Most read stories

july 23

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I get that drunk feeling right before it starts to rain. The sky is dark and heavy and the clouds break open with a flash and suddenly there is water running down all of the windows like one million pairs of eyes crying hard. The street is suddenly …

Rats

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He tried to call on his break but she didn’t answer. He imagined her on the floor, sobbing, like she’d been the other day. The grey rat would have chewed through a plug-in or some wires and started a fire. She would be ashes, a blackened corpse, reeki

Physicist in love

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He saw symmetry, exquisite geometry, body and built world in harmony.

Why'd You Come Back?

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But there, up the street, just coming into the corner of the window, someone was in the middle of the road. Walking literally down the middle, dragging one leg like it was heavy or broken, carving a fat line next to the skinny one the good one made.

Holding Hands in Public

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Take my hand. Take my hand and we will sail through the atmosphere leaving trails of rainbow speckled life written in musical notes behind us. We can go anywhere you want, whenever you wish. The moon in 1974. I hear the earth looks gorgeous during the seventies.…

Cure

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It's as if there are little men inside her head, wielding hammers.

Bison

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To make extra money, my father wrote music reviews for the Calgary Herald, and on Saturday nights, he went to hear the Symphony, or into recital halls to listen to the chamber music that was being performed around the city. He took me, once, to a performa

At This Particular Moment

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in time there is nothing more important for meto write than this line. It isn't defined in the way you'd like perhaps, but it doesn't matter because it will be true, and you will be true, and I will be the message you get. Some signal has…

A Love Letter to Norwich, England

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The number 25 double-decker bus threads its way through the narrow two-lane streets. Coughing and burping without a hint of embarrassment, it carries us from the train station, with its cheerful round clockface and neat front of red brick, over the weepin

Écriture de la chatte

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YKK is a zipper manufacturer whose initials stand for Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushikigaisha. A boy told me (and I believed as a child) that YKK was my name in code.

A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING

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My best friend and roommate Eliza woke up one morning with the sudden conviction that she had to become very fat, as soon as possible.

Ishpeming

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Ishpeming straddles Lake Superior to Marathon, reaches into the water, pulls out a clump of frozen hotdogs, breaks them apart one by one, rolls them between its fingers, heats them on the thigh of its corduroy pants, and throws them into the sky. Comets t

Suppose, I ask my friend

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nothing has ever happened in this or that or any other or maybe too damn many parallel universes. . . .

Destroy the Evidence

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The oven door topples off of its hinges as she kicks and climbs out. She growls and quickly slaps out her still smoldering sweater shoulder. Taking a kitchen chair by the back, she swings it over her head and shatters the window. The chair breaks into splinters as she…

Blues Machine

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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…

First Chapter of Rain (novel)

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Every day she loves me a little less, and justifies it by saying that there is less of me to love. At some crucial, overlooked space in our life together, I used up my compassion and started to spend hers.

Scoop

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“What about the other groups coming here?” I ask. “Were they asked what they wanted in these houses?” She turns and looks at me, like I've suddenly come onto her radar.

A List of Ways I Have Failed to Express My Love for You

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The gaudy belt buckle I got you, which would have been well-received except that you hate gaudy belt buckles.The custom t-shirt I made for you using iron-on felt letters that generously enhanced the shape of your breasts in a way unfit for public display.The wedding…

The Lost Boys

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Every day hurts, just a little, but not enough

Obituary

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Patrick Savage, who has died aged 29, was a poker player fast on his way to becoming a cult figure in the music scene.

Taste

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I. Sweet Anthill The anthill is in front of my house. It started with a cupcake I dropped on the ground, frosting first. The ants started to congregate, carrying sprinkles and cake crumbs into the deep sidewalk crack. A week…

Five Bucks.

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“For Chrissake! Just get me one of fucking Tony's half-assed, made in China bullshit, getaway cars. My plate is hot!” I had never hated cars so much before. Not so much the cars, but the sound the cheap ones made when they drove past my house. The…

Missed

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How I felt in Ireland.

How to Have a Fulfilling Sexual Relationship with Your Own Parents (Part One)

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Hi, I'm Alexander Payne. I hate sex.

Lilith: The Unforgiven

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I saw life and beauty choking

Europe, 1960

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The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

Valentine's Day: Say it with Chickens

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Love at first sight? Not for me.

Major Chaos

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Major Chaos came here one of those hot days. I was washing the floor, wearing old clothes, when he knocked on my door. Since I don’t have many visits, I let him in. At first, he seemed like a soldier, but upon reflection I realized he was a big green fr

Blueberries

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Cold water shocked Ernest's face. The evening with Gracie had his nerves hot and popping. She was his fifth date and the closest to his memory of Sadie in college so far. He looked up at himself in the bathroom mirror with his mouth agape. Redness flooded…

patti, did art get us?

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often as i lie awake i wonder are you awake too?/ we never had any children, he said ruefully/ that summer i cried so much that robert called me soakie/ robert, dying: creating silence