Most recent stories

Ah, the Trouble (Has Finally Arrived)

905905 views77 comments44 favs

with all these little battle worn pieces of history surrounding us all the time is that they don't really make up for the terrible news of just now. Those people showed us what they showed us. Good for them.We're the direct explosion of their…

55 words #2

15111511 views99 comments66 favs

I have always admired flat-chested women.

My House In The Middle Of The Ocean

16831683 views22 comments11 fav

I built a house in the middle of the ocean. I used sunlight for nails. Wind for wood. Stars for chandeliers, the moon for a doorknob.

After

13111311 views22 comments11 fav

The next week, she sends a small white box in the mail / with tissue paper, a ceramic mold the color of bleached bone—

It's Like That

12111211 views11 comment00 favs

Like the term rogue cop

Dear Mouth

14671467 views11 comment11 fav

...you vigorously screamed blasphemies at inanimate objects

faking an orgasm

10841084 views22 comments11 fav

There’s an account of roasting inward, holding myself like a rock inflamed, my inward joy rotting my veins. How was I supposed to go on loving anything after you? Like a pigeon hated at home, awaiting your passionate kisses? Knowing how your classical k

Everyone Is Going Away

16021602 views88 comments44 favs

“I don’t know what’s going on there,” Hank, who hated his name and wanted a more Biblical name because those names (Jeremiah! Matthew! David!)—although common—sound ominous, said as he pointed up to the top of the apartment building that housed the whores

In the North Woods (or, The War of Art)

12871287 views22 comments11 fav

For the residents of Oak Morrow, entropy is an art form. They break their own windows and crash their cars into their living rooms. Grannies and pets can usually scoot out of the way before they’re crushed under the juggernaut of creativity.

Wings

15331533 views88 comments66 favs

Every lunch time the numerous small jukeboxes that are distributed about the dining area fill the air with webs of King Curtis and Benny Goodman.

Potsdamer Strasse

16211621 views33 comments33 favs

She stared unbreakingly, confident, knowing; and talked so close to my face I felt cornered. But her voice was something, low and smooth.

Zombie

14791479 views1010 comments55 favs

If it were known that I am as stupid as I am, if the press were to open that page on TV, if the laughter shot itself like fireworks out into the road--

The Quiet Room by Doug Holder

15901590 views11 comment11 fav

I keep my life very ordered. Order for me is security. I am sure of some things. Like the fact I work five nights a week, and sleep during the day.

All The World's Cold

823823 views22 comments00 favs

An officer appeared and told us that we were already dead. We were already ghosts. As soon as you realize this, there is nothing to fear.

the sweet lunar springs

838838 views00 comments00 favs

Check the sweet lunar springs that we are still bathing in. The swelling in the genitals there. Check to make sure we are ripe, and in season. It’s our way of being willing, strong under the sweet icy waters, with that fertility that is derived from you

Smells Like Burning

11741174 views11 comment11 fav

Stanley had a crush on Sarah. They were in Ms. Goldman's freshman chemistry class together fifth period. That day they were working on homework at Sarah's house while her parents were gone. Stanley was in heaven.“Break time!” Sarah woke Stanley from daydreaming,…

A Spark and a Flash

14091409 views44 comments11 fav

Butchie was the one who heard about the bonfire happening over on Harrison Avenue.

Variation on a Variation of a Mode

16761676 views2727 comments1212 favs

Borges must be so proud somewhere

Killing Hope

13181318 views33 comments22 favs

Hope was beauty before I even knew what beauty was with her golden pigtails, brilliant blue eyes and an infectious smile — even after Jamie Delano flung his Frisbee, knocking out Hope’s two front teeth.

55 words

20172017 views1414 comments1313 favs

The patient people who work with the insane are not my kind of people. They are too entertained by the oddness of the inmates and act with a superior sense. I, on the other hand, am odd myself, searching for adherents to my view. The inmates knew me as such and agreed…

Mercury Unbound - 4

16291629 views2020 comments88 favs

The music, Antonín Dvořák's 'New World Symphony,' the second movement, 'Largo,' immediately alters my mood.

Destroy the Evidence

15481548 views55 comments44 favs

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…

Extortionist

13701370 views44 comments22 favs

They leaned against the hood of his pickup, which sat heavy on its wheels, the back of it filled with the things that he’d held out of the yard sale three days earlier. “When’re you leaving?” she asked. “Early. Get on down the road. Shut ’er down ea

Dead to Rights

11591159 views22 comments00 favs

He draped the sheet over her body. Blood spotted the fabric, rose petals on snow.He left the pistol, but pocketed the first edition she'd signed. Part of his fee.In the park, he ditched the glasses, fake mustache, and anorak before making the call.The publisher called an…

Coffee

12941294 views44 comments22 favs

He picked up a pack of cigarettes and shook it. He flipped the lid to confirm there were none left.

Snapshot

15121512 views1414 comments1212 favs

Behind them all, in the background, a tray of vodka tonics waits on a glass table, the limes losing color as they drown.

A Natural Consequence of Things

15851585 views66 comments44 favs

Belief is a hammer, like saying the mind is a piece of iron.

Then You May Have Complicated Grief...

12201220 views22 comments11 fav

......Based on an ad I heard on the radio from Mass. General Hospital in BostonHave you ever experienced death?Have you been in grief,past the cut off periodof six months?Has it affected your life?Has it strained relations with your wife?It is our beliefthat you…

April

16551655 views2020 comments1111 favs

...he thought often of the rollicking waves, of being pulled under, of being weightless and senseless...

Valhalla After Dark

12671267 views22 comments00 favs

In traffic I cry bloody murder, but my bloodlust subsides once I'm in Valhalla. Chip Whitehead wants to see me on the 22nd floor before I start my shift. Charlie and the other suits have been looking at me funny since I sent Chip a memo suggesting the recession…