Most read stories

Social Aid & Pleasure novel scrap

20112011 views1818 comments77 favs

the heat and energy it takes

Juanita

20112011 views00 comments00 favs

She did not know what it would feel like, how it would happen … but she knew it would be done. She knew that it would be magical, like nothing she could see or hear through the cornfields or around the markets.

Passing Past

20112011 views1414 comments1414 favs

No one means to go that way, on an errand to the mall....

A Journey Within A Journey

20112011 views1212 comments88 favs

Cousin Rudy pulled up a cod / out of season / we were rigged for haddock, / it was dressed for the weather

Overboard

20112011 views33 comments22 favs

Six months ago, Gary hired a goateed designer to "defoliate" the office, trucking out all the ficus trees and spanish moss to make room for curved sheets of fiberglass and, as he called it, "negative space." Now, her voice echoes off the concrete floors.

E-Harmony Connection #54421

20102010 views3535 comments1414 favs

We were destined by chemistry and plastic figurines to give it a go.

RUBYRED AND PARSHOOTER

20102010 views22 comments11 fav

This stage of Junior’s young life was static, moving very little off-center since his graduation from high school five years ago. Treading water both professionally and emotionally never worried him. Not until after what transpired that night when Pr

The Poet. Pt. 2

20102010 views1414 comments99 favs

for the rush of longing and brush with flight that is her imagination will surely lift her above the traffic

Blind Spot

20102010 views22 comments11 fav

If the photographs made sounds, they would rumble like static from an impending thunderstorm, pressed between the pages of a yellowing dictionary. Compressed sound, searching for the proper words.

Ghost

20102010 views88 comments22 favs

It would wander the hallways after the 3:45 bell, after the last class, after the students had all disappeared with the homework they'd never finish, the papers they'd forget to write, after Nate the janitor pushed his broom through the endless doorways,

Old men, old dogs

20102010 views1919 comments1313 favs

old men with crispy sunburnt ears

Solzhenitsyn Jukebox

20092009 views1515 comments77 favs

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.

Clean

20082008 views1010 comments77 favs

He shows me how lift the windshield wipers up, clean under them, put them down and I follow him around, watch him slap the sham over the van, pull it away, slap again. I do the same, stop every few minutes like Daddy does, hold it out, twist, wring the sh

21

20082008 views2323 comments1818 favs

Five girls wobble into the train car. Their blistered feet protrude from the bedazzled straps of their sandals. Conductor: “Girls in the back with the open containers, you can't have those on the train.” A heavy-set girl in a belted yellow mini-dress…

What the Trees Were Expecting

20082008 views1919 comments99 favs

that day is my barking up and leaves falling down story, but in their elephant slowness it seemed no more than the regular run of the sun slightly disappearing here, and then maybe reappearing there, like a lost color, way over the horizon, or the…

Who Do You Say I Am

20082008 views55 comments33 favs

You’ve gathered in church to wait for Jesus. Unarguable signs have let you know this is the day. This is the day of the second coming. This is Judgment Day. It was a no-brainer to wait at the church.

Trouble

20072007 views1717 comments1515 favs

Sometimes he made us punch pillows. "Harder!" the shrink would yell.

America From The Outside

20072007 views1111 comments55 favs

You aren’t easy to explain, you Americans.

Arcana Magi - c.18: Me?

20072007 views00 comments00 favs

Alysia slowed down for a moment. She clutched her head again. She looked up and found herself at a playground. There was a familiarity in the air.

REJECTED

20072007 views1111 comments77 favs

Your specific request that I never submit to you again; ever, is cause for puzzlement, yet strangely motivating.

Latte Art

20062006 views22 comments11 fav

The barista with the fake rainbow nails and amazing cleft. . . .

Road-trip

20062006 views88 comments11 fav

She is thinking about her baby, the one she loved for exactly one month before she lost her forever. Now, all the love for her baby is coiled in the pit of her stomach and it has fangs and venom, and it is leaking into her blood, her bones.

The Thrill of Sky Diving

20062006 views99 comments22 favs

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…

Model T Ford

20062006 views1919 comments88 favs

It lies in rusting riot of shadowed days. Flying high its emblem wings, forever stalled.

How to travel with your Demons (3)

20062006 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.

The Shop Girl

20062006 views1414 comments1010 favs

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

Jump Jackson and the Second Easter Mystery

20062006 views33 comments22 favs

Knowing this is too long for here I won't be crushed or enraged if no one has the time to read it. Also, it's not fiction.

The Cool Report

20052005 views1616 comments88 favs

I didn't go to China, however. I would have gone there in debt wearing their clothing. I was afraid to owe even $4,000 (what I still owe) living overseas.

The Trials

20052005 views22 comments33 favs

In reenactments of the pressing to death of Giles Corey, Walter’s friends stacked pillows onto his chest while he defied his inquisitors.

You can't always get what you want.

20052005 views77 comments22 favs

Sally was bathing Homeless Hope in her bathtub when the phone rang in the kitchen.