Most recent stories

First Contact

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... her heart went kathump kathump and as the sun warmed the morning Patti once again melted into her normal condition of slightly dazed trance with not a care in the world but the health of her African violets that she now tended to on the window

Unwritten

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‘I love you' said the man at the book signing. He was one of the last. The shop was closing. The staff were starting to turn off the lights. She was sitting in the glow of a table lamp with her latest novel in stacks around her.

Yellow

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Slipshod shoes were the first sign of a meltdown. Sometimes she could see it coming. A prickly gentleman washing his clothes on a Thursday afternoon. One week he’s fine. Nothing wrong with owning a sour face. The next Thursday, his shoes don’t match.

My Hero

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Anyway, without Mr. Little, my life would have been much more difficult after my father was arrested. It was difficult enough as it was. Mr. Little was my personal hero at a time in my life when I had very few people that I could look up to. The funny

Archaeological Treasures Yet to Come

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The museum’s catalog description changed much less than the painting over those years. He wasn’t curator-in-chief of catalog descriptions, however, that task went to a curator arriving by another door.

Dramarama and Acid Wash Jeans

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Looking down you wonder, when did I eat pineapple? and Am I really this awesome or am I a facsimile of something that really sucks, even if it's that 'it's so bad it's good' kind of thing? Nope, it's just bad.

Pink Slip For Mitt's Mutt

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(Recently unearthed from a “Lost Luggage” travel trunk abandoned in a train station in Salt Lake City, Utah) Dear Seamus: Boy, we sure did enjoy having you as a member of our family all those years. I would have to say you…

Sara and the Machines of Loving Grace

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I, like Sara, am the last of my kind still activated. I am a Machine of Loving Grace.

The Garden Heaters Of Kilburn

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when women’s hair shrinks into tight curly balls and sits on top of their heads like scrunches of wool, blowing in the wind, hanging from the mouths of recently shot deer.

How?

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The poet paused Pen poised in hand A wrinkle on his brow He’d but to rhyme the final verse The only problem How?

The Defective Detective : The Curious Case of the Kilchester Courier

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In which Clint is sucked into a remarkably civilised but mildly deranged crime scene. There he encounters almost-blackmail, not-actually prostitution, probable-sex scandals, genuine-imposters & the very real theft of something incredibly important. Twice.

Real Heart

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A heart which is alive despite everything in the world that wants to deaden it.

-And Lurking Behind Quasar 3C295 . . .

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“Let’s see that great big telescope of yours,” she exhaled hotly, “I want to grind your lenses!” The doctoral candidate dutifully stood between her and his massive telescope so her hands would encounter some instrumentation with no optical components.

My Literary Pockets

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I don’t know what to do with all this money flowing from my books. It’s burning a hole in my literary pocket.

Me and Lord Byron at Last Call

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Byron's achievement, certainly quite remarkable, is to have raised the drunken monologue to a literary form. Edmund Wilson

The Sober Boat

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I am my beloved’s Advil and she is my Aleve

The Office

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But I still don't have my underwear in the right place.

On The Stoop

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The leaves were meaningless because they were no longer connected to the trees.

shame

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A deserted breeze hangs and waits and talks with staggered shapes in the sky like a melancholic child, held behind and forced to face the wall as better taught and better-tempered children dig for ancient ruins just ou

down to the beast league

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Savor the whistle.

Soroz

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Less than a hundred adults remain, predominately women, along with several dozen children of various ages. Most of their men were killed in a territorial war six moons previous.

INVIDIA

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"I always disliked such display of religious fervor. I dislike religious fervor. Period."

The Watcher

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the dark brown cloaked warden stands on his lofty perch

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Tree

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I found him dead underneath a sycamore tree. I knew it was a sycamore tree because of all the acorns surrounding the body.

(One Hundred Minus Ninety Equals) Ten Jetpacks for the Lonely

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1. And so, another top heavy day within the sworn to camp enemies of a purely human musical swamp, who want only to own the essences of that ancient sweet fragrance, like all the others, and sell it back to us at a tidy profit, which…

Rams, NFL's Smartest Team, Forget to Make Playoffs

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“I was looking for the review of the Alvin Ailey dance company when I noticed something in the sports pages,” says the 300-pound center. “All of a sudden it hit me–I should have been playing football."

hyperdust

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summon the chamois to hyperspace

The Rainbow Clockwerkz

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Mama Blinkey Lights yells at Papa Blinkey Lights and tells him to quit playing the fool, and when we turn our attention back to removing the shafts, we are chagrined to find that not only have they multiplied once again, but that they have gone yet farthe

The Swindler

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John Davies paces nervously around an empty parking lot...

Crown-of-thorns

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It's supposed to resemble the sea bed. These fish have never seen the outside of an aquarium and even if they had, they are reef fish, they'd probably get the bends and die if they went to the bottom of the ocean where the chances of them finding a cerami