictionaut Member. The mentally ill are close to my heart, having helped the most severely impaired adults and…

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.

Carapace

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He gathers our abusive fathers, our esophageal tears, our peanut fetuses.

Strange and Silent Hands

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I shuddered. This is how we are chosen by strange and silent hands.

The Poet

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...there is something quite delicious about the air between people strange to each other, something that makes my skin crackle alive with the possibility of touch...

Ode To A Wave

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She comes and goes,gingerly at times, or, caution tossed,a headlong rushof foam and froth.No matter, I am steadfast,keen to be immersed once morein her salty splendor.

Almost Like Love

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Because it was almost like love, love. Because the potential for that innocence beckoned me, and I became reckless in search of it. I exposed my heart.

Autobiography

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The story of my life/ would put insomniacs to sleep.

Forgetting Superman

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I forget you. Upfront: that’s how this ends.

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

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Mighta been a fake.