Most recent stories

Nurse Cratchett

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She would occasionally grant a surgical intern sexual congress.

We Used To Be Sharks

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I was sitting on the therapist’s couch in someone else’s boxer shorts.

The Thrill of Sky Diving

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It's not that you want to be silkworm all your life. That's what I'm telling my on-again-off-again girlfriend aboard the plane. Her name is Phoebe as in that song about a girl who lived in her own world within the shell of another. Phoebe, I'm saying, to bridge distances…

Hunting the Thylacine

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“Ah, there’s the Tasmanian tiger,” the visitor says in an American accent, maybe midwestern. “It’s called a ‘thyracine,’ right?” “Thylacine, yes.” “Un huh. Thylacine. Extinct now, isn’t it?” “Oh! Let’s hope not

First Lives

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There are some, I am told, who never see the dead, though I am as yet unable to believe it.

Credenza

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Now the house is empty of romance except a potted flowering plant from my mother for Valentine's Day. No man has set foot in my museum since I moved here. One man has set foot. The owner's brother to see about the gasket under the toilet. The Comcast installers, twice. The…

Test Results

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Six weeks, four thousand dollars, and twelve hundred miles later, I figured I was done with the cleansing process.

A Message from Upstate VII

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My wife’s voice behind me says, “Where did you get that godawful tee shirt?”

Sectioned

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“Sorry, I farted,” Ted says after the nurse leaves. He squeezes my hand like he’s telling me grave news.

Another Story About Me And Some Guy

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We met because I hate the actor Bruce Willis.

Hangover

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“You wouldn't believe it.” Peter leaned in to whisper. “Don’t let the Kodak moment with the wife and kids fool you. That guy is totally gay.”

Sisters

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She'd no doubt catch the guy's eye in the act, flash her smile and laugh in his face as an insult or invitation, depending on how she wanted things to go.

other fish

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and so you waits for years, and he decides that all he needs to learn, he can learn from this woman, the contents of her ether being syrupy and more lush in his mouth than all the words of bound philosophy.

The Eighth Wonder of the World

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She says, “He's like, the eighth wonder of the world.” She says this without irony, and this makes you feel embarrassed for her. The laughter in this small, smoky space is getting louder. You chew your chapped lips and put your…

Reversal

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For reasons he couldn't fathom, his motorcycle only moved in reverse. He engaged the engine and lurched backward hard. He called a friend, a gear-head with perpetually dirty nails, asked him to look it over.

Talking Down the Flames

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She'd always been an odd girl, nearly raising herself. As she got breasts and hips the boys complained that she was easy to get in the backseat, but afterward the car wouldn't run, not ever, like the engine died the moment they used her willingness up. So

Turning Thirty

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Of all the authors in the library, it was a wife from Maryland who called out from her marriage dormer I was not to read her.

Let Us Pretend

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"Perhaps a divorce?" she continues, thinking of his thin, long hands and how they almost, not quite, but almost, made their usual pattern on her body, remembering having queried many men on what their most erotic sexual encounter was and found that the an

PIGEONS

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Ellen decided to soft-pedal the one month to live thing. Really, there was barely time for the patient to read Ellen's brochure.

Trees Knees

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A young man pushes a stroller filled with a sleepy child. A young woman strides alongside them, her gait leisurely. They are the first to visit the park today. The trees loom, vigilant.

LYES

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Chusma de la Calle had the most beautiful scarves. Gentle, warm sheaths of silk she kept in a special drawer lined with tissue and rosehip sachets tucked in the corners. She had scarves of every color, but most were shades of her favorite, blue. …

Turtles Don't Have Hair

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“You’ll have to do better than that,” Skip says. My husband laughs. He has a high girlish chuckle when he’s truly delighted. He can sing really high like a girl, too. “All right,” I say. I leave my headband

Two Cinquains

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SPOT ON OUR LUNG We sense A stillborn dawn. A furtive, lurking gray, A sleight of dusk, eclipse, that follows Us. TITANIC'S LANTERNS Upon My rain-glazed panes Wet lights from neighbors glow Like lantern beams from shipwrecks…

Coat and Shoes

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Walking in to work from an unfamiliar direction, I saw her, on a street I had never been down before. I was coming from his place, for the first time, after the first time. The first time, but not the first date. That's not me. I'm not one to... not one who... He worked…

Solzhenitsyn Juke-Box

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My handwriting, slow in coming over many years, is good for lists, but I don't want to read sentences or write in it. Amber is on a list I wrote of things I want to remember of Russia: Rasputin's death and Peter the Great (6'7”). One of my lists I read as a poem in…

Rescue 1973

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I remember it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella and I was standing there on the corner, waiting for Rudy's school bus, thinking, Why don't I have an umbrella?

Read Me

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I won’t be eating much anyway if someone doesn’t start reading me. I’ve got to get a hook so people will be drawn to my work. I’ve got a few concepts I’d like to share with you. See what you think.

Adultery and Africa

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“What would you think if I committed adultery?” She pauses very briefly before replying. “What, you got time on your hands?”

Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!

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Morpheus dreams… […fairground atmosphere burlesque hand-operated steam organs calliopes cut and spliced reversed harmonium kaleidoscopic grotesque waltzing carousel…] PABLO FANQUE'S CIRCUS ROYAL Grandest Night of the Season! and positively the LAST NIGHT BUT THREE! being…

Snuggie your Life Away

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Who is the moron that invented the Snuggie?