Most recent stories

The Girl in the Storm

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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

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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

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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

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

Subway Imitator

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

Windowers

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naturally, the windowless ones are the worst.

Chalk, Fish and Monkey

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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

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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

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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

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“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

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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

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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

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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

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The gun sits quietly in the woman's handbag.

Angels

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Not everybody sees Father. Not Mom, not Dad, not even my little brother, Andre, and he see lots of things. Me, I need to.

The Blue Pear

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The pear is a bruise. Feels like desperation in the light, it looks soft and blue. She wants to touch it and doesn’t want to. How the blood gathers under the blue and the body grows tender. Swells. Slowly.

The Gentleman on the Train

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The gentleman is discreet, but his eyes wander from his paper at intervals as we travel together from London to Manchester. We happen to be on the same train and he happens to be sitting opposite me. I happen to be a size 34C.

Ladybird

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On the other pillow is a ladybird which escaped from a dream. It reminds me of when I was a tiny red polka dot. And then bigger, and other colours. And then… I stare at the ceiling, searching its soul for little things. The ladybird touches my arm, whispers…

Zoo

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It's London Zoo and ten minutes to closing time. The clock walks in and out of cages. I love you baby when you laugh like that at monkeys.Penguin and pelican, wing in wing, approaching. It's some bird act, I know. Two birds from nowhere. One flies, one walks.The zoo…

Egg

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We soft boiled the free range egg, cracked it, and were surprised to find nothing in it.

Confederates

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I knew I spoke out of turn when I asked my father's old friend Charlie Jobe what he thought would come of moving to the veterans' camp, or "Village of the Deranged", as the newspaper has since taken to calling it. That was their description after all the

Dead Crows

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The night my husband became a transvestite, crows started dying. They fell from the sky like black umbrellas, hitting the ground with a thud. A rainstorm of birds. I figured it was a virulent strain of bird flu that drifted into the clouds and killed them

Memory Box

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Soft voices in private, in the street, city noise violence disappears she blinks her eyelids and I can hear the lashes intertwine and pull clear.

Donkey Kong

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Don’t get me wrong. Maria Shriver is hot, but her angled face makes me think a knife thrower is out to get me.

public apology (or, why most people hate monks)

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I want separate twilight a room with no candles, plates, phones or music a glass ceiling to smash when my head's full I want tiny hand-

I used to think the sun was the moon

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I imagined the sun to be the moon and discovered it was not on a road trip in California where I noticed the sun on one side and the moon on the other.

Game Day

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Being awake for the sunrise, that is the good planfor writing poemsand listening to enginesbirdsand bus stop silence.Now, I'm going to smokeout back on my roof porchfrom this atticapartmentin this desert land of big-titted blondesand listen to stadium fansrage…

Just leave it and get out.

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The money stank on the table. Money is dirty she said, one of the dirtiest things. So many people touch it. This pile of brine would not explain its reek, only demanded that we accepted its stench as requisite. It had to have been the cash that stank, prior to its arrival…

The End of Février

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She got the day wrong. It was one of her usual mistakes, getting the day wrong. A Wednes for a Tues. Or a 5th for a 6th. Sometimes it took her until afternoon to realize it. Which probably meant that it didn’t make much of a difference anyway.

Whites in Hot Water

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To his astonishment, he discovered Maggie curled up inside the Maytag dryer, head down, shoulders hunched over.