Most recent stories

The Pearl

747747 views11 comment00 favs

“An attractive woman is at a ritzy brunch. She’s drinking a really outstanding Bloody Mary and decides to try a raw oyster on the half shell.

Basics

17841784 views1717 comments1111 favs

When the whistle drops, do not take any guff.

Dublin

15751575 views1717 comments33 favs

My swinging purse sent saucers tinkling to the tile and the copper-headed waitress flew over, swooping on the shatter, clutching clean forks like a handful of flowers.

House

12441244 views77 comments33 favs

I sat in the dark, mashing damp sand like clumps of brown sugar into my palm while the heavy Gulf air blew my hair into ropes. Sometimes I worried that I was unable to need people, but, as much as the thought upset me, I couldn't make myself truly want t

Taking a Job

15301530 views33 comments22 favs

Teaching never occurred to me in college. I took workshops and wrote often. Friends and classmates, meanwhile, switched from studio majors to Art Education, or from English to Certification. Not me. Teaching high-schoolers would be all wrong. Briefly, I…

Exhibit

10361036 views44 comments22 favs

Late in the morning, standing in line, clutching a bag of Meow Mix, I listen to the woman waiting behind me. She's having a cell phone conversation about the Treasures of Ancient Egypt exhibit. It‘s in New Orleans, she says, and the kids liked the mummy. I slide…

I Have a Hard Time Having a Good Time

14281428 views88 comments33 favs

At the third or fourth discotheque I drink so much I accidentally find myself happy.

Some Kind of Change

15991599 views2626 comments66 favs

She was flying back in the morning, returning to a long-distance boyfriend I believed she had cheated on while she was here but didn’t ask about because I thought it would have been too obvious and somehow ungentlemanly.

Flowing, Flown

11271127 views33 comments11 fav

Flowing, Flown In the field stands a jealous man with fifteen eyes stored inside the cuffs of well-worn khaki pants. His pockets pull with clinking dimes…

In and Out

10461046 views22 comments00 favs

Emma held her arm up to John’s eyes. He looked, nodded. “My burns are on the inside,” he told her. “I’ll never show you.”

ROLLING LIKE THUNDER

13481348 views88 comments22 favs

The ocean smelled like decomposed plant life and clinically despicable vagina, but I still spoke of its power and my fear of it in moonlit clichés and she still listened.

The Night of the Day the Khoi-Khoi Meet Bartolomeu Dias and Crew

23752375 views44 comments11 fav

It keeps coming back to the end of the world. Dogs sitting on roofs, birds flying about indoors, clattering locusts.

The Crickets Try to Organize Themselves Into Some Raucous Pentameter.

15731573 views77 comments55 favs

A secret search rolled from Odette's eyes. A gulch split her down the middle and she had the world believing this was the way she liked it. Odette was a woman who spent entire days bending backward within herself, never letting on that she was…

Best

19681968 views1010 comments44 favs

Two thousand and two was the worst year for love in the history of sports. People carried their sadness around in wheelbarrows.

Ghost

15261526 views88 comments22 favs

It would wander the hallways after the 3:45 bell, after the last class, after the students had all disappeared with the homework they'd never finish, the papers they'd forget to write, after Nate the janitor pushed his broom through the endless doorways,

Where I've Been the Last 10 or More Years

17521752 views77 comments22 favs

It's been so long since I've been in touch with any of you—if I ever was in touch with you—because my family and I took up residence in the local Wal•Mart.

Decrucifixion

13611361 views11 comment00 favs

"Isn't it time to remove the nails, and put Jesus to rest once and for all," Mary asks.

Notes from Matrimony, # 9

13271327 views44 comments44 favs

I arrived Sunday evening to a darkened house. Everything unplugged. Even the fuses from the breaker. Meticulous, this undoing. Silence has a sound. Cold has a voice, a pearly cigarette whisper. It says, “Metaphor?”

Thanks for Looking After Sinamyn

13551355 views1313 comments44 favs

Here are a few tips/instructions to help you out (though I'm sure you'll do just fine by yourself!):Getting to the Apt.:If you're coming from Riverside, you'll want to turn onto Magnolia. So, if you're coming from north to south on Riverside, that means you'll want to turn…

Temporary Housing

13721372 views00 comments00 favs

My cats are my world and more. They are rotund, little indoor-girl cats, though, who were taken from their mother too early to learn things like hunting and properly washing their privates, and so they think the mouse is just another interesting thing to

Honduras

18571857 views55 comments22 favs

In Honduras they say a prayer that sounds like screaming at the top of your lungs...

Eldon vs. Grizz Sharks

14191419 views22 comments11 fav

One sunny day after Christmas Eldon went ice fishing with Grandma and Grandpa at Haymarsh. He was not fishing for Ice Fish but for regular fish who swam under the ice. Craig was there too. Craig was wearing more pairs of socks than anyone. He was wearing 3…

A Winter Gift

10371037 views22 comments00 favs

As we follow the trail and things snap beneath our feet, I tell myself that the snapped things take pleasure, find purpose even, in the sounds they make with my soles.

Diary of an Angry Psychologist: Wednesday’s Appointments

23102310 views1010 comments11 fav

--New Patient: Pearl, 48, 15:00 PM Pearl is not her real name. Her real name is Stella. Pearl used a fake name to get past the intake screeners. Pearl is my ex-wife.

My Love Affair With The Unknown Comic

21402140 views88 comments44 favs

At least, I think it was him. It sure looked like him.

A Boy

20672067 views2525 comments1010 favs

You said it was easier when you were ten and could play Risk with a girl and it was a game, not foreplay.

The Window (Part II)

10871087 views00 comments00 favs

When we saw the window, we were impressed. It was so clean and transparent that it reminded us of a new pair of glasses, everything so crisp and clear through it. It looked on to nothing. Actually it looked on to the refridgerators and a few stoves, though most of the…

Metal Heads: A Novel

18841884 views11 comment11 fav

The orange sky melts away. Shadows fall and twist in the wind. I’m on patrol with three of my buds, there to retrieve the body of a fallen comrade, Bill’s body, we’re told. They got him, used him, then dumped his body in a ditch and said, “He

A Paper that Changes Things

12281228 views88 comments11 fav

The dowdy woman in fart nailed the vim.

The Sad Giraffe Demographic

17501750 views99 comments11 fav

...there’s one thing we’ve found, an untapped demographic.