Most recent stories

Record of a Living Being

17141714 views11 comment11 fav

Kurosawa was silent as we traipsed through the destruction, carefully side-stepping piles of sodden pages and heaps of swollen, broken-backed texts. Workers in coveralls used wide brooms to push water toward a floor-drain at the back of the store.

Water

15471547 views66 comments22 favs

The water rolls gently this evening, barely touching my toes before retreating. The tide has been going out for over an hour and already there are several victims – crustaceans, spider crabs, minnows.

The Book You'll Never Read

13051305 views55 comments11 fav

THE BOOK YOU'LL NEVER READ CONTENTS This Is Not A Test In The Event Of A Nuclear Attack, This Message Will Be Followed By A Message From Your Local Civilian Defense Authority Fuck, The Radio Doesn't Work Trouble Shooting Radios The Top 40…

Ways in Which Looks Deceive

18631863 views1111 comments44 favs

Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.

#5

13241324 views55 comments22 favs

and the other guy goes

The Words Fall Into Ash

19321932 views1313 comments33 favs

The two were huddled in a corner of an alley, joined by some others that I’m sure wandered into the darkness when they realized they were far from alone. That alley was the one off Market Street. I used to steal candy from the corner shop when I was nin

Conjecture

12371237 views22 comments00 favs

Sunday, May 9, 1773 Sir — The world must at present be perpetual on the primitive state of human nature Conjecture The jealousy and envy boils over a dead weight strangled serpents in the Temple

Gone Shopping

11951195 views00 comments00 favs

She found Matthew toward the back, cradling an urn with a tasteful black and gold pattern. When he saw her approaching, he held it up for inspection. “You think I’d look good in this?” he asked.

What Our Fathers Knew

25312531 views1313 comments88 favs

The clickity-click of poker chips spills out to the six of us waiting for a table. We're old college buddies, drunk since one this afternoon, sporting the ball caps our wives never let us wear. We brag. About our poker wins, how easy it is to read each other, how we can…

Four, in the Morning

12851285 views00 comments22 favs

We’d told her that Kasey waitressed. We talked about it a lot, trying to figure something out. I wanted to be honest with her. Kasey said she was too young to understand. I said that was why honesty wouldn’t hurt anything. Kasey said what about later.

Old Man's Winter

14841484 views11 comment00 favs

The old man’s face is worn and tired, his nose and cheeks tinted red over his pale black skin from the frosty January winds blustering through town. He looks more than half frozen, which I don’t find surprising.

Tenderoni

31913191 views5353 comments2323 favs

"Oh, damn,” I say. “A kitty.”

Dinner in Mexico

15041504 views66 comments33 favs

If he had not just decapitated a chicken, he was a man I could have loved.

Early Decision

16281628 views1010 comments33 favs

Melinda said forget the kegger last night, what we’re about to do will help you figure out whether you want to apply here.

The Lies You Tell Yourself

950950 views22 comments00 favs

I am skinniest in the morning. My belly forgets the previous day’s sins, and I wake up looking taut like a model. Then it starts.

The Polymath

14811481 views99 comments55 favs

Now that I am dead, my god will fight your god...

The Girl in the Storm

62976297 views1818 comments88 favs

There once was a girl who was lost in a storm. She wandered this way and that, this way and that, trying to find a way home. But the sky was too dark, and the rain too fierce; all the girl did was go in circles. Then, suddenly, there were arms around her

Big Slide

32593259 views77 comments22 favs

The screams and howls of other people's children set him on edge. But he struggled to stay cheerful. They had season passes, so the visits there cost nothing and it had consequently become a weekly tradition to go. The children had not, as far as he could

All Fur and Bones

17211721 views00 comments11 fav

I wonder how much time she has left. I think she’s seventeen. I don’t know for sure because she was already grown when I got her from the pound, just before Christmas, years ago this was --back when I had hair and hope.

In Portland, Where It Rains

17591759 views88 comments11 fav

So many opportunities for mud can be found in these hills,

Subway Imitator

20122012 views66 comments11 fav

The imitator’s segue to his sad life story was, “But what isn’t funny…”

Windowers

31523152 views3030 comments88 favs

naturally, the windowless ones are the worst.

Chalk, Fish and Monkey

14731473 views22 comments11 fav

She picked the fish out of the box leaving a pool of mucus and blood slowly congealing on the shelf and dripped it toward the kitchen table. Outside the wind lashed the tops of the poplar trees together and rain sprayed from the barn roof opposite.

Lalla, Chuckachucka

952952 views22 comments11 fav

He cut the heads off, and in doing this, their eyes came off. He placed the four discs on the windowsill next to the petrified avocado pit and Chia Pet clay shell. The eyes glittered like globs of jam.

Exit Strategy

970970 views00 comments00 favs

I was still on track to be your average American with a six inch dick and a pair of sneakers.

Big Al Dissects Literary Fiction since No One Else in the Bar could pronounce Aristotle

15231523 views11 comment00 favs

“Well” I say. “What do you think about the dilemma of a guy who’s tortured by a history of incest and bondage?” “Depends” Says Al. “On who was cested and who was bonded.

Tortoise

17971797 views00 comments00 favs

Seven black and orange Tortoise-shell kittens nursed in a crate the day Sue returned from rehab, to her parent's Atlanta home.

French Vanilla Death - Seconda Parte

22472247 views00 comments00 favs

The lead man, who did not seem to be the most important or distinguished, just the one walking in line before all of the others, knocked twice on the door and opened it quickly. He stepped gingerly through the doorway and the others filed gloomily in afte

French Vanilla Death - Prima Parte

26412641 views00 comments00 favs

At the time, we only knew that our guest had been lying on the carpet long enough for the coffee spilled on him to have coagulated and almost completely dried, and for the French Vanilla to achieve the consistency of glue. Or, at least, a thicker glue.

Agencypiece

30373037 views55 comments11 fav

The gun sits quietly in the woman's handbag.