Most recent stories

The Troupe

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A performance is a series of situations. Each situation defines the characters that are in it.

Ennui

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I've done the math, it didn't count. All the days and years of endless boredom. Of waiting for the next best thing, trapped inside your mind like a lifetime prison sentence. Maybe one day we'll be free, maybe one day we won't feel so oppressed. But when does that day…

Members of the Story

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Pinesatz is standing again. He and Marie seem unaware of time, unaware that Louane is watching them, unaware of waiting for Wendy with the car. Every glance is a hook. Every gleam is a glance. Every stanza is a room. She vies for it.

How to Take a Meeting, for the Woman Who Fell to Earth

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1) be awake2) wear clothes1a) get out of beda1) go to bed the night before6) put a smile on her face, but not too smiley6a) maintain precisely calculated level of irony and derision in a just kidding (not kidding!) manner suited to responses of the enemy6aia) normal words,…

33 and a 1/3

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I've been in Tucson two days, and so far most of my conversations with my father have taken place while I crane my neck and squint into the sun. I scream up, he screams down. He needs to fix the leaky roof before the rainy season, he says.

Flannery O'Connor's Tea Party

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“He's the one who took five tries to find your vein during your last blood draw, right?” This question spilled from the row of twenty EKG machines that now made up the hospital building's larynx

Tales from an Indiscriminate Record Collection

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45s I’ve kept wrapped in newspaper in the attic. These are all mine. Some doubling up in sleeves. Some pushing tears in the seams.

Treasure Hunting Brings Sunnis, Shiites Together

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Muslim factions are getting a helping hand to bridge the gap that has divided Shiites from Sunnis since Mohammed died--a new version of the Peace Corps that uses recreational metal detection to build friendship.

Living in the Lapin of Luxury

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“There’s cheap land at Cudlee Creek perfect for breeding long-haired rabbits,” he added. “They can’t jump high so fencing costs are low.”

Origins

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I was sleeping the night of a hurricane party. I awoke to lightning flashes. They lit the undersides of descending clouds, and lit the shadows of scattering dancers. The hurricane must have turned inland.

Cassandra Folds the Poem in Her Hand and Loses My Heart in the Process

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Ours is but the very small effort being made here.But it's a good enough keeper for all of usto always remember off. All the tins thataren't really going to save usfrom starving, now are neatly arranged all around, justin case, stacked…

Still Life

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She was a moon dancer, keeper of secrets,

Leather

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When I was 17, they said in an e-mail that you would get too drunk to function and that you would abuse them, verbally, and do way more than embarrass them in public. They said you'd yell at them and hit their mom for any reason. They put a restraining order on you.…

In Between (edit)

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Behind me are two doors. Each opens onto a room which is more event than space.

Chinese farmer gets life in prison for evading highway tolls

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Bring me your poor, your tired, your hungry anyone skilled at evading highway tolls Bring me your escape artists dangling upside down in a straight-jacket from the sides of tall buildings Don’t let them starve in the prisons of the world Bri

Paris

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the boredom inherent in living in the suburbs

A Christmas Surprise

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"John is going to love it when he finds out that it pees," Bobby said. Kelly laughed and dropped a towel on the floor.

The Monster's Other Face

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The yellowed and peeling posters of men and women with grotesque disfigurements under the slogan, “Know Your Criminals!” that peered down at him from the walls were a familiar sight. Everyone knew that people with faces like that were as monstrous as they looked…

Fate

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decline the prof­fered hand

My Wife, the Registry of Motor Vehicles

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We’ve been married for 24.1667 years now and–well–my wife was starting to remind me of a public building. The Registry of Motor Vehicles, to be precise.

Eskimo Days

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We cook over the fireplace on these days, blacken marshmallows on straightened hangers, like Eskimos, dogs around a campfire.

Bonfire of the Insanity

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You know when you’re in church and your older brother does something funny and you’re laughing and your dad grabs your elbow to make you shut up, but that’s even funnier still and you keep laughing and you know you shouldn’t be laughing because you’re in

Poetry Whores

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Something’s been eating at my craw. I’m just going to go ahead and spill it all out. You ever hear about Poetry Whores? Well, let me tell you a little about them, because if I don’t, then who will? I’m not going to name names. You can pretty much guess

Invasive Species

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Except, something about Margaret was a little off. She would stop typing suddenly and look up at the plant, studying it, almost as if daring it to cross her. Then, she would go back to her computer and start pounding away again.

before i lived in the sky

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i built a house in the trees before i lived in the sky

The Bricks

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He ordered a palace built, and the builders came to blows, which is why the father’s eyes have swollen shut, and the oldest son’s knuckles are bright plums.

The Fields

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Swat at those screeching children with tufts of harp-grass. Flail, mad eyed and sad sighed with all gleaming hope gone out of the daylight. Swat and screech swat and screech. We continue until their thick bark-like hides are smooth and polished. We sand them with…

Border Town Dawn/There's a Momentary Cloud (Reach for the Sky)

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Border town meant one thing; we were caught up real good in the middle of something preternaturally dangerous; and understanding was at the very least a hundred miles or so away in either direction. All I…

Tremor

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I ask because she's the animal person, not me. She understands animal behavior.

Chalky goes to night school and studies the Classics

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I don’t even want to think about Aethra shtupping Posiden and Aegeus