Most read stories

Joe for Town Council

19851985 views00 comments11 fav

“I heard your dad took out the Dairy Queen drive-thru,” said Pat.

Mama's Boys

19851985 views22 comments11 fav

A pale face was illuminated by the street light. A voice rasped, “Charlie?” “Do I know you?” “It's Bill.” The side of his little brother's thin face

Ancestry.comedy

19841984 views2121 comments1414 favs

all paths converge on Africa/ and Eden, and the fall from animal grace

Suicide Rough Drafts

19841984 views00 comments00 favs

The morbidity of red ink is almost entirely lost on the playfulness of Snoopy stationary. But I boldly pressed on with my darkest thoughts to strengthen the effort of my offbeat creative exercise.

this time it really may, quite possibly, be the end of all of this ambivilence

19841984 views66 comments22 favs

her heart just nodded knowingly ....yes, dear

Hattie Hanratty Does the Previously Unthinkable

19841984 views66 comments33 favs

"Hattie? What are you doing?" Bosley asked, the quaver in his voice an indication of an impending erection.

December 15, 2012

19841984 views77 comments33 favs

Already, I can see that, whenever Harold moves, some of his soul escapes, like an accidental exhalation, like breath on powder.

Arcana Magi Memorial - c.1

19831983 views00 comments00 favs

Azure spent these years learning how to harness the four elements and find the four creatures that shackled her.

Working Title: "Third Persons"

19831983 views00 comments11 fav

#1 MISCELLANEOUS NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: What kind of person would the author’s daughter, Gracie, become? That things didn’t look bright for her future was an understatement: Mother: alcoholic, dead at age 25 from puking her brains out; Father: m

Mona

19831983 views66 comments33 favs

Doc and I talked for several hours. When I told him Mona was pregnant, he turned his head and looked at me. “Who's the father?” he asked. Don't know, I said. Mona didn't know, either.

A Little Fishing

19831983 views88 comments66 favs

Len and I sit on Harpo's porch, drink beer and gab. It's hot, even for July. Len and I joke and laugh, and Harpo stares off into the middle distance.

The Perils of Open Hand

19831983 views22 comments22 favs

There are worse things than getting your ass kicked by a 12 year old Puerto Rican kid. This was exactly my thinking as he stood over me, his pre-pubescent screams sounding like a baby Bruce Lee, preparing to finish me off.

In the Woods

19821982 views1212 comments22 favs

...a blunt thrust of a face, uncongenial in profile, and the ubiquitous green cap that says John Deere, with the yellow ideogram of a deer for graduates of our local schools.

Blacktop

19821982 views33 comments22 favs

Infrastructure...

Color Wheel

19821982 views1919 comments99 favs

I remember the tan guinea pig, dead of dehydration. Through the wire bars of her cage I viewed her body. She lay stiff on her side, stretched out, as if in her guinea-pig dream she had been running through grassland, open and close to the sky.

Becoming an Author

19821982 views1010 comments88 favs

"good luck, and be assured acceptance for representation or publication is based on different criteria at different agencies and we are sure you will yet find someone mentally deficient enough to give your book a shot."

Prawns

19821982 views33 comments33 favs

The white Styrofoam box sits on the prep station. It was delivered a few hours earlier. Half awake, I don a black apron and grab a large cutting board. To keep it from slipping, I put the cutting board on a damp towel laid…

Why I Don't Write Sex Scenes Anymore

19821982 views1111 comments99 favs

I’ve had my face talked off by those types (and I’m sure you’ve met a few) who need to say and hear “special” words, and they go "unh-hunh, unh-hunh, o yeah, o yeah, unh hunh."

A Sonnet for Anna

19811981 views3030 comments2020 favs

Toting a sawed-off shotgun at the altar

Fake Empire (Thanks Matt)

19811981 views55 comments55 favs

Your voice is yearning, Like a sad song on the radio, A yarn spun to make hearts break.

Arcana Magi - c.30: Farewell, My Home

19801980 views33 comments00 favs

Their hearts had a place for the Elements. The Sentinels did not want to abandon them, their friends. Nor did they want to abandon each other.

Safety First

19801980 views1010 comments88 favs

I am not a gun, but I think I may have pulled a plastic movie trigger in some kind of real world action before, accelerated, pivotal scene, one way or another before, this new frame came into its paranoid view .You see? I am not a plastic water bottle,but I…

Finite Automatons in Winter Quarter

19801980 views66 comments11 fav

To my right, blank stares interchange with closed eyelids on an unkempt face. The minutes drip into the endless sea of night outside the window, each time creating a deeper blackness.

It's A Different World When You Walk With A Cane

19801980 views1010 comments77 favs

People do want to be kind. It's just that sometimes they need a little push (or, in a few cases, a big fat shove) in the right direction.

When I Lived There.

19801980 views77 comments55 favs

When I was fifteen and we were moving to Mississippi, my boyfriend in Canada told me I was going to live in the swamp with the alligators. I didn’t understand why my father would pick such a hick place. Rob gave me his cricket bat to hang over my bed, a

Dust and Blood

19801980 views22 comments00 favs

A black wind raced ahead of the Merbreth and Juko could smell the thing's fur, matted with the blood of men. The coppery scent mingled with the fear coming off the men around him, a fear so palpable it became a tangible thing, something to be tripped over

The Invasion Of Iraq

19801980 views11 comment11 fav

The U.S. blasted into Iraq like gangbangers, baby! All that Shock and Awe shit... Zeep, excitement rekindled within him, hired three chippies, Foxy, Loxy, and Roxy, and partied! He managed between…

Hemingway for Gloria

19801980 views1616 comments88 favs

He disliked intrusion and very specifically innocuous intrusion, nice guys, one might say, who tried to be near him to learn something from him or who admired him but who, as in that passage, came merely to disturb his work.

Lester

19791979 views44 comments11 fav

Richard bounds up the stairs to his apartment. He can’t wait to get home to his new kitty. He found the poor cat right outside of his building just a few days ago, and already they’ve become fast friends.

Something Strange There Is

19791979 views55 comments33 favs

Maybe God couldn’t find His bifocals, and that’s why my check for ten million hasn’t shown up yet. Maybe a stray dog in heaven ate my check. Maybe God went bankrupt like everyone else. Okay, so maybe at the end of life I’ll balance my checkbook. I do