Recommended stories

Not Waving but Shivering

11161116 views88 comments22 favs

Skullcap of crabs. Will you record it as it rips clean?

The Bombs & Blood of Texas & Boston

15091509 views88 comments22 favs

Running into the fire, the smoke and the chaos; selfless first responders, innocent bystanders, and dedicated runners

Sea Monster Metaphysics

260260 views44 comments33 favs

To the hem of Neptune and the soul of brevityand the dialects of drunken monkeys,sands diminish into sands, wavesdie imperceptibly, brace a hibernating time,one of mermaids always seenby the naivete of sailors. This is sea monster metaphysics.The Atlantic increasingly…

the genes of Edouard Manet

12751275 views33 comments33 favs

was entering into a new phase of its existence, a peculiar paradigm of the wider world where, presaged by science, economic and political ideologies were conspiring to displace the old verities of religion and aesthetics, but where…

running tap

15881588 views55 comments22 favs

Does the stuff at the dollar store really work as well as the stuff at Calvin Klein?

How Jellyfish Make Love

20542054 views22 comments22 favs

It was 1986 when I met you. We both lived on Decatur Avenue in a tank that had enough room for you, me, and all our fake plastic accoutrement. I was 30 years old -- really old for a jellyfish. Some people thought I'd die sooner. But I knew better. I was…

Buttons

17121712 views55 comments33 favs

I opened my switchblade mouth and sliced through the scab of silence.

Cellini's Salt Cellar

53235323 views88 comments22 favs

An old man writes the story of his life into a book.

The Year, In Review

17781778 views33 comments33 favs

And him, now there’s a him. I’d like if he were perfect, but perfect things never are. My daughter says it best, when she contrasts the two of you, “Daddy worked to forget about his problems. When he works, it makes him feel like there is a problem.”

SUPER DAD flies coach

18921892 views33 comments33 favs

“I don’t want to scare you,” the stewardess says, “but there are ten police officers waiting for you outside the plane.” I reach into the diaper bag and grab an Elmo raspberry/pear cereal bar, rip it open, take a bite, sip some apple juice fr

Numb And Number

21412141 views55 comments33 favs

He looked up as he reached the intersection, and crossed as it cleared. His head was down again as he walked toward his car, which was parked beside a schoolyard, where junior high students were involved in an after-school game of touch football. He smi

Gazpacho

17881788 views55 comments33 favs

It's a pretty strange feeling when you think you're about to bite into some ice cream and instead it's gazpacho.

The Bear (April Fool's Day Challenge)

20962096 views66 comments22 favs

Poor Daniel gets the ultimate trick played on him by nature when he encounters a bear for this April Fool's Day Challenge story.

Storm and Shelter

15271527 views66 comments22 favs

Sometimes one person's shelter is another person's storm.

Event Particle

12971297 views55 comments33 favs

She is a manifold of temporal flows.

A Scalar Boson a Day

15031503 views44 comments33 favs

. . . the empiricism of the mechanical had wound tight into her, lessons her few calendars could never impart without aid from sundials, hourglasses, clocks.

Cocoon

11951195 views55 comments33 favs

Small wonders, her worthless,priceless treasures fortify the wallswhile hoarded trinkets protect her like armor against memoriesof a desperate past.

Elk Hunters

11841184 views33 comments33 favs

"Damn! All I've got is a hundred dollar bill."

Homecoming

23122312 views44 comments22 favs

Pion's long fingers fly from black to white, white to black, without missing even a measure. The nocturne starts soft.

Rentals

14571457 views66 comments22 favs

You master their secrets. Mirror adjusters... Air conditioning knobs... Fuel door releases... Changing their satellites to Mojo Nixon. But you never really know them.

The Cold Bank Ravens

12801280 views33 comments22 favs

In punch drunk waiting rooms... On election routes

bucket of keys

12481248 views33 comments33 favs

I imaged him at his mother's house, eating chicken and tabouli with her at her round marble table, leaning back and laughing, then reading my “love you” and excusing himself to cry in the bathroom.

THE RICH RIVER

15371537 views77 comments22 favs

I must have been six years old at that time, but the events of…

Ymir

13131313 views33 comments33 favs

Ymir used to be a big nothing;Now he's everything.His hair is the grass, the trees, the reedsHis scalp is the desertHis skull is the empty vault of spaceHis brain is telecommunicationsHis skin is a reality made of matter and miragesHis forehead is the Ten CommandmentsHis…

End of an Astronomer

10871087 views33 comments22 favs

The Town, Part 1

12841284 views33 comments22 favs

Waiting for the light to turn, his mind wandered, wondering how it was that bridges of this sort collected stories. Old thru truss bridges with grated deckings, or any older bridge for that matter. The stories seemed to have died out since the concrete

Godot Finally Shows!

18321832 views55 comments22 favs

Vladimir and Estragon stood hunched at the corner of Ellis and Taylor in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Bedraggled and spent, they looked dully around them at pretty much nothing. They could have been thirty, or maybe…

Those Brain Motility Blues

14211421 views44 comments33 favs

Philosophy: a muscular exercise of throat, jaw, tongue, and brain.

Miniature Golf

15101510 views44 comments22 favs

Sadness as foreshadowing

Five Stories From a Funeral

991991 views44 comments22 favs

1. Premonition “He had a premonition,” Agnes, the widow, said. “He said he was going to die.” “Ma,” Gregg said, “he always said he was going to die. He was the Fred Sanford of Central Ave.” “But this time it came…