Most read stories

Ditching the Universe for Katy

22152215 views88 comments22 favs

I am running for only one thing now. For Katy.

I Beat Myself at Chess (revised)

22152215 views77 comments00 favs

There we sat, myself and I, at a small folding table in the middle of the lab beside the main, l-shaped workbench. The lab was empty - always was - except for the two of us.

Being Old is No Place for Sissies

22152215 views88 comments66 favs

My natural blonde hair is no longer sultry. Instead of a Dietrich look, I now assume a dead on impression of Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" some mornings.

Out of That Bed 1963

22152215 views22 comments33 favs

My father's hands were huge. His left knuckles gashed as a kid when he rode his bike too close to a moving train. When his fingers fisted around a glass, the scarred joints bulged from his grip like blind eyes.

A Fate Worse than Death

22152215 views44 comments33 favs

The abandoned body got up and left the room. It was just in time to greet his wife and daughter, who were just coming in the front door.

The Epidemic of Weariness

22152215 views66 comments33 favs

“Life cannot continue at a breakneck pace, because it is breaking too many necks,” the Health Czar told the President.

How We Send to Anderbo

22152215 views1515 comments99 favs

She's always sitting in a soft chair watching television with little stars dotting her elbows and lightning bolts on her wrists.

We Don't Need No Education

22142214 views2727 comments1919 favs

“There’s an ill energy that emanates from your precise heart that I find attractive”

Arcana Magi - c.22: Moving Forward

22132213 views22 comments00 favs

Alysia never said a word as she rested her body on Suzaku’s feathers. She felt the wings cover her like a blanket. It brought memories of her mother doing the same as they watched a movie together on the couch.

Erase Her

22132213 views3030 comments2222 favs

I wake up in the morning and write her name on the white paper napkin I always place in front of me at the kitchen table as I have my first cup of coffee. I write it throughout the day. Twelve or fifteen times. I've done this for exactly twenty-three days. I always…

Sees, Kindness, and Made

22132213 views1212 comments1010 favs

SeesWe fell into this lake together and traced the clean soft lines straight back to ourselves, with a carefree laugh, ha ha ha-- an embarrassing ease. This small miracle does tend to put in orbit something high flying besides clouds into the sky inside of…

Beautiful Plague

22132213 views77 comments11 fav

Jacob Obrecht, you are beautiful. Everything inside your head and everything you’ve ever made is beautiful and singing.

Tainted Love

22132213 views1515 comments1010 favs

...skinny love, skinned and thinned weak broth love...

Veld fire

22132213 views33 comments11 fav

The crackling inferno sweeps across the ground Devouring all in its scorching path

Threesome

22122212 views99 comments66 favs

Six kinds of crazy, he said. That told me everything. It told me enough.

Elephant in the City

22112211 views1414 comments66 favs

No beeping of horns, just complete silence. No panic, just calmness. There’s this one word: serendipity.

Pieces

22102210 views66 comments44 favs

I find my mother’s pink Pyrex mixing bowl at the antique store on Fairview Avenue. It’s in the hands of a fat woman in a blue down parka, and she’s holding it upside down, squinting at the sticker on the bottom.

Love

22102210 views00 comments00 favs

Her letter ends with her best words: No one will ever love you like I do. Beneath, she draws a heart, sad eyes, two jewel tears. Yours forever, Dawn. Hole by hole, not to wake her sister, she pulls the paper free, creases, folds again, then cuts…

Swicks Rule!

22102210 views1818 comments99 favs

She waves her hand around, says, “Pah!” and starts digging invisible things out of the potato salad with her bare hands.

How to travel with your Demons (3)

22102210 views66 comments66 favs

Watch her now as she tries to not smoke. Considers, reconsiders. Checks her nylon bag for her phone charger, and lights a cigarette anyway, which she immediately extinguishes in the kitchen sink.

1918, 1944, 1991, and now

22102210 views1212 comments66 favs

Disability is indivisibility—all of us could be its members—unlike its affirmative action forebears who remain underrepresented, even as the groups’ selected contestants prepare to retire early, a distributed group whose specialty is American anthropology

Snapshots

22092209 views1919 comments1717 favs

Jake remembers that Amy told him once that she thought that somehow he would always be a part of her life. That was before she went to Spain and married an American bull fighter.

The Inkblot Test

22092209 views00 comments00 favs

“Regard this inkblot,” the Psych says to Worker 168. “What do you see?” Worker 168, a thin young women wearing overalls, peers at the inkblot. “I see a beautiful summer day,” she says. “A young woman, wearing a flowing dress, sits…

The Boy in the Sandwich (novel excerpt - children's)

22082208 views11 comment00 favs

I was getting ready to eat a thick peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich when a blue spider pushed up a corner of the bread from the inside and said, "Don't chomp, don't chew! We're in here, we're having a good time, and we don't feel like being eaten.

Confess another sin

22072207 views1616 comments1313 favs

.

Forgetfulness

22072207 views00 comments00 favs

But the urge now is to unknow the urgency with which I forgot my self-description.

Something About Ireland (from FATHER MUST)

22072207 views44 comments33 favs

That’s the way it went all day with me—didn’t get far, didn’t see much, just, with Mary, drank tea here and there. A fine day it was, too; not cloudy, not raining...

Golden State

22072207 views33 comments22 favs

The first door on the right is the bedroom. Even if I try to forget; my body remembers and the strength of its yearning fairly pulls me inside. I noticed you left the door ajar. Really you should be more careful.

The Strongman Used To Weep

22062206 views1616 comments99 favs

The Strongman used to weep alone in hissingle dusty tent at night, all of uscould hear him, sobbing, thinking about theone incredible time in his mostlymiserable life he accidentallybrushed his thick arm…

Earworm

22062206 views44 comments22 favs

It scraped at Paul’s brain like a cat’s claw at the door. He hadn’t heard the song in years. Was that the Searchers? The Seekers?