Most read stories

She Used to Have Nails

29832983 views1414 comments1212 favs

...the job was easy, just pour and deliver, pour and deliver.

Delayed Sentence (55 Word Story)

29802980 views1010 comments1010 favs

The river waited for her patiently.

In My War Novel

29542954 views77 comments55 favs

If I wrote a war novel my wife would be killed off before our relationship figured out our differences. Like her being really Asian and me being just so-so Asian.

My Date With Jennifer Connelly

29512951 views22 comments00 favs

Hell found me. I was scouring my shelf for books to read last night and nothing seemed to interest me. There were books on anthropology, politics, economics, science, and sociology -- the works. There were also my Hornby's, Gaiman's, Tolkien's,…

The Cobbler and the King

29482948 views00 comments00 favs

“Mortal,” it said, and its voice made the cobbler’s soul tremble. “Why do you disturb our peace? It is late, and you should be abed.”

I Had Time to Kill

29472947 views2121 comments1515 favs

I had time to kill. I got on the merry-go-round, letting it go slow, thinking of starting blocks, how I might push off them.

Rain Turtle

29402940 views88 comments44 favs

The first thing Vera did after her dismissal from the mortuary was buy a pack of cigarettes.

My Life In Five Paragraphs

29372937 views1616 comments99 favs

The first punch sent me flying into a Christmas tree. The second put me on the floor on my hands and knees, blood dripping from my nose.

Guess Who Was At The Party?

29332933 views1818 comments77 favs

She didn’t look a thing like his girlfriend. This alone should have been a sign that she was just a fling, a diversion from what he had known for the past five years. She began to think of his girlfriend as guess who. Guess who was at the opening, peopl

Queen Isabella Eats a Pineapple and Misses the Jews

29302930 views2929 comments99 favs

It was Christopher who got her thinking about the Jews again. He had left the same day they did, and so all were connected in her mind, as if together somehow. She read his letters half-wondering if he would mention them, wanting to know if the Jews were

The Devil's Bedpost

29242924 views00 comments00 favs

A cellphone vibrates ineffectually against unfeeling skin. One last rivulet of blood slowly oozes down the wall as it dries. The rest of the room is still.

The moon rose up on its tinfoil bed

29082908 views3434 comments2525 favs

and floated along withus like it was attachedwith a string. I thought thatmeant we had a boat incase of emergenciesbut she said it was sadto see it followingin our wake like a cork.I still think it looked everybit the stylish silver-capped swimmer doingthe…

That Kind of Body

29052905 views3434 comments2626 favs

I was thin young. There's a kind of freedom to be found when walking around inside that kind of body that allows you to have in this world what's known as a presence. People see you eating but they can't make out what for. You're not going to gain an…

Repair Man

28932893 views7979 comments3838 favs

The repair man is conscientious in this as he is with all things, light with his fingers and his tongue. His hair falls over his eyes as he works her.

Baby Love

28872887 views1919 comments1313 favs

She wanted one, she said. She wanted one who looked like me. I wanted one, because I wanted her. I wanted her for everything; I wanted her to fill every crack and space inside of me.

Understand, Rubberband?

28792879 views00 comments00 favs

After we moved uptown we lived close enough to the park that we could go there on our own (with permission) on weekends and during school breaks to visit the zoo or the pond where people floated their mechanical boats....

The Lives of Felix Gunderson

28752875 views22 comments00 favs

The lights turn on, the audience cheers. He raises his guitar, steps up to the microphone and sings. The rock star. He is a god.

Little People

28682868 views5252 comments2929 favs

If you consider yourself neither little nor big, remember that anything large, colossal, macroscopic, ample, sizable, blown-up, bulky, mighty was once small, lesser, minute, tiny, dinky, gnomish, weeny or lilliputian.

I'm Feeling the Monkey Around your Neck Isn't Quite Listening

28602860 views2828 comments2121 favs

The sky's hand's so big andso vast that it takes ourhuge sun at the end of day and squeezes it downto a perfect diamond--just like Supermanwith a lump of coal-- poof!--obliterates it. And it's gone.Next day it's seen floatingaround everywhere again,like an…

The Literary Writer (Female) and Sex

28562856 views2424 comments1313 favs

When last June V.S. Naipaul remarked "women writers are different, they are quite different. I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me...My publisher, who was so good as a

At the Bar

28472847 views1919 comments1616 favs

On the Nightly News a pedophile in an orange jumpsuit does a sashay of shame in front of a wolf pack of cameras and satellite feeds that surround the downtown courthouse. At the bar, a woman with big blonde hair and a rhinestone manicure says off with his head. A…

Tenderoni

28452845 views5353 comments2323 favs

"Oh, damn,” I say. “A kitty.”

First Contact

28382838 views77 comments22 favs

... her heart went kathump kathump and as the sun warmed the morning Patti once again melted into her normal condition of slightly dazed trance with not a care in the world but the health of her African violets that she now tended to on the window

Cahiers du Cinéma

28382838 views6161 comments3434 favs

Hours later, we fell out of a helicopter like hunchbacked wingless birds.

Flower-Gathering

28332833 views88 comments55 favs

I did not understand its meaning until college when I learned that Frost would take long walks—the inspiration for so many of his poems—and would leave his wife at home while he did. And just before he left, she would guilt-trip him just a little by walk

The Judge's Wife

28322832 views1515 comments44 favs

Her pheromones were working overtime.

Winnie the Pooh and the Very Medicated Day

28192819 views3434 comments1717 favs

One day, when Rabbit was taking his medications, Tigger bounced his carrots to smithereens and Rabbit had an idea. A wonderful, terrible idea.

This Story is Terrible, and I Only Wrote It to Annoy You People

28172817 views77 comments33 favs

[DON'T OPEN 'TIL X-MAS!]

A River So Long

28142814 views99 comments55 favs

At 5:12, the river turned silver, as if it were frozen. She traced the river's curves on the window with her finger, wishing it were her.

A Life Twice Told

28102810 views4343 comments2727 favs

Walking to work, Lawrence Settler was struck by a bus as he crossed a one-way street.