2070 3 2
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The Bird King suffers from phantom head syndrome. Ever since his decapitation by a critic, he has felt pain where his head used to be. Sometimes it wakes him in the night. It's so excruciating, he fumbles for a saw. But alas! there's nothing to chop off.He's seen every…
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2070175
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I try to help my pet-mouse by dangling cheese from a piece of string in front of him. Or by making meow sounds. Sometimes, my pet-mouse wins, sometimes the hamster with the great body.
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207000
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Remember the glass changing room just off the pool terrace? It's been replaced by a juice bar. Seems fitting, really.
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207041
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Refuse to go to the church service, even though you already missed the funeral. Tell his mother something came up. Call his phone over and over, just to hear his voice, until his mother asks you to stop. Make a recording of his voicemail. Delete it an
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207066
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ghosts are local plagues/of unexpended grief—tears/can't be bodiless.
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207063
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I am at a wedding with a new girlfriend. The bride is her old college roommate. I don't really know anyone else here. The wedding is being held at a huge estate, located on the edge of enormous cliffs that overlook the ocean. Despite the danger of this precarious…
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207033
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First, the title: How George Bush And the Lovely Danielle Saved Planet Earth From Zork the Galactic Destroyer. A little unwieldy perhaps but still, a grabber. Already you're thinking, George Bush? Saving Earth? Did he die by his own fucking hand?…
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20691911
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I describe mine as uterine-based hysteria or Sex Test.
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2069177
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The transformation in their domineering, sour mother revised her children’s memories of their childhoods.
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206900
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Sometimes I have really violent dreams where I smash Libby’s face in with a liquor bottle, a brick, a mounted boar’s head... really whatever my brain makes available to me. I always wake up satisfied.
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206900
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It’s confusing enough to grow up in a place like America, a country without definitive culture, except for ranch dressing and reality TV, but it’s even worse to grow up half one thing, half another, christened a hyphenation of names without connection to
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206921
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Jack, man in black, sporting manicured talons, his smile an iced knife.
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206820
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“I am NOT a hooker.”
“What exactly are you, then?” Marlene raised her slim eyebrows. Her almond shaped eyes and high-cut bangs gave her the appearance of a 1950s Barbie doll.
“Well…” I stirred my coffee and looked down. I wasn't sure wh
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206811
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I bet if I went back, Old Stradlater would still be combing his gorgeous locks in front of the same goddam mirror.
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20681413
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. . . clinging to life in a shroud of winter air. It veered up five flights to a sweltering summer night on the roof . . .
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206800
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Bo ruled the city by suggesting new scent formulas in a booming croak of a voice that shook the earth for acres around, yet as a result everybody on the block smelled like fairy breath. Or, on his BAD BREATH DAYS all of the people reeked of rotted sushi f
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206820
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A cloud of light, white smoke floated out of the driver’s side window. Nate and Zach sat on the front bench seat, talked, and puffed away. “Breath in and say Mom is coming,” said Zach.
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20682718
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1. The ghost that photographs my wife and me has a peculiar sense of lighting. In this one, we are sitting at the kitchen table of our old apartment. The table is made of glass. There is nothing on the table except our elbows. She has lowered her head between her…
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206710
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I've been invited to speak at Emerson College in Boston—it will be the summer of 2012, and I'll be speaking on running an online literary magazine; in this case, my own, Anderbo.com.
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206700
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At the time I first went to work for Mr. Byron my family was in a sorrowful state. My dad, much as I can recall, was one of those roving kinds, called himself a carpenter or contractor, depending on the kind of job he was aspiring to, and was subject to f
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206743
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A great doubt had shut out the light inside us, but each of us called for our lover at the end, and she was generous. Carrying us along inside her over vast distances, chilling our soul with sudden terrible flashes of light.
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206682
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The midsummer sky is black above us when I hear Dad say my name, quiet like I’ve never heard before. I let my hands drop away from my face and crawl towards him.
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206621
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A recent book reveals that nature documentaries are staged. Shocked by such claims we went on location to discover for ourselves the behind-the-scenes manipulations and more. Director: “You'll spot the wildebeest, freeze, and then charge. Okay? And try to bring…
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2066107
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The first husband was young and lovely. He had a little nose and long fingers he used for things like planting begonias in my clay pot. I did not do flowers. So that was nice.
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20661715
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There he was. Minnesota Fats, short and pudgy, jowly and blond-haired.
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2066129
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the Great Way itself is very smooth and straight,/but folks take to the challenge of rough, wild roads.
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2066266
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She was flying back in the morning, returning to a long-distance boyfriend I believed she had cheated on while she was here but didn’t ask about because I thought it would have been too obvious and somehow ungentlemanly.
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206643
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On Day 1122 at 4:14 AM the door which has remained since installation firmly glued to the masonry behind opens and a man emerges blinking shielding his eyes against fine stinging snow.
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2066149
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It's eerie. There are no birds. My friend and I take our morning walk in a bubble of silence.
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206693
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She wrapped her legs around him. His hand barely held the rope and later he could not have said if it happened above or below the water’s surface.
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