Most read stories

Playing with Fire

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Six sentences

The Birds (2)

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The birds were stacked up in the branches of a pine tree behind the feeder. Several were sitting on the fence. “They’re massing,” she said.

Two Poems:With the Whole Crowd/Apparently So

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With the whole bizarre crowd surrounding us like birds on shit covered cliffs, offering up a bowl full of choppy seas to the many bored and stuffed sky gods, we danced our way into all their hard shell covered hearts as one thing. Still they never knew our hiding …

A Good Boy

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...I had a string of Sunday School medals that knighted me a warrior for Jesus Christ of Nazareth...

Senior Center

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"Are you all right?" I ask. He blinks. He sits up. I help him stand. He looks sorrowfully at his coffee cup, which is on the floor.

Music Box

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Katie loved butterflies. Katie loved daisies. Mainly, Katie loved presents.

The Way is Dark, the Road Long

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The day I got out of prison the sun was shining.

The Inkblot Test

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“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 Pocahontas Forgiveness Goes Viral

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You generated coal light from your gait as easily as the new sun crawls through a sleepy forest, without worry over hot spillage, or who might be horribly blinded or grossly revealed or given visions in that rare moment of wet earth and…

Solzhenitsyn Jukebox

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A retired feminist literary agent named Jackie and her boyfriend, Jock, were on board. Jock was kind as one might expect of a man traveling with a feminist, and Jackie was happy yet stern. She mentored me one day over lunch.

Bert & Ernie: The Pre Nup

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BERT AND ERNIE -- THE PRE NUPBy Roz Warren and Janet GoldenInspired by a recent Supreme Court decision, Bert and Ernie are finally going to tie the knot! Their just signed pre-nup was leaked to us by a Muppet whose identity we've promised not to reveal, in…

Eating Grief at Bickford’s

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Eating Grief at Bickford's · From Allen Ginsberg's “Kaddish” There are no places anymore Where I can sit at a threadbare table Pick at the crumbs on my plate And wipe The white dust From my pitch …

The Maze

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The man with the truncheon emerged at the monorail car's forward connecting doorway. One moment the space was vacant, a faux metal canvas for the dazzling sunlight streaming through a grime-encrusted window. When next Theseus Harrow looked up from his seat the dark-suited…

Fish

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A woman with spirit appeals to men who fish because she is still alive.

Snapshots

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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.

Trees Knees

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A young man pushes a stroller filled with a sleepy child. A young woman strides alongside them, her gait leisurely. They are the first to visit the park today. The trees loom, vigilant.

The Untimely Death of the Old Forgotten Man

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I watched haunted as my pearl tooth circled the rotten porcelain sink. I could feel my hair thinning and my pale skin suddenly felt too loose.

Frankie & Jake are Married (another novel castaway)

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Frankie married me during my theory stage. I hadn’t known her long.

Lisa

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She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no. She didn’t say anything. So I helped her to the car and we didn’t talk along the way.

Dinner with Sam Rockwell

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“I liked you best in Choke–you were sexy in a lazy, sort of ‘70s way.”

Flash Fiction With Instructions

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The protagonist’s story goes like this: 1.) You are young. You’ll get over it.

You Friend Me On Facebook

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You look just like your mom she says I LOL her and say, funny cuz you look just like yours

Laundry

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In the morning, Alan woke with only a half hour before he had to be at work. He pulled his clothes out of the dryer and folded them on the top of the washing machine. On the side of table he noticed, in among people’s old, stray socks, a button like one

Turning Thirty

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It was a year of red, white, and blue bell bottoms, chokers, and mini-skirts. It was not a decade of pink stretch pants, pink sweatshirts, and pink snowsuits.

Tracks

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The winter following their son's death, Mr. Kelly's wife became absorbed by the tracks that ran in back of their house. At any given hour in the night, he'd hear her in the next room, their son's old room where she now slept, shuffling through dresser drawers. He…

The Earth Squeals

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Who knows how long I have been crouched here, tied down by kelp and thin vines, trading laments with animals? They all look terrified.

Elephant in the City

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

The Tracing Game

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Shadows skipped across the bedroom wall at 80 km/hour. It wouldn't be so bad if people wouldn't use their high beams but it's the price you pay for living on a dark highway with low property taxes. “How do you sleep in here?”…

Undone

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Last summer our marriage took a direct hit and crashed into a deep pit with little warning when Millicent met a Facebook man and simply left, taking up with him, presenting him with my space in her life to receive her touch and this thought perpetually gnaws away, making me…

Confetti Bomb

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For one glittering moment