Recommended stories

Cradle

12031203 views11 comment11 fav

Fingers fan like birds’ wings cradling the volume, head hanging low and lips moving silently...

Bye-bye Love

11611161 views11 comment11 fav

Barbie wore only her clear pink heels...

Fragment from a Paper Story

942942 views11 comment11 fav

While Leif was still very young, his emotions were very easy to read, for they appeared on his parchment coloured skin, named in his mother's writing. When he was seventeen, Leif fell in love. She was a pretty maid, one of the college servants who kept his…

my future, maybe yours

878878 views11 comment11 fav

She went for the typewriter first.

Initial doubts

938938 views44 comments00 favs

"Well, you certainly can't be marrying him then .. "

The Widow Teasdale and the Ineffable Warmth of Personal Services

11251125 views11 comment11 fav

Her cash. It smelled like seven-dollar-a-quart gardenia perfume and cave aged cheese—like hope overgrown with mildew.

The Amber Sea

10711071 views22 comments00 favs

There is no life here, only a bleak slab of frozen desert and a sorrowful wind that calls for me to venture out.

The Big Name Buttons

12611261 views11 comment00 favs

Pay attention: our names were Bobby, Didi, Joanie, Mitch and Sam. It was popular in those days to wear big name buttons across your chest, and we’d line up side-by-side as we watched our reflections affix said buttons, anchoring them to our stiff lapels

A Dream Lay In Wait

11951195 views11 comment11 fav

Roanne hungered. Memory had ruled her forever. Shards really, edged like machetes: daddy, whose fingers had eyes in the dark. Momma, ensconced in the shadows. Inside the church, those pairs of short…

Uncle Max

921921 views11 comment11 fav

Before Uncle Max died of a heart attack, he had some words of advice for his only nephew and godson. Upon his death, as instructed, a package in brown paper arrived at Jeffery Glimson’s house on a warm June afternoon.

Friday Night

728728 views33 comments00 favs

Another hard week tired but make the effort

dream lives and cancers

927927 views11 comment00 favs

Around sunset or sometime after, we are on the futon talking about dream lives and cancers. He asks me about my ideal living situation, my ideal career, my ideals in general. I would be a turtle, I say. I would travel and have a home I could always go to, I could always be…

Caitlin's Boots

10061006 views11 comment11 fav

A horn honks, brakes squeal, Chloe’s screaming, pulling at her. She’s lying on the sidewalk. Her shin hurts. Her knee. Chloe kneels beside her. Ring of kids staring. I’m good, she says. I’m good.

Snake and Duck

13991399 views11 comment00 favs

Gloomy night slippery as snake and duck.

Minneapolis

876876 views22 comments00 favs

He will later claim he knows nothing of the girl’s disappearance and that I was the last one seen with her, which will unfortunately be true but not the real story…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 69

875875 views00 comments00 favs

The Gringovitch family was gathered in the lobby of the hotel. The boys sat on the floor using their packs as back supports. Francesca Gringovitch sat on a chair with the remaining luggage in front of her.

we were just dolls

664664 views11 comment11 fav

I had a dream where everybody was dressed in paper. By the end of the day there was a long line of people waiting for new clothing, since what we had on was torn to shreds during the day. Our uniforms hanging from our bodies. We all looked unwrapped. Pa

Lotus-eaters

10921092 views11 comment11 fav

empty wine bottles, and a single abandoned boot

A New Woman

824824 views11 comment11 fav

George didn’t move when Cindy punched him in the nose. He just stood up and walked to the fridge, poured a glass of water and dropped a few ice cubes into the glass. The ice cracked in the glass as he walked back to the couch.

~vantage~

10281028 views11 comment00 favs

i could smell it,  my scalp split on that same damn nail,  i hammered down 20 times, it kept coming loose  that warped floorboard  i never should have tacked in  when i built this house. it always squeaked  at the base of the stairs when i snuck

How to Tell if Your Loved One Belongs in the Booby Hatch

954954 views11 comment11 fav

It is well known around town that Ray's dad went crazy. Today, when asked, everyone will tell you that they knew all along he had a screw loose, told their wife, “That Mick Borkowski's gone bat-shit.” But when it was happening, no one paid it any…

Roanne Smiled

916916 views22 comments00 favs

With some of these guys it was like propping a kid on a training-wheel bike, then steering the kid down the street til he figured out what to do next. Tricks would come into the bar. Roanne had a smile for all but the dregs…

This Old Man

970970 views22 comments00 favs

“Have I told you this one before?” I can’t think of one he hasn’t told me, but saying so won’t stop him. I fire up the FreeCell game, put the phone on speaker, and pour a tumbler of chardonnay.

How To Find Yourself (or a reasonable facsimile)

16451645 views33 comments00 favs

While I had believed that the subject had been exhausted, that the bottomless pit of the individual navel gazer had been done to death, now here arrives How To Find Yourself to show that previous literature had only scratched the surface of the belly butt

Enè Ioh

749749 views00 comments00 favs

Hello, I am Enè Ioh, I have come to to tell you a story that takes place within the place. I start at the place; I go to the place. Here we are, at the place. I am now at the place. I know what I say is of no consequence and I will be killed for it. It means so…

The Right to Privacy

826826 views11 comment00 favs

Every day, I come home from work and hear you two screaming next door, breaking dishes and furniture and sometimes each other while your toddler wails. And if I can't drown it out with the TV and a beer, I stuff in the earbuds and crank up the iPod, too. That way, I…

First Crush

902902 views22 comments00 favs

I wanted those jelly rolls so bad I could scream

the marriage of heaven and hell & their cat

871871 views11 comment00 favs

It is hard

Irrational Obligations

915915 views22 comments00 favs

Irrational Obligations In honor of National Pi Day Any excuse for a circle, a way to pinch the day. They are calling it something like a celebration only with bigger words and too many numbers to count. We'll have to approximate the amount of joy …

Scrambled Eggs and Sympathy Cards

834834 views44 comments00 favs

We spent that entire winter with shaky hands and shrunken egos.