Most read stories

Cover Story

21572157 views22 comments22 favs

Love among the ruins?

Sam and the Planets

21572157 views66 comments22 favs

No, she hated the vain, overweight, pathetic, glass-of-merlot-a-day, SUV piloting, Carmen-cell-phone-ring-toned, housewives and consumer sluts that charged through the store like starving hyenas through the fallen, decaying, putrid, corpses of a plague-ri

This Girl in That Shirt

21572157 views4343 comments2222 favs

At first when she walked in, I thought she looked like a wet dog. Then after a minute, I’m trying to wrap my mind around how perfect she is.

HOUSE OF GHOSTS

21562156 views1212 comments88 favs

The blue Victorian at 1145 White Street shifts in its foundation, creaks, and settles in for the night. The girls are bundled into their beds. My wife, too, has gone to sleep. I’m alone in the kitchen, steeping chamomile tea, coughing phlegm into the wr

Luck - By Design ?

21562156 views11 comment00 favs

They’d met by sheer accident. Torrential rain & a deserted bungalow were the perfect catalysts. ‘You shouldn’t be alone at this hour’ Kurt whispered. ‘It’s not by design’ Ursula murmured.

We Walk by Night

21562156 views1313 comments99 favs

Walking those damned dogs is a pain… a PAIN every night. If it’s not urban skunks, it’s Mormons on bikes… the bastards

The Long Grass

21562156 views33 comments22 favs

Julius winced, knowing there was no way out. Amy showed him every worm, every insect, every dead mouse she’d found when they were in the fields. She pulled him forward, making his bruised shoulder burn.

The Prettiest Lie

21562156 views66 comments33 favs

Your life is going to change—how many times was that prediction offered in one form or another during my wife’s pregnancy? Mothers often said it with a bliss-touched smile; fathers with a smirk that was both sardonic and conspiratorial, and a distinct

Texas Route 29

21552155 views1313 comments1010 favs

Texas Route 29 is not a straight line.It traces the perimeter of our own Georgetowncompelled west kicking off shit-stained bootsgreeted by green and yeller' John Deereignored by motley cattle, heads bowed weighed low with marrow-filled horns.A Jack Nicklaus golf course…

Eclipse

21552155 views22 comments11 fav

On the first day of autumn, in the rear courtyard of the Léger estate, Yvette Mongrain was scrubbing down the glass tables and wrought iron chairs that had been trucked in from Paris the morning before and arranged across the flagstones.

Soroz

21552155 views1313 comments66 favs

Less than a hundred adults remain, predominately women, along with several dozen children of various ages. Most of their men were killed in a territorial war six moons previous.

FOR SCIENCE!

21552155 views22 comments00 favs

According to the weatherman's morning forecast it was supposed to be a dark and stormy night. Unfortunately for Doctor Von Übel the weather had other things in mind...

Mississippi Blues

21552155 views22 comments11 fav

“Jus’ because a story told right don’t make it true,” he said. “Sometimes the story is there ain’t no story. Sometimes you look way down inside, and ain’t nuthin’ there. Can’t write no book ‘bout nuthin’. Won’t sell none. But them

When I Became a White Girl

21552155 views66 comments00 favs

“Actually, children, none of us will be having birthdays this year,” my father sighed. “Not even me? Why?” asked Charlie. "Son, this is what's known as a ‘one-party democracy."

The Lottery Ticket, First 20 pages of a novel excerpt

21552155 views00 comments00 favs

SO ABOUT TEN minutes later Heidi arrived at the house with her boyfriend in tow, looking as if she had stepped out of an MTV music video, her black leather jacket loaded with sequins and silver studs, her blonde hair now colored green, all frizzy and unke

What I Learned About Death While Eating Dark Chocolate

21552155 views77 comments66 favs

85% extra dark cocoa:/biting into bitter darkness

A Fish Story

21552155 views66 comments55 favs

On their first meeting, when Hans rolled his wheelchair to her door she would be he first to say that her heart sank. But he was so beautiful and charming and funny and quirky that his disability was soon forgotten.

Imitation of Life

21542154 views77 comments77 favs

The watermelon slices were painted wood, because they held their shape better in the heat. The photo was done night-for-day with bright spotlights to make for sharper outlines than natural light could provide. In actuality, it is all shadows.

Fractured Memories of Hope

21542154 views11 comment11 fav

May as well have lived two lives, he thinks: one before memory and one after. And how can you remember someone else's life? You can't. After forty years of living, he realizes that there's no way of knowing what his own eyes have witnessed.

Pen and Ink on Paper

21542154 views2121 comments88 favs

...ancient answers for new questions.

Shoelace

21542154 views11 comment00 favs

A shoelace should know its place in the world.

An Episode of Boxes

21542154 views1616 comments1111 favs

In this episode the children in the classroom will all wear boxes over their heads and will search the room with their hands. Their hands will be hands that have been reconnected. Their hands will wear seams as sleeves and curse in red. The hands that…

Distractus Refractus Ontologicus: The Dissemination of Michael Martone

21532153 views55 comments22 favs

1 Michael Martone is Michael Martone. 1.1 Michael Martone begins, middles, and ends Michael Martone.

The King Provides

21532153 views1919 comments1515 favs

Our sons do nothing but drink and roar

Cat People #9: Tales of Manhattan

21532153 views44 comments33 favs

She'd make a great catch in the rain. Because in the rain nothing moves. No cat girl of deep shade eyeliner. No saint of dark corners.

Arcana Magi Pure - c.4

21532153 views00 comments00 favs

The stone floor was cold and the sky above had a purple haze. The setting sun hid beyond the trees outside the crumbled walls. Vines reached over the well as if it grabbed it like hand.

Little Yappy Dog

21532153 views88 comments44 favs

Should I believe you now? I said fuck you. I knew better but I said it. He kicked me some but I covered up, he didn’t get me bad as he thought. When he got tired, he took my doorkey off my ring. Said make me come back, and I’ll kill you. And he left.

The Fox in the Garden

21532153 views11 comment00 favs

It was 1635. During the time of the Tokugawa, not too many years before the British were expelled from Nippon, Minister Miyoshi no Kyoyuki of Edo decided to indulge in a practice he had heard rumored of the British.

Make a Mistake with Me

21522152 views1515 comments55 favs

I work in finance. Yes, I have money. Yes, my apartment building has a doorman.

Ghost

21522152 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,