Recommended stories

Conference of the Birds

799799 views33 comments11 fav

If in the course of a discussion of improvements someone says: “I have no idea” in a particular way at a particular moment, “I have no idea” will migrate and soon lots of people will find themselves saying “I have no idea” again and again without knowing

Have to Find a Way

10431043 views22 comments11 fav

I have to find a way To evolve To become To grow into something else To become something else I have to find a way To let go Loosen my firm grasp Watch it all fall away Let myself fall away Drop this act This weight This mess of a life This mess I…

Graduation

14831483 views33 comments22 favs

and i'm almost out of cigarettes, and fireworks and sorority girls scream from down the street.

The Serendipitous Nature of Being

960960 views22 comments11 fav

To do the proper set up for the story, it was taking me some time, but each bit was important to the outcome, and while he likened me to Higgens on the old Magnum P.I. series, I just laughed at his slowly closing eyes and folded arm, caught in a half cur

Red and Blue Lines of the German Painter, Otto Dix

11011101 views22 comments22 favs

They can’t help Seeing a child even there In the crude brushstrokes. They say it is me.

5” X 6” In A Sturdy Frame

21102110 views11 comment11 fav

The first morning we met—I remember the rain, soft the way I like it—was a series she later attributed as a fourteen-frame sunrise.

To the Bear in a Neighbor’s Tree

21732173 views33 comments11 fav

In the night, a several-hundred-pound Black Bear scaled our neighbor’s back fence, bounded down the gravel footpath between our houses and, confused by the people and lights, followed his instincts up a large pine tree across the street...

The serious writer and her bush

14731473 views88 comments00 favs

The serious writer looks back on a long and distinguished career as an herbologist.

Torn

17341734 views11 comment22 favs

My parents were married for forty five years. “A lifetime,” is how the rabbi at my mother's funeral describes it. The man says it with such a tone of familiarity, of genuine sadness, that one might think he has known and adored my parents all their lives. But…

To Make Way for the Future

15151515 views55 comments11 fav

It was the shock of black hair twisted into a long thick braid that got our attention and made us want to find meaning here. Albert thought he recognized the hair in the grave.

Quarters, Pasos, Arabians

16311631 views22 comments22 favs

Sometime that night I heard one; you get so you know when they’re coming in low down the valley or set up high over the coastals and I was sure about it.

Fiction with Teratoma Preserves

20432043 views77 comments11 fav

In Nebraska, we found a dead man lying between the furrows of a field. He’d been there awhile in the heat and the sun, the only shade provided by a cloud of flies. The dead man lay on the ground, decaying, disappearing into the dirt:

The Inconsequential Leaping of Rabbits

10701070 views33 comments22 favs

If someone were to place a rabbit in her lap right now, there would be nothing she could do to hold onto it. It would leap. Drop. Hie its powerful body elsewhere. At the end of her life she would have nothing to show but a collection of rabbit-shaped empt

Why They Cried: Deano

16151615 views33 comments11 fav

When it came time to sell the agency—when the papers came for him to sign—it was a very bad deal. But he did not cry. This was business. He had gambled and he had lost. He signed the papers without a hint of regret and even pried open a case of champa

Mirror Mirror

24482448 views11 comment22 favs

At night I go into the forest to look for her, to strangle her snow white neck with her own dark hair. She is seven and soon to be married. I am brier hearted. I am old.

Dump like no other.

13171317 views11 comment22 favs

Their dump was like no other in the country. It was bigger than the rest. And, unlike their innumerable competitors, this dump—which sat packed with trash on the surf of an ocean—was organized with care.The Elks took pride in their dump. Three…

There They Are! Here They Come!

12111211 views11 comment22 favs

“Help us, help us,” the children are saying. “They’ll come back. Help us. They bite.”

Soliloquies of the Interior Zombies

979979 views44 comments22 favs

My inner shape must be a ruin of organs,/ dead or dying. But do come close enough/ for me to hear. I need to know your story.

Four Sieges

12941294 views55 comments11 fav

Nicole knows that Deirdre is winding up for the weekly pitch, practicing the line in her mind.

Lost

13831383 views55 comments11 fav

I can't find my way back to the library. I've heard of this happening, that if you leave even for just one day and for a very good reason, as good a reason as mine, you may not find your way back. Now why should this be so? I do not understand this library. It houses…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 14

10131013 views22 comments22 favs

“Gentlemen, how could I go about attracting the KGB?” Now that got the attention of Boris and Vladimir. Their eyes bulged right out of their heads. They both started huffing and puffing. “What are you, crazyman or something?” said Boris. Vla

Y.

20302030 views33 comments22 favs

We are the generation who tattoo our stories on our bodies, who pierce what appears impenetrable; we fly our scars like pennants.

2011

11781178 views33 comments11 fav

This year, 2011, you bring about my thirtieth year. I'm apprehensive about this, but mainly because my father made me watch "Logan's Run" as a kid...

A Political Man

10081008 views22 comments22 favs

There's a potent multimedia declaration Flying eagles starred and striped Mocking cartoon independence Where every promise shines Not every veteran's hero Chequered drug misuse Glorious public relations Concealed a…

My Latest Failure

13661366 views22 comments22 favs

Jason, the obnoxious host, thrusts his microphone against my nose.

Scoop

16301630 views55 comments11 fav

“What about the other groups coming here?” I ask. “Were they asked what they wanted in these houses?” She turns and looks at me, like I've suddenly come onto her radar.

Snow

13451345 views77 comments11 fav

She talks about window treatments, how the place is maybe too much for one. Wants me to know she’s not much of a cook, and wants me to smell what’s in her oven and compliment her cooking anyway.

Beautiful Plague

16881688 views77 comments11 fav

Jacob Obrecht, you are beautiful. Everything inside your head and everything you’ve ever made is beautiful and singing.

What the Other is Thinking

11831183 views55 comments11 fav

Six months passed and the lovers decided speaking was no longer a necessary component in their relationship. They did this over breakfast, delicately spooning pink triangles of grapefruit into their mouths. Not a word spoken.

The Window

13621362 views44 comments11 fav

Just beyond the tree, beyond the fence, close to the grey clouds that hung almost to the earth, a boy sat on another tree's stump. Beneath his crossed legs that he moved up and down rhythmically, under his bright red, Superman shorts, inscribed in the stump, a symbol which…