Most read stories

Bomba

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The man is middle-aged, although not rich, and the girl, aside from being very young, is not exceptionally pretty. But she has recently shed twenty pounds for the express purpose of looking fabulous on…

Feeling Marlene (from OPEN CITY Magazine Number 16)

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I got your card in the mail via my ex-wife in Saskatoon. On it you wonder where I am, if I am still writing, and if I have any stories I would send for you to look at because you think I should be published, too.

Ode to a Crow

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We walk in silence. We water our plants. We don’t eat as well as we should. We try to love. We try to forget.

Recovering From Debt Rape

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Sure, we'll look at the causes for the lack of smackers, but, really, if you had a Swiss bank account stuffed with dinero, you wouldn't care how much your spouse's sex-change operation costs or if your boss approved of your lunch-hour massages you receive

Buster Keaton

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I passed Buster Keaton on the way to work this morning. He was standing, hands in pockets, at the corner of Riverview and Keil. It was the young Buster, handsome and still strong enough to pin down the scars that marked his childhood. This was the Buster

The Creature, to an Empty Chair

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It is pain taking a form, Plato’s dream, born from your hands father that rejected me, giving me the color of abandonment, eyes dulled by isolation, a body deceased without life-giving touch.

He knows better

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It’s time to let her go.

The Duck, the Clock, and the Condom

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Every night famous authors read not only to us, but to a duck. A wild female who emerged from the lake just as we were gathering, settled her gray-brown feathers down not three feet from the podium, tucked her head inside her wing, and remained there. If the duck liked…

Their Next

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The base of the monastery before him, he let her go into a warm updraft and she cascaded out and up, never falling as she rode the tiger into her next.

Birthday Boy

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"I called him a fucking loser and left."

Throwing Pencils

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I can never tell if he’s drunk or using some sort of substance or if perhaps his brain just doesn’t fire at the pace that we have come to accept as normal.

Snake Eyes

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Traveling with a live chicken on a city bus is an experience I hope never to repeat.

I Must Slip The Batman a Fin

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The Batman says it's his birthday. I take him at his word.

Postcard

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A tiny story, 55 words, just enough to fit on a . . .

Two or Three Late Encounters with Empiricism

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Schrödinger did not keep cats about just by accident, and were they keeping an eye on him!

Locust Valley Breakdown

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The specialist had kept what he'd taken out of Sue May. I made an appointment with him and was shown it floating in a jar of clean unguent.

Yalta Pas de Deux

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The Count was used to boredom but he had reached the point where he was even bored with boredom.

The Brother

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I guess it’s extremely difficult to be a decent human being in all aspects of your life.

I will be a child again

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A child in a new world/ by way of the old I won’t remember.

Animal Park (Part II)

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“Why have you not voted Mindeo”, Tidi squeaked. “Because there is a third way. If we stay only here, we will eventually be driven out. To attack the erect worms to extend our…

Caffeine-Fueled Revelation Machines

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So she leans over the patio table like that model in that magazine ad and then takes a sip of her blended coffee drink as if a director had said to pretend the straw is a penis. As if this director only just shouted, “And you're a dirty, dirty girl, and

The Intervention

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"You're publishing too much too / quickly. We think that's unhealthy. We want you / to slow down. You're becoming a fame whore."

They're cutting the catalpa tree (Catalpa speciosa) in Essen, Germany

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They cut the tall specious tree storms snapped the night in two or three. At times they pause most piously to count each ring of truth, drive nails into the stiff cathartic spine, divine if this unseasoned cigar topiary agrees with its own everlasting te

And Furthermore

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clickety-clack, not.

Stand Up

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"And you’ll forgive my sayin’, your Maggie’s in heat, and if ya want to keep her you’re gonna ‘ave to fight. To be sure after this they’ll leave ya alone.”

Withdrawal

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Are you interested in a new account?

Fly the Friendly Skies

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Lucky bastard, he gets Glamour Puss and I get lady wrestler who's giving off the vibe she'll bludgeon me to death with her Bible if I make one false move.

The Deepest Cut

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Smoke is pouring outta my ears! (And outta my mouth and nostrils, but that's normal.) The Fast-o-matic Supermart has changed their coupons. Now you can't swap them for plastic surgery. So all those tubes of New Orleans-style Cottil-i-Lard dog sausage…

Sing

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"From up here the city lights burn like a thousand miles of fire," he croaked, his voice scratchy from sobbing. In pinpoints of illumination he imagined his wife - *former* wife - Calli in that Mustang convertible he'd gotten her for a birthday surprise

Hoss Men (continued)

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"Fax the Beaver" was its last, secret title. The beaver is a dirty trick, and it belongs on the index card.