A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Suddenly, everything became blurry and dark. When he awoke, the Raven, having left its perch above the bust of Pallas, had settled on his chest.
“This is a curious place to take a nap,” the ... [+]

The morning rain was loud, and it took away the light. As much as I wanted to head out, I couldn’t. But the weather wasn’t the only thing keeping me inside. Our world was under attack by a virus ... [+]

I’m blind. I lied. I want a do-over.
Yeah, it’s all true.
“Dude, how are we going to finish our dance?” my partner Jake screams as we pace backstage.
“Shush, I don’t know! And at ... [+]

“This neighborhood used to be all trees. Just a tall green forest.”
“When did they build it – the neighborhood?”
“Oh, sometime in the mid-nineties. I can’t exactly remember when ... [+]

He was mine and mine alone, Dorian thought to himself. The "Portrait of a Young Man" and me. The man in the painting adorned a black beret, dark hair, and an opulent fur coat. Not so bad looking for a ... [+]

The crowd thronged around Larry as he shuffled forward. Its members shoved past him like a rushing current, heedless of courtesy in their excitement. He forgave the jostling, of course, for his mind ... [+]

Ricky looked up at the ladder and swallowed, nervousness mingling with excitement. The tree house he’d been asking Dad to build for almost three years now was finally done. Well, all except the rope ... [+]

“We wake with haunted eyes, waltzing through life as though we’re puppets. We are entirely aware of our strings, of their relentless pull on our aching joints and our stretched skin, but we make ... [+]

This looks like it could be a scene from a really sad movie. One where the girl is sitting next to the window seat, staring. The viewer watches in shallow focus. Although she knows which stop she ... [+]

My life has been conditioned in a way that I can’t explain. I’m deep in a hole that I can’t dig myself out of. I ask myself, what is life exactly? Is it all about surviving? Is it just a waiting ... [+]

Just before the snow falls, the fairies lay their eggs. To you, they look like plain white berries, hanging on little green-leafed branches of shrubs. But go out at night and you will see them hatch ... [+]

I truly hate doing the dishes, Tati thought as she regarded a teetering pile of plates and pots and coffee mugs. It was one of those insufferable, Sisyphean tasks of life that never really gets ... [+]

Late into the night you finally return home. You open the door and step into the unlit blackness of what should have been your home. Instinctively you reach out to flick on the lights, but the light ... [+]

Long story short, I became Public Enemy Number One.
The last 24 hours had been surreal. I, a 22-year-old college student, was declared by the state as the “the most vicious vermin eve ... [+]

Your dichotomy of reality and transcendence destabilizes as you breathe in the image before you. Ribbons of sunlight seducing piney branches into a dance. The solemn army of trees expanding far beyond ... [+]

Tapping her left foot onto the cobblestones, J’s nervous tick is heading into full overdrive. She takes a sip of hot coffee to attempt to calm her nerves. The sip is just a bit pre-mature, and the ... [+]

lim·bo-intermediate state or condition.
“What do you mean Billy disappeared?”
“Well, it's as I said sir, we were all sitting in his living room, discussing different ways we could sneak ... [+]

Grandma was the first one who let me hold matches. Mommy and Daddy were such scaredypants, they would yell at me just for sneaking out of the kitchen when the oven door was open.
“You could burn ... [+]