Most read stories

Simulacra

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*** Winner of the 15th Glass Woman Prize. Thank you, Beate Sigriddaughter.

Cracking Open

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Her addiction started with dry roasted nuts, and quickly jumped to peanuts. At her worst, she was consuming a large glass jar of peanuts daily. She loved while hating their salty taste and greasy feel, the repetition of tossing them into her mouth. …

The Names of Things

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She's having trouble remembering the names of things.

On Being From the Dirty South, While not Considering Myself a Redneck

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How to not be a redneck? Basically, it is a matter of volume, ancestor worship, respect for the truth and a command of the English language.

If Dogs Should Come

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do not run

The Devil's Bedpost

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A cellphone vibrates ineffectually against unfeeling skin. One last rivulet of blood slowly oozes down the wall as it dries. The rest of the room is still.

My Son Thinks He's French

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My son thinks he's French.His accent was cute at first, but it's starting to get on my nerves. If he asks for another glass of Beaujolais I'm gonna go to jail for child abuse.Yesterday, I walked upstairs to make him turn his new Jacques Brel album down and I swear it…

A Map

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It was war without beginning or end.

Gershwin’s Second Prelude

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While Kate practiced the piano in the tiny third-floor apartment, Wiley cooked dinner, jogging in place in front of the stove.

Little People

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If you consider yourself neither little nor big, remember that anything large, colossal, macroscopic, ample, sizable, blown-up, bulky, mighty was once small, lesser, minute, tiny, dinky, gnomish, weeny or lilliputian.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 2

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All of a sudden I felt a hand on my neck. I jumped up from my chair and turned to face my brother Darrell, with his surprisingly white shock of hair, the result of all the drugs he'd been experimenting with, back in his mid-twenties. He was even taller

Lisa Duncan's Mom

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Lisa Duncan's mom was puffy, and you could always see part of her breasts.

EVENING ALONE

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The gull put its foot down, stretched its wings out and swept into the salty breeze.

Rwanda Suite: Slim

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Paris was a better place for African Americans in those days. Josephine Baker sent a spray of roses. James Baldwin helped him find a good apartment.

Chinese

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Brian stands. The edge of the tablecloth goes up with him, clings to his belt buckle, so he must beat it down. Everyone looks at him. The two old ones at the end glare at him coldly, four stupid eyes.

The Alchemist

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A new constellation in the sweet hereafter.

Unleaving

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they'll leave soon for the drive north on the interstate

Giant Piece of Art Causes Chaos in Switzerland

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Flying Piece of Art Causes Chaos in Switzerland (from news article, with some additions) A giant inflatable dog turd by an American artist blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss Museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a gree

The Time Broker

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When I finally met the time broker, he sat at an antiquated mahogany desk with no computer. He looked up and waited for me to speak. "Time for sale," his ad had advertised, and I was ready to pay

Sleep and Poetry

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It’s that, really, nothing else could be Sleep and Poetry, Mr. Keats

Ramblers and Spinners

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IT SNOWED all day the Monday after Thanksgiving. After supper and homework, my brother, Will, and I sat in the narrowly opened window of the second floor apartment where we lived and watched the older kids run their bicycles down Sweet's Hill and hit their brakes at…

Solaris

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The night my mother dies we'd watched Solaris at the Quad Cinemas Afterward Hauser and I videotape each other, ask probing questions like where do you go when you die, and what is God, and who are you now? …

Repair Man

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The repair man is conscientious in this as he is with all things, light with his fingers and his tongue. His hair falls over his eyes as he works her.

I Love Us

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I'd kill a gas attendant in Playa Del Mar. You'd read stained romance novels in motel rooms, while I oiled the gun and laughed on the phone, to no one.

Subterranean

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and there is no climbing up/ to any height, and the sun/ is cloaked by cloud,

What Some Boys Do

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I squeeze the soft bag tighter between my legs.

The Player

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He played real good But never looked At no one Strong guitar Weak knees

Appetite(s)

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Listen, I don’t want to get all teary and here I am getting all teary, but it’s not what you think. What it is is that I think about that very first time, when she comes out of the bathroom completely naked and she looks like heaven’s very best neig

Clean Out Your Desk, Naps. You're Being Replaced.

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Sunday mornings my mother got up early—and dragged me kicking and screaming out of bed and into my nicest jeans and sweater. I have still never thanked her. (I’m borrowing, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less true.)

Cookie Monster's Harem in the Sky

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Last week I came home early from work and caught my wife having sex with the Cookie Monster.