A New Kind of Literary Pulse

They come out of the oven shapeless and slightly burnt. She pokes at one, eyebrows knitting together when the hard dough-shell stays unyielding. Well, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Mooncakes are ... [+]

I met you on a tired Parisian morning, half-asleep as I stumbled off a plane into an oversized airport and nearly fell to the ground because I couldn’t believe I was actually in Paris. My parents ... [+]

Well, since you ask me for a tale of the doomy and macabre, I think I may have something which will tickle that spooky bone of yours. Which is to say, any of them. Ugh.
It was on a midsumme ... [+]

Her son, she often boasted, was serving as a fighter pilot for the military—and from the look of things she believed it herself. Mrs. Gallows seemed quite proud of her little soldier. Although he ... [+]

Justin looked up at the tired faces sitting opposite him in the waiting lounge. Most looked travel-weary, and all of them were asleep. Except him. He was still awake at 1am in the morning, waiting fo ... [+]

Drip, drip, drip.
"ARTHUR! I thought you promised to fix that leak days ago. We have a foot of snow on the roof, what do you think you're doing? Blazes, it's Christmas tomorrow!"
Arthu ... [+]

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 ... [+]