Most recent stories

Man On The Run

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Don't slow down, he said, time grows shorter every minute. So you pretended to stay young or cheated on your marriage or forgot to watch your children growing up, and still never found someone who could understand you.

What I Remember

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“She’s in shock,” I heard my mom say, so I assume Jill must have asked how I was or why I wasn’t crying. I did not want to talk to anyone or have anyone talk about me, so I just watched the trees go by as we drove back home.

They know about fish

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A debacle has been scheduled for 11:45...

Wild Dreams of Reality, 4

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It was days before Parker and I could even get up the nerve to look in each others' direction at the cafe. We kept trying to avoid the other's glance. But after a time things began to soften between us. I could sense it the day the tension began to eas

The Time Broker

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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

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

Samuel Stoltzfus’ Divining Plate

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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

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

Why'd You Come Back?

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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

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

Awakening

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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

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...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

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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

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

The Despotic Elephant

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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“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

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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

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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)

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

Armitage Shanks Checks Into The Hyatt

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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

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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

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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

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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.