Most read stories

Layers on a Cold Night

21432143 views88 comments22 favs

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.

An Object for the Sun God

21422142 views55 comments22 favs

this one was abandoned... a splinter left under the skin, pushed out by protective flesh

Catalog of Disappeared Things

21422142 views1616 comments1111 favs

He runs a mail-order business from a storefront and distributes a catalog of disappeared things.

PLAYGROUND

21422142 views33 comments33 favs

Marie shrugs. “Maybe she’s just late. Come on, let's wait by the jungle gym.” She runs over and starts climbing. The jungle gym is closest to the path that goes into the woods and down into the canyon. She has to get him into the woods somehow.

1993, What I Wanted

21422142 views1212 comments88 favs

Two-way conversation with God.

Little Pi.ec.es

21412141 views1010 comments55 favs

I scare my daughter when she sleeps because she thinks I'm going to kill her.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

21412141 views66 comments55 favs

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.

Admiral Cheng Ho's Lost Compass

21412141 views22 comments11 fav

“Cheng Ho didn’t go just Cape Horn; treasure ships visit Australia and America. His very advanced compass. Not just point north-south. Show east-west too.”

Tornado Diary

21412141 views55 comments22 favs

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

The Nielsens (part two)

21412141 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…

Paris

21412141 views1515 comments77 favs

the boredom inherent in living in the suburbs

Comes After Cato

21412141 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

21412141 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."

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

21412141 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 Intercom

21402140 views33 comments11 fav

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

Birds Fly(a chapbook of seven+ poems)

21402140 views99 comments88 favs

Birds FlySeven Poemsby Darryl Pricefor Charlotte and Mel, as always"We should insist on joy in spite of everything."--Tom Robbins“I don't need your love. I don't need you to understand. I just need you to listen.”—Perfume Genius1. I Want to Sing to…

Arcana Magi - c.24: Desperation

21402140 views00 comments00 favs

Oryn woke up in her desk. Sweat trickled from her forehead. Staring at her notepad, with her latest calculation, she forgot to go home. Her thoughts of Alysia calmed for now, but still lingered from her dreams.

The winter I was going to meetings

21402140 views66 comments22 favs

It’ll die in there and the stairwell’ll stink for weeks, Greg says in the car. We’re quiet, considering that.

Mona

21402140 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.

World Trade Center

21402140 views66 comments11 fav

I can feel the souls of those who perished here They’re still here like old kites hanging in the sky tattered, but they won’t come down or can’t come down just yet because they haven’t fulfilled their unborn promises t

chet baker

21402140 views1515 comments1010 favs

chet baker shades my eyes rippling through the cool water sometimes we feed the fish

Lens

21392139 views2929 comments1212 favs

Night fell and the photographer slept, one hand between Prue's legs.

Disorienteering

21392139 views00 comments00 favs

At night, on these New England roads, there is no light, no pink sodium-vapor glow, no guideposts.

Wounded Knee

21392139 views11 comment11 fav

“They picked me up in their spaceship about noon,” Austin Grantham says to me while pulling up an apple crate to use as a stool.

What Literary Rejection Letters Would Mean In The Real World

21392139 views88 comments55 favs

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.

Death At McDonalds, or How I Learned To Love

21392139 views1010 comments44 favs

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

Chairs and Mirrors

21392139 views1616 comments1616 favs

There's a mirror in front of me and I thought it was so I could see myself, but I didn't want to see me.

Cupcake Footprint

21392139 views55 comments00 favs

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

You Were This Close

21392139 views1313 comments1414 favs

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…

When I Met Ian Curtis

21382138 views99 comments66 favs

Okay, no freaking out. I mean, this isn't a suicide note. This is suicide fiction.