Most recent stories

The Burning Gulf

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None of us ever thought this would happen.

Dachau July 2010 The Sixty-fifth Anniversary of the Liberation

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Bubbling from the hairline cracks in the glossy pavement of the new Einkaufszentrum in the town of Dachau oozes a mysterious thick red substance. Not blood, the mayor insists despite chemical analyses. And keep it quiet. Just…

Honesty

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Bill decided he hated his neighbors on a Sunday morning in June.

The Semaphore of Civilization

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We're alone and besieged / by badness.

The Death of Tarzan

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Martín stood over the slow, labored panting as if it were a mystery he could not explain. The dog lay on the frayed pillow bed, a knot of fur and skin, in his father’s office. One eye, like an almond floating in milk, stared up at the boy.

SMOKE

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And so it begins, like this, waiting to long for a lazy train out of West Toledo...

Low On the Hog

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Living lower on the hog than anticipated lower on the hog than previously expected lower on the hog than desired Living on the underside of the hog belly pretty much bouncing on the ground beneath the aforementioned hog belly Living clos

Non-Renewable

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we wipe the blood of our progress from our hands.

Where in daytime nothing is

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I had imagined what it must be like / out there in the middle place

Piece of Mind

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Samuel wondered if Megan could hear the brains humming, but like so many of the questions Samuel had for Megan, it was difficult to find the right moment to ask.

HOUSE OF GHOSTS

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The blue Victorian at 1145 White Street shifts in its foundation, creaks, and settles in for the night. The girls are bundled into their beds. My wife, too, has gone to sleep. I’m alone in the kitchen, steeping chamomile tea, coughing phlegm into the wr

Fractured Memories of Hope

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May as well have lived two lives, he thinks: one before memory and one after. And how can you remember someone else's life? You can't. After forty years of living, he realizes that there's no way of knowing what his own eyes have witnessed.

The Theory of Color

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The story of the black pen drawing a dark hole makes everything seem so elaborate and obscure. Or even a seven-year-old leading police on a wild car chase to avoid church. Or naming a new band Fuchsia, which looks like the beginning of an

The thing is

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It was not that he was boring – it’s just that he needed a lot of encouragement. When he came, he whispered to himself, ‘ohgodohgodohgod’ - like it was something to be ashamed of, to be sorry for. I wanted to hold him close against me but I also n

To Cancer, with love...

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Why do I love you? The monster that you are? I love you for revealing to me my strength My determination, my will My need to survive I love you for showing me the gift that is living

The Aunts

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My father's heart stumbles like a punch drunk fighter. I don't notice until I'm bending over him to help him up. He's lying a little down the hill from his truck, his door open, the motor still running. The…

Sunk

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The weight of my heart dragged me in dangerous directions.

Prince Charming

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They could have heard a pin drop in the car for the rest of the ride to her house, where she looked at him one last time and found nothing admirable, nothing memorable about him.

Hunting Season

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A mundane endeavor depicted as a quest. Try it, you'll like it!

French Kiss

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The date began badly...

Daffodil

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The Trinity boys don’t blame me at all. They know I am not stupid about the world. I am a robust girl. Nevertheless, like everyone else I have limits. I am a clock that winds down.

Benefit

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I'm an artist, baby. We make our own rules.

Arcana Magi - c.24: Desperation

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Oryn woke up in her desk. Sweat trickled from her forehead. Staring at her notepad, with her latest calculation, she forgot to go home. Her thoughts of Alysia calmed for now, but still lingered from her dreams.

Processes

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How to Boil Water How to Cook an Egg How to Eat How to Think How to Love How to Die

President Taft Presses A Telegraph Key

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He sits, a large man with a walrus mustache, pondering a gold telegraph key.

Tablecloth Dresses: Song

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I see you’re wearing your tablecloth top again your tablecloth dress to impress me and distress me with all your tablecloth positions for your luncheons on the grass with all your famous friends who found you on your ass Yes we can

Evil Humors

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I blame it all on evil humors. Something's leaking.

High School Bards Face Tough Summer of Two-a-Day Practices

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Joe Don followed the route taken by an increasing number of Texas teenage jocks whose football glory days are prematurely cut short and joined his high school's Cowboy Poet Squad.

Song of the Needle

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The Black Thing spread over the room, eating away his mother's face as well as the doctors and nurses who dashed in a frenzy around him until they too were swallowed in the black singing cloud.

The Sound of Paper

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From the earth it erupts Growing longer, stronger, as the sun rises and sets Days and nights pass, bringing the wind, the rain, the moon, the stars A place of shelter it becomes