Most recent stories

The Time Broker

34743474 views1818 comments1111 favs

When I finally met the time broker, he sat at an antiquated mahogany desk with no computer. He looked up and waited for me to speak. "Time for sale," his ad had advertised, and I was ready to pay

Test Day

16591659 views66 comments33 favs

“I need an ambulance, we found a baby in a ditch.”

Samuel Stoltzfus’ Divining Plate

18211821 views55 comments22 favs

It’s true that there are many accounts of fascinating Amish dinnerware, but none is more interesting than Samuel Stoltzfus’ Divining Plate, forged in 1881.

The Things I've Lost

11111111 views33 comments00 favs

I might have avoided all of this trouble if. . .

Why'd You Come Back?

16191619 views00 comments00 favs

But there, up the street, just coming into the corner of the window, someone was in the middle of the road. Walking literally down the middle, dragging one leg like it was heavy or broken, carving a fat line next to the skinny one the good one made.

Scrawls From My Blue Period

16071607 views44 comments33 favs

The following was written under disagreeable circumstances, in that I was present for them.

Awakening

13341334 views11 comment11 fav

What? No, no, where did my world go? I was in the middle of… something. What's going on? What's stroking my face?

Whole Day Off

10001000 views00 comments00 favs

...an aggregation of physical nature with the abstraction of 'applicabilty,' more than just a word, but a magickal spell that conjures technology out of ecology.

Tincture Shunt Lunch Box

10241024 views33 comments00 favs

Most people don't understand what it's like being a pop idol. I am not most people. I am Tincture Shunt, and here I present you with my trajectory to stardom, in case you want to copy it for your own personal use. Unfortunately (for…

Scratch

15221522 views55 comments11 fav

'That November I washed my hair with rabbit's blood -"

The Despotic Elephant

883883 views22 comments11 fav

An elephant with fascist tendencies,And various exotic dependancies,Kept his eye on,That there King Lion,Frustrated by his monarchic propensities.He made plans to over-throw,Thinking the Lion's popularity low,But he was discovered,When his habits were uncovered,Which was…

The Philosophers' Problems

16281628 views66 comments44 favs

The day the thinking factory imploded everyone for miles knew there was a problem. The sound of the walls crumbling in upon themselves was heard for miles, or perhaps it wasn't.

A New Tattoo

24452445 views6060 comments2424 favs

She’s waving, Hey, I’m home! Like nothing’s happened. Like weeks haven’t passed since she left.

A mostly true story about a swine flu shot, with references to 3 ABC television shows and 1 Will Smith movie

12521252 views11 comment00 favs

Yellow tape marks a walkway that was previously unknown. Caution, caution. Lounge turned waiting room for a ballroom turned infirmary. An entrance, an exit, caution, caution. The line is of amusement park ride length. But no roller coaster at the end, only an antidote…

Hello, My Name Is James, And I Am An Asshole

18531853 views33 comments00 favs

By my calculations, all hell is uncoiling. At the moment, this fact is not really obvious to anyone, but I'm confident that will change soon enough.

Swan Song

19571957 views11 comment11 fav

He ignored his scalded scrotum and listened intently. The music was beautiful beyond all physical pleasure or pain. The end of the piece gave him a deeper understanding of the expression 'la petite mort'. While he was still recovering, the next track b

Trophy

14561456 views22 comments11 fav

I remember ...all the teenagers offered no-longer favored CDs, last year's cell phones, third-place trophies, team jerseys, played-out videogame cartridges, and candy-colored miniature stuffed animals...

Van Gogh's Peach Tree

19891989 views77 comments22 favs

There is a boy. The boy is standing in front of a munificent peach tree in all the splendor and atrophy of his afternoon existing. Shadows? Yes. There are midday shadows, hiding and seeking, long and greyish to offset the bright reds and violets and orang

Roomies

15361536 views22 comments00 favs

“I am NOT a hooker.” “What exactly are you, then?” Marlene raised her slim eyebrows. Her almond shaped eyes and high-cut bangs gave her the appearance of a 1950s Barbie doll. “Well…” I stirred my coffee and looked down. I wasn't sure wh

Confessions of a Non-Believer

18061806 views11 comment11 fav

Closing my eyes, I try to breathe it all in, absorb the divine presence that is supposed to be here. Faith by osmosis. I guess it doesn’t work that way. God has to be here. Why else would these people be here? Why else would the congregation return w

XAM, PARAGRAPH, May 22, 1998, Houston, Texas

12921292 views44 comments33 favs

I wrote this paragraph (the first in a series of 14 paragraphs) shortly after Frank Sinatra had died and during my last visit to my boyfriend, M. He had not seen me write something in years.

Biography / Memoir (outline)

22152215 views44 comments11 fav

Larry's next book, A Fly in My Ointment, is due out this summer

Armitage Shanks Checks Into The Hyatt

17491749 views1010 comments33 favs

I scowl at her through an opioid haze. "Armitage Shanks is my real name." The clerk snickers. "You mum must have really wanted you to be pissed on from cradle to grave, eh?"

Life, in a slowly roasted nutshell

12191219 views33 comments00 favs

You wake up. Slowly but surely. Okay, you're in the bookshop. Yes, apparently this is where you slept, on the floor, with absolutely no sense of irony, in the romantic fiction section...

Dear England, Please Send Me A Redheaded Boy

15411541 views44 comments11 fav

Dear England, Please send me a redheaded boy, fire-red, please. We have one girl aflame but the others are stone yellow or dark as the sea. The flames are so easy to spot from afar.

Two Things I Did Not Know

18151815 views1616 comments1111 favs

Their breath stank inside my lungs and tamped down the very minute amount of remorse I had left. It was replaced with contempt. Their fear warmed my cold sensibility as I steeled myself.

Noche de las Ranas

14921492 views33 comments33 favs

He pushed aside the netting and trained the flashlight on the dripping courtyard. Rivers ran off the wide pinanona leaves, surged through fissures in the crumbling wall.

The Beethoven Delusion

11211121 views00 comments00 favs

"It is my argument that a pious fraud has been perpetrated so as to subject mankind to the most humiliating of intellectual enslavements."

Rev. Jasper Pickery and Three Manifestations of the Devil

17881788 views00 comments00 favs

I shall simply give you an account of the Devil's own attempts to thwart my godly work and the three forms in which he came unto me.

Non-Stop Service

14051405 views55 comments00 favs

Please direct your attention to the flight attendants as they demonstrate the safety features of this aircraft.