Cherrypicked stories
Celestial Puppeteer
The devil never really need fear For good is good for which it adheres If right is wrong and wrong is right It's finally time to call this fight. A no holds barred, jugular throat spar
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- 2 comments
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- 1047 reads
31 Falkner Street (9)
‘Your road is really scary.’ Kerry told me. I felt insulted. ‘How is it?’
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- 714 reads
Counting backwards from ten
Anyone who's lain on a gurney and had nothing but a hospital gown between them and the knife will get the title......
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- 3 comments
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- 1681 reads
The Guinea Thief - Chapter 13 - the merciless
Jack and Delphine visit Robert on the prison hulk
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- 1 comment
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- 879 reads
Waiting for the Sun
The Santa Ana winds were thunderously howling on Venice Boulevard, but the slippery streets were nonetheless at ease with the silence of the moon.
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- 2 comments
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- 859 reads
Who'll Pay the Piper?
“Piper Alpha...one hundred and sixty-four missing...”
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- 19 comments
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- 4323 reads
31 Falkner Street (8)
My name is Ella and I am 31 years old.
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- 1 comment
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- 845 reads
Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferentes
While I alone traverse the walls
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- 1 comment
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- 826 reads
What would Junie B. Jones do?
"Mr. Jacobson sniffs little girls' bicycle seats," eight year old Benjamin Carter announced cavalierly as though the topic made for polite dinner conversation.
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- 4 comments
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- 3076 reads
31 Falkner Street (7)
Night out
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- 1 comment
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- 667 reads
Whore
With the cool night air caressing her forehead, she reassures herself that she is still here.
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- 12 comments
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- 3899 reads
31 Falkner Street (6)
Paddy
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- 1 comment
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- 1043 reads
End of days 13
A story in 200-word chapters. At the far end of an asylum, the celestial war reaches its conclusion.
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- 11 comments
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- 3968 reads
Yellowstone
Shoveling snow from abandoned rooftops in Yellowstone would do me. That kind of raptured loneliness, wrapped in a blank white silence, the world a crisp new page
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- 4 comments
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- 2587 reads
100 Stories for Pakistan
My attempt. Any help or suggestions-grammar, word choice, spelling- gratefully received.
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- 6 comments
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- 1766 reads
31 Falkner Street (3)
The barbeque
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- 4 comments
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- 1997 reads
The Brimstone Canary
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- 3 comments
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- 1970 reads
First All-Village Orgy Advice
‘If in doubt, always grease the wallaby first,’ wise words, I’m sure you will all agree.
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- 2 comments
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- 1535 reads
31 Falkner Street (2)
Anna
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- 8 comments
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- 3397 reads
Not Even a Rose
This is the same world in which Sylvia Plath retired her pen (In a confessional oven); Nothing is perfect: Not even a poem.
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- 5 comments
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- 2054 reads
The 4 Mirrors
There was once a wealthy merchant of Lovingia who owned a fleet of trading ships and used them to transport fine fabrics and spices and other exotic goods from far and wide.
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- 4 comments
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- 2334 reads
A Strange Case Of Infidelity
There’d been a time, a long time ago, when Crayton West had wondered at the meaning of life; the summum bonum as they say on old Earth but this quest for meaning or the good life had not lasted long
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- 1 comment
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- 1889 reads
Dear Maria: Chapter 3
She was the only one who ever came into the office anymore.
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- 4 comments
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- 2185 reads
Dear Maria: Chapter 2
Oh no, this is just the beginning of this game, Maria. There is much more pain to come than that. That was only a fraction of the suffering you have caused. Are you ready, Maria?
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- 6 comments
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- 2290 reads
Fishing
A grey heron the dagger of his beak poised above the shimmer of the inlet, poised to detect the glimmer of scales, enquiring of the murk beneath. This lone moment
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- 4 comments
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- 1997 reads
Impasse
You know you need help, but who to turn to?
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- 15 comments
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- 3830 reads
Panic.
Two sisters. Post panic-attack.
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- 14 comments
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- 7428 reads
Now or Never 6
More treatment centre nightmares
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- 2 comments
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- 901 reads
Now or Never 5
Treatment centre nightmares
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- 1 comment
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- 766 reads
Our Love
I remind myself that our love is better, softer, purer than others. Yes, our love's bed sheets are bright and white and clean and flat.
