Recommended stories

Your Call Is Not Very Important To Us

18491849 views55 comments33 favs

Please stay on the line. Or don't stay on the line. We don't care. If we cared about your call, we'd answer it. Which, to be honest, isn't going to happen. We're going to make you hold. And while you hold, we're going to subject you to some really bad…

Food & Treasure

977977 views44 comments44 favs

She wakes up with rosemary.

ANNIES CHASE

16261626 views1010 comments11 fav

Annie remembers clearly the smell of that classroom, the look and taste of it. Thirty little cruel girls, as cruel as only girls can be, sitting in rows of five.

Jagged Dog Story

12631263 views66 comments44 favs

But I had learned from ingesting Roberto’s glitter-eyed fear, it could make you never close enough, and then, never far enough away. And both at the same time.

We Loved We Laughed We Cried

12821282 views55 comments44 favs

My wife broke the news to me. She enjoyed it, too, I'm certain of that. It was a juicy piece of gossip.

Occupy This!

10831083 views55 comments44 favs

The World is Full

450450 views55 comments33 favs

of birds. The world is full of snakes. The world isfull of mushrooms. The world is full of flies. The worldis full of bombs. Not so many trees. Not as many as you might think. The world is full of flowers. Notso many bees. The world is full of rocks. Some…

Schadenfreude

823823 views44 comments44 favs

It's 50/50 that you'll ever pad your knee enough to ever kneel on it. Your back hurts, the Orthapedist labels it arthritis. I think that means we're getting old, so I crawl up the tower of your body as I'm a little younger, more sprightly. You're a

It's autumn

11171117 views66 comments44 favs

Mum and Dad are dead, though I'm the only person who has noticed. They're sipping their tea in the kitchen. Dad keeps coughing up maggots. Mum's face looks like a cracked mirror: I see myself in it, broken, dark. My brothers carry on as normal. They huddle by the TV,…

Double Helix

10861086 views55 comments55 favs

Violence and property

Pals

12911291 views44 comments33 favs

There was a body in the backseat, and they drove through the highways at night to a late night radio show that played 80’s power ballads. He said: “I am really glad you’re here for me.”

High Fives

958958 views44 comments44 favs

They pull up to the curbside and he jumps out to shake the hands in that familiar men’s grasp/shake they do when saluting each other. If that isn’t his daughter it should be, the one sitting in his car, with her door wide open.

The Dark

13091309 views66 comments44 favs

Outlined against the thinly layered darkness of the room, there is a silhouette of a small boy with his feet pulled up to the chin, failing to hold its own against the thousand stares from the deep violating the stillness of his room, their long familiarity with the…

A Hole In The Bucket

13021302 views77 comments11 fav

In 1978, a computer program became privy to my grandmother's most secret thoughts.

Angie, I Think

11351135 views66 comments33 favs

“I guess I'm enchanted,” I'd written on another occasion. “Then why don't you ride out here and save me? Is your horse lame or something? Maybe you could just kill me and make us both happy.”

Cognitive Patterns Somewhere on the Borders of Dark Matter and Dark Energy

642642 views55 comments44 favs

At least the cephalopods on their planet manage to comport themselves with some dignity, as well as demonstrating some actual intellectual acumen.

Children's Time

13551355 views99 comments33 favs

During what's called "Children's time," one day at church Sarah slides her left foot halfway out of her tiny ballet slipper to show Davie her toenails are painted the same soft pink as the inside of her shoe. "Look," she says. "My…

Urban Renewal

17431743 views77 comments33 favs

Bike shops, vintage shops, after hour bar shops

The next hour

12111211 views66 comments44 favs

I allow myself one hour every two weeks. Devoting 335 of my 336 hours to her and the kids is beyond dutiful.

Mona

14461446 views66 comments33 favs

Doc and I talked for several hours. When I told him Mona was pregnant, he turned his head and looked at me. “Who's the father?” he asked. Don't know, I said. Mona didn't know, either.

Alice White Loves Me Because

11971197 views88 comments44 favs

She loves you when your words leave her dirty, semi-transparent, at times, overexposed.

The Lament of Last Century's Escape Artists

894894 views55 comments55 favs

Here's to the new, trying ever so hard but not too hardto have an audience with their own personal God ontheir own super duper terms, wonder kids. Aren't theybeautiful, one of a kind cells, Ladies and Gentlemen? Thepaint job alone is worth the…

Mermaid

13991399 views55 comments55 favs

While the other kids blew bubbles, Maddy clung to my neck. She didn't cry or scream, and she held on loosely, not with the death grip some kids have. For five Wednesday afternoons, Maddy wrapped her pudgy arms over my shoulders and rested her bottom on m

Examination of Faith (And the Big Bang)

11501150 views77 comments44 favs

The marble, it's just there. I can't explain how it got there (or when), all I know is that everything is in that marble. By "everything," I mean every thing. Your breakfast? It's there.

The Burning Gulf

16591659 views88 comments44 favs

None of us ever thought this would happen.

Ripped from the Headlines

959959 views44 comments55 favs

Their relationship had proved volatile. The husband had gone missing. The wife had gone dead.

The Madwoman Who Called on My Wedding Day

11441144 views77 comments44 favs

She’d reached me after running through the directory, alphabetically. Apparently no one in the a’s or b’s or c’s before me would talk to her.

Before Going to a Party You Will Not Be Attending

11371137 views44 comments44 favs

I planned to wear this shirt, / blue, black, and white stripes, / collar and pocket,

Snarket

12241224 views77 comments33 favs

Shit, I guess I'm gonna hafta

Excuse Me, I’m Writing a Poem Here?

11221122 views44 comments44 favs

I’m up to my kneecaps in mockery and swill, and … Excuse Me, I’m Writing a Poem here? Thank you. Sheesh! As I was saying, I’m up to my kneecaps in mockery and swill. And I meet someone who names all his fish after people he doesn’t l