Most read stories

Smashed Idol

20592059 views99 comments66 favs

He was the kind of man that I would rather have declawed than date, and then leave him on a gurney, helpless and anaesthetized. Cliff Eames had made me feel that way since we were teenagers. He would never be helpless. …

Arborist Abridged

20592059 views55 comments00 favs

Besides, that might have been the area of his birth, and if so, Jacob was now the director, priest, pallbearer, driver, and custodian of a hometown funeral

LUPUS

20582058 views2020 comments1818 favs

Unexpected Fever

Suzanne

20582058 views99 comments44 favs

And I watched, from her warm bed, the curtains dancing in the window

Cremains

20582058 views1313 comments1010 favs

I need a different storage solution

The bridge

20572057 views1919 comments1515 favs

as long as you have some snacks up there I can be brave

Unaswered E-mails Over a Cup of Coffee and a Microwaved Danish

20572057 views22 comments11 fav

Hi Zin, Really enjoyed seeing you again at Miranda Sinned. Looked like you enjoyed doing the St. Vitus. Don't ask me how but I got rum and coke on my panties. When I got home, I had a craving for tongue and my honey's talking squid, later, some fruit loops without milk. Q.…

Helen O., Grand Central, 1959

20572057 views1919 comments1111 favs

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

forever

20572057 views2020 comments1515 favs

over tea & saltineshe read melike an obituary

Comes After Cato

20572057 views77 comments44 favs

When they called him down there to the morgue to identify the body, he drove behind the wheel of his truck like some steady maniac on a long haul. The Ford 150 cried out for new shocks, but that hardly mattered. Mud plastered side panels and…

Twedes

20572057 views2121 comments1515 favs

“Last night the Scots invaded Sweden,” I wrote, “to retrieve the silver filched from the Irish the Norwegians had in their coffers when Sweden conquered. The Swedes offered the Nobel to a Scots writer to keep ... the peace."

Amiaivel

20572057 views00 comments00 favs

Once upon a time a queen was blessed with twin sons, which she named Nosch and Amiaivel.

20 Things I Learned about Norman Rockwell from "American Mirror, The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell"

20572057 views88 comments66 favs

His middle name was Perceval. He judged the first Miss America contest in 1922. He saw himself primarily as a storyteller in the Dickensian mode.He claimed to be an illustrator rather than an artist. He disliked driving but loved to walk, and preferred…

The Spaceman and the Venusian Vampire Vixens

20562056 views22 comments11 fav

It’s late July, and I’ve just been given the assignment to cover Paganfoil’s ‘Warbird’ tour. To tell you the truth, I really loathe this assignment. I never, ever, EVER cared for hard rock or heavy metal or whatever they’re calling it this dec

When the Ocean Was Ours

20562056 views88 comments66 favs

The Ocean used to be ours. When the stars were still fire and they were the only light burning though the dim, hazy nights, the ocean was ours. Before the smog, and the lights that were carried by the men who rose from the sea, the ocean was ours. We…

Death At McDonalds, or How I Learned To Love

20562056 views1010 comments44 favs

"I sighed heavily. 'Goddamn it...' I spat under my breath. 'Every motherfucking time..."

Years After

20562056 views88 comments66 favs

Years After she can go home.

Blues Machine

20542054 views33 comments22 favs

Rockin' Joe Heath stumbled into the stairwell in nothing but a black Zildjian t-shirt, shushing himself, trying to see right, pounding head. He recalled the old lily pattern of the wall­paper and something about the tattered edges…

Rule Out Euthymia

20542054 views2626 comments1212 favs

In her belief that Juni is lucky, Jade eases the horrors our mother suffers at night, not because Juni is stuck in a physical passion, but because the whole family and whole groups of strangers know what Juni is doing for sex.

Red

20542054 views66 comments22 favs

Erwin came into the kitchen through the back door and went straight to the sink to clean up. Black mud and dried blood crusted his fingertips and caked the callused whorls of his knuckles.  He used the round of strong-smelling soap he kept for…

Becoming an Author

20542054 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."

Just a Joke

20542054 views22 comments00 favs

The pizza was perfect, ingredients genuine, not artificial: crust charred slightly; cheese gooey; sauce steaming, requiring careful eating lest the mouth suffer burns. Such quality was becoming rare around town. The product in Manhattan, by and large,

fc1 (bee boo guy/ valio hansolo)

20542054 views22 comments11 fav

poon fred / loop ilo/ bussy yubb tree

Estranged

20542054 views1010 comments66 favs

He kind of enjoyed living by himself. It was nice and peaceful.

Cast Off Thy Suffering

20542054 views1616 comments44 favs

Somewhere along tomorrow, I will forget I have the right to do this.

The Undertaker's Son

20542054 views00 comments00 favs

You would never see me the same again. You'd always be peaking at me from behind your mother's apron.

NOVEL EXCERPT: Jimmy Gollihue

20532053 views00 comments11 fav

Jimmy Gollihue awoke to the howling of a bloodhound, a long voice from up the mountain, and the baying of the dog pulled a keening lament from his dream of the highway.

Swimming Lessons

20532053 views88 comments00 favs

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.

The Captive

20532053 views1212 comments33 favs

....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.

The Nielsens (part two)

20532053 views00 comments00 favs

[continued from part one...]After sweeps, my schoolwork started to slip. I had trouble paying attention in class, and my workbooks and tests came back from the teacher marked in ketchup red ink. I had always been a good student, and this academic…