Most recent stories

Gershwin’s Second Prelude

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While Kate practiced the piano in the tiny third-floor apartment, Wiley cooked dinner, jogging in place in front of the stove.

Threads

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She said he was missing the whole point: it was a decoration, not an actual pillow. You were supposed to place it somewhere artful.

Licking around the rim

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Sure, it was a hot day, but the driver was in the middle of a driving lesson!

Your Love Life

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Maintaining a healthy love life requires effort and professional advice, and Your Love Life columnist would be happy to assist you.

The alcohol is on my mind, on my mind, on my mind

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The alcohol is on my mind, on my mind, on my mind

I Was a Cat Once

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This is a 50-word story.

Rite-Aid

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It was the most prestigious cashier position in the entire state!

Appointment

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He stared at the mirror, his hair looked chewed up–severed by a miniature lawnmower.

Split second

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When people talk about the end moments when one's life flashes before his or her eyes, they often refer to time as slowing down. I can attest to this phenomenon during my final moments, before the collision: the song playing on the radio, the squeal of tires and flash of…

WHORES

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... if they called her Mother, would she take them home and raise them?

The Pocahontas Forgiveness Goes Viral

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You generated coal light from your gait as easily as the new sun crawls through a sleepy forest, without worry over hot spillage, or who might be horribly blinded or grossly revealed or given visions in that rare moment of wet earth and…

Arm

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As I was going into Wal-Mart, a man with a useless arm was coming out. I'd never seen anything like that arm—a dangle-flesh, rubbery thing with no purpose.

The Man Who Suckled Elvis

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No one wanted to bear witness to this grand emasculation

Mother of the Earth

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On Terry’s eighteenth birthday (the summer of 1966, the same year you graduated from high school, and the year I broke up with Sharon) I took Terry out to Fox River on my dad's ski boat, and opened up my robe and showed her all there was to show of myse

Tarot

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He had no idea about the first three cards - what he would call the flop - which looked dubious and full of danger.

The Pope of Rock and Roll

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Pope Leo XIII endorsed a cocaine-based drink and at the age of 90 sat in on a session with a castrato that is still available on CD.

Squog

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I choose my words carefully, “Dogs love to chase squirrels, squirrels hate being chased by dogs. It’s a pattern that results in both dogs and squirrels being frustrated.”

Hors d'oeuvre

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What scares her about libraries are unshelved books, the ones you thumb through while you are waiting for the elevator, because you realize that there are too many books in the world and you are holding that particular book only because it is lost.

Event Particle (10)

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my tiny white world, the cube in the closet in the back above the shelving in a secret compartment cut into the wall

The Creator of the Nipple

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Speaking of stiff nipples, I heard you once wanted to become a painter, because of your fondness for nipples. Feeling like Gauguin and his little Polynesian women/girls, are we? So, you're going to try to out-paint God, are you, Mr. Sistine Chapel of the

Voronezh. Samara. Tyumen.

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They have a saying in Russia: Live in Voronezh, work in Samara, die in Tyumen. In honour of Saint Rose, born on the banks of the Voronezh, fed the hungry and the poor of Samara, torn apart by wolves in Tyumen on the exact date that she had herself predict

Mythical Houses

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I remember meeting this famous rock musician once, when I was in real estate. He could be such a jerk. It seems like the famous ones always are. He saw my friend Susan talking to herself in the kitchen at a party where we were. “That woman is never alon

The Pixie

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

Willie

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It must have been twenty years before I first heard Willie Nelson’s voice without the accompaniment of my mother’s crying. She liked to listen to country music on the radio while she cleaned dishes, ironed shirts, watered plants, and whatever else the hou

No Adjectives

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She looked up, blinked. Fuck are you? I shook my head. Nobody you’ll remember, I said.

RONNIE AND RACHEL

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Silent defenders of penumbra one

The Enabler

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I still see you lying on the tracks

Rope & Bone '86

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His shirts he hangs on the back of the chair, one on top the other so they won't wrinkle.

Over simplifying the solution, or, there have been way too many celebrations at the confetti factory

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Try and put my bones back in

Hot Rod Heaven

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"a ratty, red, medium-sized bicycle for sale in a ratty, medium-sized yard."