Fiction
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Storytellers
The first thing I learn is that storytelling is a strange art. Listening to stories all my life has not, in any way, prepared me to tell my own.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Dream People
I am embarrassed by how it scares me, getting older. By how the fear has guided every decision. By the math I’m always doing in my head, working back from fifty-two. If I die at the same age my dad…
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From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: The Anniversary
There lay her gift, basking in the sunlight. A gray-green lizard the size of a shoe. It stood so still she thought it was fake.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Fantasyland
Here is a lesson Portia learned years ago—you can get away with being rude and nasty if there’s a twinkle in your eye.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Signal and Response
Researchers are investigating twins and siblings close in age for possible telepathic entanglement.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Pink and Lilac
My sister chose petal pink and lilac for her wedding. She was a coder. She was going to be the breadwinner.
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From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Prescriptions
I wore sobriety like a shirt that was too tight in the shoulders, and everyone around me knew it.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Three Flash Fictions by Nathan Xie
“Sprezzatura,” “An Attempt to Explain Myself,” & “The Last Norwegian Wolf”
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Slime
The slime problem had hatched when her daughter’s first grade class learned how to make putty they took home in plastic eggs.
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From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Lera
You keep the edge of your love sharp, a knife, so that those close to you know to handle it carefully. You think you’ve done it and then you discover that you’ve been endangering yourself to everybody you meet all…
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Six Micro Stories
Our eager fingernails fill with dust as we dream of sweetness on our tongues.
