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9 min read stories

Discover a collection of stories which are around 9 minutes read time.

8 min read

On Weather: Against The River

* Story contains bad language

Sergeant Randall backed his pickup into the motor pool, got out, dropped the tailgate, and asked who all wanted a Coors. Several guys indicated they did, so...

10 min read

Beside the Point

* Story contains bad language

Corporal Johnson had two fake front teeth. That was a detail about him. His two top-middle teeth had been installed by a dentist, recently, so they were a...

10 min read

Walls Made of Earth

I shaved each morning in the Valley with a conventional razor, a metal canteen cup, one bottle of water, and a portable mirror. The Valley was a dry, windy...

8 min read

Sara conjures the devil

* Story contains bad language

Sara wished her brother dead. She wished old Pastor Brookes dead as well.

8 min read

Wild Child

Annaliese wanted to conceive in the woods. We were wild animals, she said, and our baby would be wild too. Its creation should reflect that. So, she insisted...

7 min read

Sinkhole

* Story contains bad language

The realtor showed us the house on West Garland Avenue and insisted it had everything we wanted.“Look,” he said, “there’s a fireplace, granite countertops,...

9 min read

The Genie of West Garland Avenue

For a while, there were rumors that a man in our neighborhood could grant wishes. My family lived on the Northside, on a street of tiny, near-identical...

8 min read

A man to occupy my mind

It was Memorial Day weekend, and my friends and I were celebrating Clare’s last fling before the ring in Scottsdale, Arizona. While sitting poolside in a...

9 min read

All the Girls We Knew in the Suburbs

It was the night before Christmas, but all that meant to us was that no one else was out and the suburbs were our playgrounds more than ever. We were two...

8 min read

Adams

* Story contains bad language

I never could stomach Adams and then one day he’s standing in my kitchen, in his underwear. Facing in the direction of my kids’ room! So I wonk him in the...

7 min read

There was this boy I met at a party, years back

* Story contains bad language

and I really don’t know if I should be telling you this, because you might even meet him around here somewhere or – even worse – try to find him and use him....

11 min read

Auto-Suggestion

* Story contains bad language

I began to think, for no particular reason, about what the exact series of events would be were I to die at that moment – before, even, my coffee went cold.