2040 13 9
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Dear Fictionaut Family,Some of you may recognize my name and remember reading my work, some of you may have joined more recently and be wondering what the hell I'm doing addressing you directly. I began writing on Fictionaut in 2010, during four years as I was fragmenting…
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2040 7 3
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I suppose the lazy trees would have a thing or two to say about love
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2040 1 1
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My best friend and roommate Eliza woke up one morning with the sudden conviction that she had to become very fat, as soon as possible.
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2039 7 3
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He had an addiction to elevating himself to higher levels of potential: some would call this ambition.
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2039 16 13
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Write a poem in which your father is a dog and you are his leash.
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2039 20 11
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...you lick you ice cream, little pink tongue like a cat's, flick, flick... lick fast, girl, the heat's gonna melt it...
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2039 10 7
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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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2039 10 7
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Sometimes after bookbinding for a few hours at the hand-sewing table, Jillie would, after scraping her knife too roughly over the glue of an old book's spine, feel not like a resurrector of literature, as she should, but a killer. Not a calculating or
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2039 6 2
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1. Think up problems that don’t exist
2. Realize, suddenly, that they don’t exist
3. Elation
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2038 2 1
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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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2038 1 1
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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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2038 1 0
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Inside my high-rise studio apartment there are only three locations where Crane Man can't see me. The bathroom is one—although he watches me go in and he watches me come out. Crane Man does a lot of watching. Sometimes it seems he spends more time looking…
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2038 6 6
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ghosts are local plagues/of unexpended grief—tears/can't be bodiless.
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2038 1 1
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"Ah, finally the rain stopped pouring!" She opens the window to let the sticky air out of the house. The colours outside have changed. The air is clear and the sky turns into light pink while the sun is drowning at the horizon. She takes a deep breath. The…
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2037 11 7
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I walk back home, alone and without the bus fare. Distancing myself from the shadows that float interminably against the drowsy sun. Where frightened boys often roam, going in circles against the long lines of epitaphs and gravestones. Puzzling…
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2037 6 5
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I peeled off a hundred. For the screwdriver, I said. The kid shook his head, made a pushing-away gesture. You need it worse’n I do right now, he said.
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2037 3 2
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In row nine, there was a lady on the window seat. Seeing the potential of space between us, I asked, “Mind if I take this one?”
“Not at all” she said as if she hadn't a friend in the world, apart from the poor bastard now sitting in seat 9D.
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2037 17 15
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There he was. Minnesota Fats, short and pudgy, jowly and blond-haired.
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2037 14 13
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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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2037 4 3
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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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2037 0 0
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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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2037 0 0
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Dear Bess —
I go to the First Assembly of God's church. (a Praising Spirit-Filled Fellowship.) It is in Maui. Dr. James Morocco, Senior Pastor. He has been pastoring the church for over twenty years.
My, what a big change I am finding in my new l
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2036 7 2
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They waited until the crowd was gone before making their move. Gill kept watch while Warren bypassed the lock.
“You sure about this?” Gill whispered. Voices echoed down the hall of the museum.
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2036 12 9
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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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2036 15 9
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The violin hung on the wall after that, a witness.
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2036 8 7
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Once upon a time, before there was Prairie, there was Swamp.
Therein lived Salamander and Snake. High above them, in the tops of Cypresses lived Woodpecker.
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2036 0 0
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Walking into the living room and next to the tree, he handed his wife Kathy her Minnie and plopped himself on the couch. Their three kids, two girls and the youngest a boy, tore through the wrapping paper like a pack of rabid wolves tearing through a deer
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2036 23 19
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Alice writes three different versions of the letter. The last one is the most tempered, the most like her, but still it is such an unlike-her thing to do. The couple who lives above her has been disrupting her sleep nearly every night for the past three weeks. The woman's…
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2036 7 3
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Oh I'm melting all right, into a foul vapor rising from a dead volcano, not even able to spit fire, but only cold old frozen rock like dribbles of putrid plasma.
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2035 1 0
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There was a man crying, walking his dog
and a woman drove by
on a flat tire
They brought coffee to the tables
in large glasses on white saucers
There’d be long silver spoons
with which to stir in strong
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