Most read stories

That One Time We Were on NPR...

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Twelve people in the band, the two women arrive first (arrive on time).

Before and After

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My heart beat someone up the stairwell.

A Manual for Readers

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The story will starve. It will crawl up your throat to get the cracker.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 6

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The diner was half filled with the loose ends of humanity that stayed up until five in the morning. We picked a booth by the window. The light in the diner was a dingy yellow, and the seats were that lobster-red vinyl that could only have been installe

Science Homework

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The difficulty of disabled parenting was predictable, but nothing could prepare me for having to say goodbye to my wife again on problem #7.

Gerade rechts zum Volkszimmer

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So, we are all healthy but suffering financially, not equally so, and the tendency to suffer financially has been caused by humbling ourselves to particular men. We take a quiz in moral values, phrased as a party game.

A mostly true story about the Coca-Cola Museum

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At work I recommended someone go to the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta. I told you about recommending it to someone. “I always wanted to go back there,” I said. “You did? You never told me,” you said.

The Serious Writer and His Penis

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Only strong personalities can endure such size, the weak ones are extinguished by it.

Without A Trace

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There, at that cabin, she had first tasted the back of a hand in anger, the sting of a horsewhip, bone-deep fear and, finally, an unthinkable act of self defense.

The Shop Girl

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Just a little shop girl in for the summer. Working on a typewriter. Barely knowing where the keys were. That was her. She was terrible at it. He was in a suit. He looked short, and thin, but something about him was captivating. He was in his own way hands

Corporal Punishment

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When I was a little boy, I had a thing about women’s behinds.

Flash Fiction With Instructions

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

Pieces

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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.

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.

Karma, Old Dogs, and Fine Men

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“You people remember the thing you learned in science about every action creating its own equal and opposite reaction? The same is true in other realms. All of existence is continually recycled…again and again in infinite permutations. In other words,

Round the World Now

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It's true that he had always been more pure than her, looking for the authentic experience, authentic food. And more adventurous. Blogging their way around the world, yes, that had been his idea . . .

The Thrill of Sky Diving

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It's not that you want to be silkworm all your life. That's what I'm telling my on-again-off-again girlfriend aboard the plane. Her name is Phoebe as in that song about a girl who lived in her own world within the shell of another. Phoebe, I'm saying, to bridge distances…

Countdown

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I’m twenty eight years old, and I am dying.

The Ballad Of Sideshow Sam & The Heckler

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"You know what a hobo is, my young friend? Or a tramp? Or a bum? Well, I'll tell ya, 'cuz you'll meet all of 'em in yer life and it's a good thing to know since they are each one of 'em different and the difference is this. Bums sit around and loaf. T

The Artist's Conk

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Whenever talk dies, or darkness gathers too closely around the breakfast table, everyone knows the list of ritual activities we can brightly suggest to skip the day forward.

Finger Weaving A Voyageur Sash

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Night's air awhirl, the sky shoots fireflies. Sometimes, she bleeds black arrows in her dreams.

Zombie

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If it were known that I am as stupid as I am, if the press were to open that page on TV, if the laughter shot itself like fireworks out into the road--

Hey Jude

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I laugh too loud cause the world looks good that way and for a minute we both make funny sounds just to exercise our vocal cords and see how close we can come to the line without crossing.

"Changes" Isn't Just A David Bowie Song

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Erin Hoffmeyer Zulkoski. I was at work today, doodling on a piece of scrap paper. I often find myself writing my name, practicing my signature, for when I become famous. I have always written "Erin Zulkoski." Today, I wrote "Erin Hoffmeyer." This…

Your Pajamas

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Your pajamas torture us. When moist they uncomfortably cling. They have evil buttons, and they cause us to stumble on them in the dark.

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…

Routine

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She could live there forever, in that smokey memory...

sunflower 9

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born to be mistreated by beasts in human shapes

A Night Ride With the Girl Scout Legbreakers

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It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I’m lying in bed, wide awake, drenched in sweat. I know what I need–a Thin Mint cookie–but I don’t know where I’m gonna find one.

Unwanted Stories: A Public Service Advisory

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Unfinished, deeply flawed stories require the kind of handling you see in movies where a Virus That Will Doom Mankind is disposed of by scientists in hazmat suits.