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Alphabetical stories

A life in books

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Forget Ulysses, life itself is a stream of consciousness if you ever have time to get out of the stream and take a look at it. And there’s nothing that gets you out of the stream like a short sharp shock.

A 3.7 GPA and 1.7 BAC

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I had a serious illness during my senior year of college called senioritis. It affected me primarily the second half of the school year, after I got into graduate school. So, with that, I…

A Band of Feline Brothers

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I am not covetous for catnip, Nor care where I sleep at night. It irks me not who takes my Favorite chair, or swats me off a table.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. Manet

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The mystery is in the barmaid's impersonal stare It's all there. Recognizable the bottles of Bass Ale and Crème de Menthe. Glazed oranges piled in a bowl Two roses in a small clear glass of water A wide gold bracelet on her arm, halfway up from

A Bar For All Occasions

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Nights like this don’t happen often, nights when I wander the streets of an unknown village, dark and quiet streets that offer little in the way of diversion.

A Bead Was Lost

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A Bear Story

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In the spring, my father would dress for class in a bear costume and chase students around campus.

A Beautiful Ancient Ghostly Passionate Spirit of the Stars

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Fabio has a soul of passion. A beautiful soul of passion. His passionate soul was so beautiful the ancient stars shone upon him and made him look like ghosts at night.

A Bite-Sized Piece

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What was this becoming, anyway? This guy doesn't think he's going to be my boyfriend , does he? I scrutinized him closer. Was that . . . dandruff?

A Bitter And Unseasoned Business Attorney Makes His Case That "Crazy Heart" Is The Perfectly Nasty Ending

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In closing, Your Honor:After the interview Bad Blake, a/k/a "Otis" takes "Miss" Jane Craddock back to his hotel, ties her up, and gives her a Cleveland Steamer. For reference, please refer to my Brief, Exhibit A, showing a thespian named Ronald Jeremy…

A Black Cat

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And then, and then, and then! After all that, this. After all that bullshit with her Dad, the Associate Principal, the idiotic counselor, and that psychotic police officer, after all that, this: a dead black cat. Blocking her path! Right in the middle of the street! …

A Black Night

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The hairs on my arm lift with the breeze; a haunting breath from the open window carrying night-scented stock from the black-shrouded garden.

A Blow to the Possible

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Tombstones are only granite symbols of a man’s life, Gus thought as he changed lanes. Children, they were the ultimate epitaph.

A Blowhard Drops By

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So, I say, what is the answer? The answer to what? You know. The song by Bob Dylan. The answer is blowing in the wind. You’re the wind. So what’s the answer?

a bob like you

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The thing is, I knew you were going to turn me away before you even opened the appointment book. Maybe it was your hair: the blunt bob I always want and never get, no matter how many photos I print from the internet and surrender to stylists before they start snipping.…

A Body Divided, 1

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A Body Divided: Memoir 1 When I came back home, after coming down with polio, everything had changed for me. I'd been gone for forty-five long days and nights. But it was Halloween, a time very nearly sacred for children in the Midwest, and it broug

A Body Divided, 2

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I came down with polio on September 15, 1953, a mild, smoky day drawing close to autumn outside of Chicago — which also happened to be the exact date of my parents' twenty-first wedding anniversary. Only six months later the Salk vaccine was already b

A Body Divided, 3

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A group of nuns arrived in the middle of my first night at Hinsdale Hospital. I guess I must have dozed off when this odd noise, like curtains being moved, woke me up. At first I couldn't make out what that rustling sound was in the hallway outside my doo

A Body Divided, 4

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After surviving the first night in the hospital, I was put into a shared room to save on expenses, and to make room for the deluge of new cases that were coming in, and that was when I made friends with my roommate, Tommy. He was a boy about the sam

A Body Divided, 5

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Physical therapy was on the agenda every morning, first thing. A nurse would come to my room from the basement floor where they did physical therapy. She'd wrap me in a blanket and put me into a wheelchair, even though it was obvious I didn't need one to

A Body Divided, 6

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When I finally went back to school in the fourth grade, after coming down with polio, my classmates were very welcoming, though I couldn't go outside and run around like them yet at recess or lunch time. That would come, just not right away. But it was th

A Body of Water Invites All Things

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My resistance sublimates. There is a long instant of absolute relinquishment, in which I imagine droplets of water plinking into my lungs in a slow, musical fashion, like icicles melting in a perfect cave.

A Boy

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You said it was easier when you were ten and could play Risk with a girl and it was a game, not foreplay.

A Boy and His Dog

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I sit across the table from my dad. I try to shovel the dry, stale bread and undercooked macaroni in my mouth without looking disappointed. If I do look disappointed, Dad will get mad at me. He's always gettin' mad. Now he looks up…

A Boy and His Girl

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Malibu, 1975

A Boy and His Tire

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**I think Bridgestone Tire borrowed this story for a commercial. Maybe not, see video and decide.**

A Boy Who Looks Like Horses, or A Horse Who Looks Like Boys

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He nuzzled the breasts with his face for a moment, his leathery skin and tangles of hair tickling her in the process.

A Break in the Cloud

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Each had jostled and laboured for his or her place upon the blunt outcrop, in the cold persistent darkness, where the outcrop was merely something that had fallen and not quite been washed away.

A Brief Meditation on Smoking

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There are two kinds of stupid in the world of smoking. The first kind includes anyone who smokes – knowing well that it is likely to cause terrible pain at a later point in their lives. The second kind includes the people who tell the first kind that sm

A Brief Recap of My Last Excellent Meal

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You placed four perfectly crisp, golden-brown quail, still hot from the pan, onto my plate.