Most read stories

How It Started

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At two AM I went to bed, and the mill shut down shortly after. The silence jerked me out of sleep so fast I almost screamed. Choking and sweating, I lay there and tried to figure out why I was so scared. And then I realized: for the first time in half a y

Sex Change Operation

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Her condition was giving her the blues ‘Cause her gender, was slightly confused.

Gravity

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It's only been about three minutes. We're moving a bit faster now and many of those around me have already been taken out by the debris. One guy had his head smashed in by a rogue swing set that came out of nowhere. I envy his demise, at least a little…

The Alarm

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Rain pours through the ceiling and the building's fire alarm sounds repeated bursts of loud abrasive distortion 1 2 3

Berkeley Stations

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or Hamlet,Great Denmark"No good can come out of this house of Berkeley, not ever, not to strut the great book of the world, or for any other discreet purpose." - the Upanishads "What is guile? Who is this Hamlet? Where smarts wounded Denmark? I need…

Who's Going To Clip the Toenails of God?

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Who will plume the chicken? Who tend the little flower of the soft person? Who steal the pea out from under the bank while you’re holding it up?

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 3

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Then Vladimir asked Ellen if she wanted to try out the dungeon. And she looked at me, and smiled. “Well, yes.” “What?” I said. “No, Ellen, no! Do not let him lock you in here, whatever you do.” “Do not worry. Do not worry. I am Janovsky, no? I hav

Long Walks On the Beach: Song

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I don’t like long walks on the beach Or sand between my toes Jellyfish stinging my butt Saltwater up my nose I don’t like long lingering glances But I sure like fancy pantses And yes, a bum without a bottle Is like a car without a throttl

Driving Over Front Lawns With You

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I remember we were just out riding around and drinking this one night (Andy, me, Shel, probably you and another girl) when I purposely drove up on someone’s big expensive front lawn, then back down into the street, and just kept driving without saying a

Instant Messaging My Friend About Our Plans to Commit Suicide on Saturday on the Grass at His Garden While Wearing a Suit

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sometimes when i tell myself i want to die i’m like ok dude whatever join the club just the other day someone online asked me whether i knew where he could get a copy of that japanese book about how to kill yourself

In Survival Bid, DAR Tries Fajitas 'n 'Ritas

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The DAR Recruiting Party included a martini bar, an eclectic mix of music ranging from Devo to Lawrence Welk, and “quoits,” a Colonial ring-toss game that newcomers play to win membership discounts and Talbots gift certificates.

almost

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The only time Terry and I came close to fucking, when she was still underage, I mean, was once when I went to see her at somebody’s apartment where she was baby-sitting. She invited me over to have pizza, I think. Of course, I brought beer. And we start

The Theory of Color

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The story of the black pen drawing a dark hole makes everything seem so elaborate and obscure. Or even a seven-year-old leading police on a wild car chase to avoid church. Or naming a new band Fuchsia, which looks like the beginning of an

no more than a scent

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Art evades me persistently.Tonight is no exception.Outside, the bitter wind blows:suddenly, an oddity comes to minda memory, a glance. A mid summer nightheavy and taintedunder the neon lights.A foolish smile invites me income through the threshold of sinshe appears to…

Floating Just Floating

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He didn't know why he kept writing. There was no reason to write. People ceased reading. They played video games. They watched Netflix. They walked down crowded city streets staring at smartphones. He was sustained in some weird way by the momentum of writing. As if the…

All the Places

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we went to together are now, according toyou, not to be believed. A memory of athought of a memory, of an arrow. There isno earth. There is no sun. There are no stars. All theplaces we went to together are to be paused,allowed to fade into never. The river is to be…

YOUR TONGUE

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I will try

The Wood Hover (a parody of GM Hopkins)

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My trousers turn when her these eyesights earn is learned in light,Like limn of laugh or limbs hers — do I know her, no? — but gauzy Greyhair ravings greyscale havens of Old Jake whose floozy Wooed, ne'er raised the wood that, pencil-perched, arrests…

Two Cents a Bale

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“Price has gone up,” Jim said. His head and his body were still, like a deer’s when it hears something. “It’s three cents a bale now.”

Uncontrollable

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The paper was strewn, everywhere.

I Listened to Country Music

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I remember telling you that I listened to country music. You surprised me with a whole tape that you recorded of all my favorites and I didn’t know how you figured them out, except that you must have snuck up beside my bedroom window at night. And

Space Pop #1

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The Starship Emphasis was not having a good day, as two of their crew members had already died of dysentery because someone shat in the water again.

You Were a Hard Act To Follow

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This wasn’t my first time, ever, but it was ours. This wasn’t the life of a pigeon after sex, you know, sucking some soda pop off the pavement. This was real. This was me up there on your ceiling! And I’m not so fond of lightning either. If you thou

Another dead chicken

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in the chicken house this morning. The second one this week. I carry the stiff hen out to the back pasture

But the Sun Also Sets

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I’ve lost interest in the limelight since I’ve come to understand that I’m not meant to be in it. We walk past the Porker Palace and see crowds of the rich with piles of pig in their hands, stacks of pork piled up on their plates as they swirl amo

Slydexia for the Unimpaired in Eight Acts

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You tell its approach soon as veal resists both knife and fork, quick neutrinos land in internet ruby climes.

French Trains

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When I sit in the front-facing seat beside him, I feel him flinch a little and stiffen, not from fear but from aggression.

Medicine Man

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The scalpel isprescient -- it knows blood before it cuts.Every surgeon is a seer.We start here, just below the neck. The slide of its sharpened silvertouches softly,enters the skin with care; halfthe cut is question,and half an…

News from a Distant Relative

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(Suddenly, too lazy to pull even one title from his shelves, he thought: if it's now the “Dao De Jing”, shouldn't it also now be the “I Jing”? Alas, he was no translator.)

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 58

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On October 14, 2009 Oriana Morosini appeared as the guest author on America’s most popular live television book show: The Author Answers