Most read stories

once upon a time in Sumeria

21002100 views1111 comments99 favs

Suddenly there was a crash of thunder, and they raised their eyes for the first time heavenwards. That was the beginning of what we call civilisation. - adapted from Prolegomena to Work in Progress — Stuart GilbertIt's the third year of the third millenium,…

That One Time We Were on NPR...

21002100 views1010 comments88 favs

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

Prom Date

20992099 views22 comments11 fav

The dump smelled of the chaos of creation, of rusting metal and burned glass, chemicals and rancid rainwater, wet cardboard and rotting wood, paint slaking off clapboards and drums.

Armor

20992099 views2828 comments1212 favs

She remembered the feeling of weightlessness, of being lifted against gravity, the soft whoosh of tulle...

Double Entry [WORK-IN-PROGRESS]

20982098 views11 comment11 fav

"Geez," I thought, "not only is this daredevil felon fellow my EXACT height and build — his co-conspiring gal-pal must be, too!" I exhaled what felt like a gallon’s worth of air though my nose. "This is just getting too fucking weird ..."

Amends '82: Part One

20982098 views00 comments00 favs

The kitchen I snuck out of seventeen years before kept fading to black and white, with this layer of something between me and them.

Open Orchidae

20972097 views33 comments22 favs

But Jana insisted to see this miracle, this antidote for the mundanity of existence.

The small hills of my cousin

20972097 views1414 comments77 favs

You know, my mother was afraid that I can no longer resist. She was absolutely right: My four sisters have all passed away before the summer shows its fruit. It was hard "said my mother”, not to see my flowers bloom. I, the calf of my mother,I came…

Routine

20972097 views2121 comments1212 favs

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

The Yellow Wonder

20962096 views22 comments00 favs

Whenever I hear Adam Sandler's song, “My Piece of Shit Car”, it brings back memories. Notice I don't say fond memories. It brings me back just like the really bad backwash regurgitation flavor…

I Knew the Topography of His Face Just by Shouting and Feeling the Reverberations

20962096 views55 comments33 favs

Show me where to go, he said out of defiance for the moment in which time was malleable and fat minutes were consumed by wayward, languid hours. And all I could do for the time being was sit there excruciatingly anxious for this to pass, so it…

What the Trees Were Expecting

20962096 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…

TRANSLITERALIZATION

20962096 views55 comments22 favs

The snapdragon has now achieved absolute resonance, the gateways on either side are fully opened wide with beautiful iridescent curtains billowing out in high frequency spectrum waves producing a very pleasant ecstatic effect within observer's sensory app

The Unknown Substance

20962096 views2525 comments1414 favs

Mama's good at finding things, but hardly ever what she's looking for.

Jump Jackson and the Second Easter Mystery

20962096 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.

Arcana Magi Pure - c.3

20962096 views00 comments00 favs

Emi was cheerful and nice towards her classmates. It was like she saw a different person last night. Emi’s pupil-less red eyes frightened her, and the spell that she cast on her, that bump on the head still lingered.

Velcro Shoes, a Cardboard Computer, and Other Signs of Brilliance

20962096 views66 comments33 favs

It wasn't until later that I realized that any time a teacher complimented you on your use of imagination, it was because they didn't know what else to make of whatever you'd created. My homemade narrative video in lieu of the assigned “getting to know y

Waiting

20962096 views2121 comments1010 favs

He grew red-faced at her quiet words, "I'm pregnant."

Pinus Timbre

20952095 views77 comments33 favs

Ancient erections loom aloft ringed by decades centuries for some in gnarled scabs of pine.

Ghost

20952095 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,

House By The Sea

20952095 views1010 comments99 favs

We were young, she said, it was all in front of us. We should never have settled for this.

Live Sacrifice

20952095 views1818 comments99 favs

I don’t name the dog but the fish requires a name. Animals that do not get eaten must be named. The dog is still on the menu.

Laundry

20952095 views66 comments22 favs

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

The Pocahontas Forgiveness Goes Viral

20952095 views1313 comments99 favs

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…

The Oaten Hands

20952095 views00 comments00 favs

His hands were like that when he was born. No one really understood why. Neither of his parents had any body parts made of oats. Neither of them had even eaten any oats the morning the conception took place. But sure enough, when Edwin MacGrain was born o

Two poems by Raquel Chalfi in translation

20952095 views66 comments44 favs

On the Shore, Tel Aviv, Winter 1974 From the Songs of Crazy Dolores

The Point Of It All

20952095 views1212 comments1111 favs

He understood that people no longer read or thought deeply about things but continued to write anyway. He understood that Einstein's theory of relativity was proved correct during the world's longest eclipse of May 29, 1919 when photos of the Hyades star cluster…

Stealth

20942094 views2222 comments1515 favs

A boy stalks three deer across an open field.

Camp Atheism

20942094 views2727 comments1919 favs

We are not alone, not as alone as we think.

But, I Did

20942094 views11 comment11 fav

I read the runes, the cards, the signs, the sticks. I consulted tarot cards and read tea leaves. I listened to you, deconstructed every word and look and tone with the harshest logic and cynicism I could muster. If there was some way to decipher what you