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- 31 comments
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- 11020 reads
There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 11
11. Scorched Earth
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- 2 comments
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- 1051 reads
There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 10
10. The Way Out to the Spectacular View
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- 1 comment
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- 780 reads
LILLIAN AND THE ITALIANS.3
Lillian remembers Andrew leaving England four years ago to move to Italy.
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- 2 comments
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- 974 reads
From New York to Tierra del Fuego
A road trip from New York to Tierra del Fuego, it seemed the ideal escape route. I would be able to lose myself, and my past, somewhere along the way.
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- 3 comments
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- 1997 reads
Nothing Ever Happens Here (I.P.)
'Tis actually the first time I have attempted an I.P. interpretation. :) So be kind.
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- 7 comments
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- 1732 reads
Rubber chicken
The worst part of my job is having to break bad news, ending people's careers, having grown men break down in tears in front of me, begging for a second chance.
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- 2 comments
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- 6135 reads
i AM america
Do I love America? no comment but this is true: i AM America My blood is centuries of America: farmers, soldiers, sailors, and sales-people, scrappers, survivors, and do-it-yourselfers
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- 3 comments
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- 1178 reads
Harley11
life, but not as we know it.
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- 11 comments
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- 2138 reads
Don't it make my brown eyes blue
poem
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- 6 comments
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- 2124 reads
It came to pass... part III
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- 3 comments
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- 2029 reads
It came to pass... part II
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- 1 comment
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- 1404 reads
It Came To Pass... Part I
The nauseous odor of sulfur was the glassy fleshed pimp’s one abiding memory of ‘Firebrat’s Hollow’; the literal ‘underworld’ where Gallowglasswegian
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- 3 comments
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- 2174 reads
The Tiffin Carrier Man
The Tiffin Carrier Man arrived around noon.
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- 4 comments
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- 1921 reads
A Call From the Wild
‘You must listen to me; hear my words and remember and when I tell you – leave! Run like your life depends on it; because it does.
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- 6 comments
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- 1957 reads
The Fox
Out on the uncombed lawn a burnt smudge snuffles through the undergrowth or lies proprietorial in the slanting sun. He's made a home in my garden, bronzed fur and white belly splayed
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- 5 comments
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- 2798 reads
Talent
Floating across the wasteland came the siren song of the TV head. "You too can be famous! You too can be famous!", it said.
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- 3 comments
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- 2005 reads
A Note to the Buddha
Life is full of suffering but it's also full of joy, and there's nothing so over-worldly as authoritarian morality and cookie-cutter souls worshipping false ideals
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- 1 comment
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- 594 reads
The Difference Between Stories And Lies
The great storyteller Ansoluman was once asked, by one of his crowd of regular listeners, “Are your stories true?”.
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- 1 comment
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- 1344 reads
Final Leap
when the light at the end of the tunnel fades vanishes...
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- 2 comments
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- 1184 reads
Exert from my zaprtangol blog
I know this sounds crazy, but aliens have abducted Loretta and replaced her with a duplicate. She’s similar in appearance but I have noticed certain discrepances...
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- 2 comments
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- 1245 reads
The Komondor
01/06/06 - MONDAY I hate this horrible, grey cubicle. I hate this horrible, grey job. I hate the horrible, dull, stupid, bitchy people who I have to work with. I hate having to phone
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- 1 comment
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- 1455 reads
Risk Street5
cop shop talk
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- 8 comments
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- 2148 reads
Vampyre's Kiss
Karen actually felt good basking in the late summer sun. Around the bench on which she sat, the stately grounds of the private hospice were dotted with other patients and their attendant nurses.
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- 8 comments
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- 2699 reads
2084
“He loved Big Brother.” --George Orwell; 1984. …sometimes: If I haven’t Turned On The Television set
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- 3 comments
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- 1390 reads
Simple Hearts
Foul-mouthed Marna Copparelli, who waitresses at Guido's Pizza, wouldn't know a semicolon from a large intestine. Luther Buttafuoco writes books that get reviewed in the New York Times literary
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- 5 comments
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- 2656 reads
A Snore Too Far
Have you ever been kept awake by someone who snores? If so I am sure you will appreciate where Anatole is coming from in this creepy story I have entitled "A Snore Too Far"
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- 6 comments
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- 2317 reads
End of days 12
A serialisation of 200-word chapters. Drugged up in the asylum director's office, our hero remembers his holy sword ...
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- 7 comments
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- 2577 reads