Stories tagged fiction

O Saddam!

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Saddam Hussein was a street-side seller of hot nuts near Faneuil Hall. He worked undercover there during the last Gulf War until just after it, as the US slagged the Iraqis. If only they'd known while they video-bombed his underground bunkers and chased his doubles that…

Odds Are

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We're on a bench in the park under some trees close to the carousel when she tells me I can't count on having a career as a professional gambler.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, Chapter 1

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I lived for a time on Red Square in Berkeley. You may have heard of it. It was run by Von Rotten (that’s just plain Von), who was considered the Vladimir Lenin of the Foul Language Movement of Poetry (FLMP, pronounced “Flimp.”) They even went so far

Wild Dreams of Reality, 2

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All of a sudden I felt a hand on my neck. I jumped up from my chair and turned to face my brother Darrell, with his surprisingly white shock of hair, the result of all the drugs he'd been experimenting with, back in his mid-twenties. He was even taller

The Best Interest of the Child

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He was here and then he was gone. He wasn't at my ex-wife's house either. On Tuesday we were at the circus and that's the last I saw him. I jumped into my '68 Beetle, one step above a clown car, and I stopped by The Big Top. The carnies were there, smoking cigarettes and…

A Death by the Sea: excerpt

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I began to imagine the shadows, so rectilinear, were arcing and flowing. I saw shoulders moving, the sinewy upper shoulders of wolves running in a pack. . .

CHAINSAW (n.)

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CHAINSAW (n.) — 1. A portable, mechanical tool used for sawing. 2. Used primarily for the removal of foliage, branches, and dead limbs (see also AMPUTATION).

Mario's Three Lives

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The plumber has three lives left or else he is already dead.

Girl With Floral Basket.

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“Excuse me,” said the girl. “You aren’t allowed to eat your own food in here.”

Why Your Parents Are Republicans

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Plastic utensils. Your parents love them. They love them so much that they wash them. They wash them so often the plastic grows cloudy and weak. Prongs break off the forks, their limbs amputated and muted. Stabbing food was never…

The Shirley School of Customer Service

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Hi. I'm Shirley. I'm not here to help you. You might think because I wear this ticky-tack name badge that I'm your servant. But I'm not. I'm here at K-mart because my grandson said I need to get out of the house. I wish he'd get out of my house. Here are some survival tips…

Existence is Relative

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You left for the bathroom over twenty minutes ago. I started to think you're not coming back. Because who does that? Who goes into a bathroom in a restaurant and doesn't come back after twenty minutes?…

Someone was trying to bee-bee gun the cat

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Will, high on liquid coke, jumped up and down in the sterile dining room, up and down on an occupied long table, up and down, yelling— …

Dear Applicant

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Did you know that one of our applicants sent us his severed thumb? I have some bloody pictures, I’ll post on the blog. See this kind of dedication is what you’re against. He didn’t get in either.

Three Mississippi Fictions

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When I was sixteen, my dad’s new wife and her daughter, Mary Ann, moved in, so I had to get out. I found a burned-out one story place on Corey Road near the gas plant. When it wasn’t raining, you could see right up through the roof to the stars.