Most read stories

What To Believe

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Being simple like this, knowing a thing is done by doing.

Postcard

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"Special delivery for a friend?" he asked. "Postcards are a wonderful thing. All people want to do nowadays is send e-mails. But what's better than putting a postcard on the fridge?"

Like An Endless Rain

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Fate could have sent me any number of Sergeant-Detectives, but fate sent me one of Boston’s finest, Sergeant-Detective Sheila Magnuson. Aside from being a little undernourished Sheila Magnuson is possibly the world’s most beautiful Sergeant-Detective.

NOVEL EXCERPT: Jimmy Gollihue

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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.

Splinter Off

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When we lived in the attic we were make-believe.

Phantom Sister

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We wonder if this is how we tangled in our mother's womb: hands to feet to heart.

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.

And her child

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The mother was happy, though. She was happy because she could make him some soup and then she could feed it to him in bed.

The First poem.

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Then you stopped abrupt.

Denmark (or On the Death of John Updike)

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The impression old Updike left on a young mind.

No Leg To Stand On

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He had no leg to stand on and so what could he do but fall down, which is exactly what he did.

A Dispatch from an Enivironmental Lawyer Who is Trying to Grow a Mustache

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Angelina Jolie, seducer of Brad Pitt, tattooed mother of rescued orphans, and the unlikely daughter of Jon Voight who broke Billy Bob Thornton's heart, is only two blocks from me, in a travel trailer on Seventh Street, gently rousing herself from sleep.

Pitcher

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3D is killing my porn career.

World Trade Center

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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

Sealing off the Exits

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Jasmine invited herself over and plopped herself on my futon. "Let's fuck," she said, bluntly. "I want to."

Cry Wolf

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"You are wolves circling, eyes burning in the dark...."

Lule of Raw

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A discussion at the homeless colony under the expressway overpass crossing the river:

After Detox

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When detox-man drives away, the windows down, the radio playing on the classic rock station (The Eagles), he thinks about moving out of town.

Baked Beans

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mundane tradition

The Pixie

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On the bank of the stream, we take off our clothes and dash into the water.

Momo and Me

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Momo told me not to mind her, but I did. At night, after he'd tucked me in, I could hear him on the phone in the living room, talking for a long time. Early this morning he woke me up and gave me my backpack. ‘Put some clothes in here', he said. ‘We're going on a trip.'

Years After

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Years After she can go home.

Clotting

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Train travel is listed as a possible cause for deep vein thrombosis, a condition that causes blood to clot in the legs. Ray did not tell me this, but I looked it up later, remembered the disability status on his Charlie Card.Baclofen is not used for the treatment of…

The Innocence of Age

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“I want to show you something pretty.” She looked at me, chin on her chest, watery brown eyes looking up. Skin tags on her eyelids made it difficult for her to look as coquettish as she wanted. She tried to flutter what was left of her eyelashes, but syr

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…

The MacGowans Flee West

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Some believe the Scots were encouraged to emigrate, hired guns as it were, to Ireland to civilize that population. If that's the case, we would see it as another evil English trick. In any case, we MacGowans are Scots Irish and Protestant.

The Nielsens (part one)

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I am one one millionth of a ratings point. A little flash of electronic blue against the wall of an otherwise unlit upstairs room at night. Walk by on the sidewalk feeling lonely, then see that harsh spark of indigo spring from the dark window above and

Boo!

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"Why didn't you tell me it was Halloween?" he asked. She shook her head. The doorbell rang.

Chairs and Mirrors

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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.

Bootstraps

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I made my way quietly out back and sat in Helga’s whitewashed porch swing, listening to the first faint sounds of big band music drift out of Helga’s open windows and into the cooling summer air. The darkness was moving in slow from the east, interrup