Most read stories

April

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...he thought often of the rollicking waves, of being pulled under, of being weightless and senseless...

dinner for one

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no one else comes in my back door but you

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

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We didn't wear shoes in the summer, except for Sunday school and church. The soles of our feet were black and tough as shoe leather.

She Waited for Him

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what smells like love may not be love at all

Helen O., Grand Central, 1959

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No snippet to see, here. The piece is so short a snippet would be the whole thing.

Becoming an Author

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"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."

Old Vibrations

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There's always a sound, something triggering the fear.

Heart Line

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One sunny morning, a big-bellied ball of yellow fur surveyed a yard full of prospective adopters and ran straight to one. She’d been chosen.

One Bag of Popcorn

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“Dad’s a dick,” my sister said. I nodded. He threw $20 on the candy counter for one small bag of popcorn and told the girl to keep the change.

Improbable Bodies

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The book has known many women’s hands, something erotic and frequently checked out from our local library. Its cover depicts a man and a woman, both with improbable if not impossible bodies. I believe the term is bodice-ripper.

Bus

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You can’t take a chandelier on an emergency dash across a nuclear desert.

I Am Wearing Stolen Socks

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I am wearing stolen socks. Not because I haven't any of my own, and not because they are an exact fit. Only because they soothe my emptiness inside.

You Were This Close

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I don't know if we'll meet again in the sea of light. Circumstances aren't only up to human beings. After all maybe it's all drunk circumstance, but that doesn't answer the blinding question, it only poses some more. This is…

Arcana Magi - c.16: Fragile Friendship

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Alysia stopped for a moment. She knew what she was going to say, but held back her words and thoughts. Chisame took advantage of her hesitance.

The Damp Place

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As long as he could still take the stairs, he would go down there to be with the memories that each piece held. He knew that their time was about up, because his was too. His wife had already gone, and even before that she had long stopped using the washe

The Watchman

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The coffins pile up gnawing dust on the glass panes to the rims of my binoculars. Shadowy cracks of stifling proportions, gliding over my eyes a requiem of mahogany. At dawn they heave between the workers’ hands, leave their resting places for a green tra

Joe for Town Council

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

Infinity Pool

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I sink until water saturates my lashes, waiting, breathless, for the words to stop.

The Intercom

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I have never met Joe’s brother, of course.

Living in the Lapin of Luxury

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“There’s cheap land at Cudlee Creek perfect for breeding long-haired rabbits,” he added. “They can’t jump high so fencing costs are low.”

The Stick

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When you finally got blood from the hard stick You spotted the backflash of red And said Thank God. The woman’s legs and arms Were everywhere, and you were in the middle Holding her down with one hand while wielding A butterfly in the other. You stuc

Cupcake Footprint

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once wedding cake under pillows. now fluffy frosting on squashed defeat

the last thing

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salmon maple syrup horseradish smoke detector the list read, scrawled in purple marker on the refrigerator door.

The Captive

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....sees the beginning of a new day through the closed shutters, hears the guard washing up at the sink, feels the beginning of a cry in his throat.

Layers on a Cold Night

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Later that night, he lay his shivering children in his own bed, the bed that betrayed and abandoned him just a few years ago. It will protect them now.

Swimming Lessons

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The trainers looked at her and smiled and they were still one creature with four legs and two heads. The old man’s left eye moved in sync with the younger one’s right eye.

Tornado Diary

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The storm grew in might until it spawned the worst kind of tornado, an F-5 or Finger of God.

Finite Automatons in Winter Quarter

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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.

What Literary Rejection Letters Would Mean In The Real World

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I ask for your patience with this form message, as it is part of a system that ensures every submissive ex lover is considered separately, since I am involved in a lot of anonymous sex.

Here be Dragons

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Most nights while in his sleep, with his one good eye deeply shut, the old man can hear the whispers of the specter in the remote wanderings, holding the surrounding woodlands in its snare. The sound of it closing in, with the bones of the universe crushing in…