Recommended stories

The Water Tower

529529 views00 comments00 favs

Every other year or so, a high school senior would go and climb the thing, and paint something vapid, jejune, as the spinster English teacher would say.

Payton, Pelt & Hargrove: 3 (Sorta) Young Lions of the Jazz Trumpet

914914 views00 comments00 favs

It’s the middle-aged jazz musician who tends to get lost in the shuffle; no longer news, and not ready for the marble statue-treatment.

On A Highway Somewhere

11461146 views00 comments00 favs

When I think about love, I actually think about life. And when I think about that, I wonder if we’re really who we used to be.

Star Dance

715715 views00 comments00 favs

It comes to him in the night. When he's lying there, staring at the ceiling. The shadows dance on the white paint, forming into monsters that get you when you sleep. The moon hangs low in the sky, dancing with the stars in a ballet that lost all movement

Ojibwe

10401040 views00 comments00 favs

"Did I have a choice? Could I just open my eyes, did I have to ‘see’ as he was telling me now I could? I decided to go for it. What did I have to lose? This was all a dream, too much driving to get here, too much reunion, too much food, too much beer. Or

Falling

814814 views00 comments00 favs

She lets the book drop through her fingers to the floor and stares straight ahead watching the red lights streak by in the darkness. The train rocks her away from the seat and back; she rolls her spine along the plastic to absorb the motion, taking it away from…

Le Petit Clown - August 9, 2002

809809 views00 comments00 favs

Bald on top and wavy curls projecting from both sides. He looked at me and his eyes rolled round and round in opposite directions. He asked, "What did you think of the play, clown hater?"

Archaeological Treasures Yet to Come

12601260 views00 comments00 favs

The museum’s catalog description changed much less than the painting over those years. He wasn’t curator-in-chief of catalog descriptions, however, that task went to a curator arriving by another door.

Celes' Most Important Question

685685 views00 comments00 favs

This was a word Celes had not ever heard before. "Ethics?" "Ethics is… Well, let me see how to put this." He put down his fork for a moment and thought before continuing. "Ethics is the study of the form of what is right and what is wrong."

Follow My Lead

871871 views00 comments00 favs

I ran down the list of reasons she might be calling. She could be bankrupt, having a mid-life crisis, or maybe had a terminal illness. Either way I was clueless, as I had absolutely no emotional bond with the woman I came out of.

Arcana Magi - c.26: Science versus Magic

12971297 views00 comments00 favs

Brie stood before the dwarf that activated the de-paralyzer. She noticed her blueprints spread across the table beside the computer the dwarf stood in front of it.

Batteries For Smoke Detectors

11591159 views00 comments00 favs

Crack open the roof-- raise the battery on a platform with chains up into the lightning

My Hero

822822 views00 comments00 favs

Anyway, without Mr. Little, my life would have been much more difficult after my father was arrested. It was difficult enough as it was. Mr. Little was my personal hero at a time in my life when I had very few people that I could look up to. The funny

Five Million Yen: Chapter 34

857857 views00 comments00 favs

Al-Sidran pulled out a switchblade knife from his pocket and proceeded to carefully cut open the box. Ben could tell it was razor sharp by the way it cut through the packing tape and cardboard.

Sunset

966966 views00 comments00 favs

Behind the bellicose façade lay a soft, compassionate soul. He sat within a swirl of rosy twilight hues, buoyed by the gently creeping tide. A dark wall approached and he mechanically spun and began stroking into the glassy canvas of light and ocean that lay between him…

True Story, Every Word

708708 views00 comments00 favs

So, I see this is story one-upmanship now. You think you’ve got stories! Here’s one for the books. Here goes! In 1968 I had a day job as a payroll clerk at the Kroger Company, but, to maintain my glamorous lifestyle and my impressive efficiency ap

The Persistence of Loss

845845 views00 comments00 favs

"I packed up the rest of his things today. Irony is the fact I'm still picking up after him, despite the fact he's been gone for two weeks."

Things You Can Do, Some Can't Be Done

14351435 views00 comments00 favs

The deep breathing has helped. My heart rate is back down to a normal resting rate somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 beats per minute, about one solid thump every second like clockwork, a precision I can truly appreciate.

Becky

798798 views00 comments00 favs

But it was one of those odd moments in America when you get to see the opposite sex with most of their clothes off, other than at a swimming pool in the summertime. One thing led to another and she wheedled out of me the fact that I drove a very fast ’

Five Million Yen: Chapter 13

845845 views00 comments00 favs

-That’s more like it. He released Ben and holstered his gun under his leather jacket.

Frederick and Sarah

837837 views00 comments00 favs

They'd driven the car there but had lost the keys so that it simply sat out in the yard, the yard of the house they couldn't leave because they'd lost the keys to the house as well as to the car, so they were kind of stuck. Their neighbors…

Pharmaceutical Funnies

620620 views00 comments00 favs

Dracula enters the pharmacy looking sad but hopeful. The pharmacist pulls a sonnet out of his thumb and hands it to him. This is a novel by Bugs Bunny. Each page is a…

Teller of Tales

10841084 views00 comments00 favs

He came to us with wandering tales of wild things Savage, biting, slashing, tearing A violent voice boomed becoming of beasts

Need food for family

10311031 views00 comments00 favs

The young man pulls out his wallet, grabs a couple of bills and stops short of handing them to the bedraggled man. “So how do I know you’re not going to go out and buy some crack with this money?”

The Fat Geisha Sings The Ballad of the Bamboo Shoot

920920 views00 comments00 favs

Come gather round and listen to me You senior VPs from AIG As full of yourselves As you are of wealth So engorged are you with raging greed The warnings you neither see nor heed. Come gather round and listen to me Sing of the Minister of the Third Degree. …

Sulfur and Wishes

819819 views00 comments00 favs

Some mornings he would wake up with his hand in the curve of her side. But her scent would awaken him further to his reality. This was not his wife. No, the women he vowed to protect was asleep in the arms of another.Lost to adultery, his dreams fell to…

Shakespeare's dead, and so is Homer

669669 views00 comments00 favs

I remember one time I was downtown when this little old lady came up to me at a café, looked in my face, and said, “You know what?” I was surprised she was even speaking to me, a young blonde girl sitting alone at a restaurant, with the shadows play

Masdy's Silver

16451645 views00 comments00 favs

Cheater was a Goblin. He carried a long knife, not quite a sword, but more than your average pocket blade.

Sometimes It Rained

687687 views00 comments00 favs

He always felt safe with a gun in his hands. Back home anyway. Russ was from a rural part of South Carolina. A place where you could brush the humidity away from your face with your hand and drink down sweet tea in glasses so big, it cooled your toes. He was not…

I know ...

960960 views00 comments00 favs

But here it was, Friday afternoon with Deborah checking MySpace for interesting bulletins or messages before she made some weekend plans, finding a blog from Fred posted that same morning with two simple sentences. "I know. I've known for a long time.