1988 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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198897
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A man lives with a woman he loves enough to live with, but not enough to marry and not enough for kids. He knows he could love others enough to marry, enough for kids, but he's not the kind of man to find those women when he's with this woman.Sometimes “love”…
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1988266
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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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198800
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No news spreads faster than news of a death. Word of the death of a child can be heard simultaneously in a thousand places. . . the word spread by telephone, in back yards from clothesline to clothesline, with whispers in grocery stores, in the looks on faces stunned into…
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19881814
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There are no city-chewed streets,/
only white and lilac blooming dogwood trees.
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198851
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The light against the nylon walls of the tent gets me feeling a little down. The air's wet inside, but it's warm. The whole world outside is creaking and chirping, everything that wakes up with the dawn's first tepid blue light does so and starts making n
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19881613
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If this was the day when the bribes of whiskey and US dollars would fail to work. If on this day a black bag, smelling of shit and fear, would be pulled over his head – the bloodied roots of a knocked out tooth tickling his neck.
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198700
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“Yeah, she's a real slut,” many contestants' mothers say.
“If he could only keep it in his pants, he'd probably be able to stay in the country,” others say about their sons
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198700
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The water was like glass except for a ripple here and there where Spearing were jumping. Joe didn’t know whether they were playing or avoiding being lunch for larger fish. He set up shop above the point where, light years ago, his father, a fisherman, had
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19871613
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Write a poem in which your father is a dog and you are his leash.
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198752
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‘Your hands are very clean’ she said to the furniture salesman. His name was Morrison. "After Jim" Morrison Pentworthy. His father specialized in Doors.
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198797
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1The Bird King has fallen in lovewith a radiator.He adoresher pockmarked skin,her neurotic arias,her coldness,her impulsive warmth. 2Tiring of his dalliance with the radiator,the Bird King woos an armchair.She's amply upholsteredand groans dreamilywhen he sits on…
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198700
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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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198762
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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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198787
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Don't sleep. Tiny orange Balloons like seahorses are bobbing This way and that trying To get your hair to lift Off its marvelously mud- Swamped and pillowy support beams, blue sea strand by green. Don't you want to see…
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198793
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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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19871311
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When she opens the door, I say hi and introduce her to my friend, a bottle of J.T.S. Brown. She laughs and tells me to come on in before I fall down.
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1987146
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The handsome man at the opposite table swivels his head at the tall cool slim blonde entering the breakfast cafe. The ordinary woman sitting with him adjusts her chair accordingly. She pretends to ignore her husband's distraction, smoothes her hair, licks her…
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198665
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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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198672
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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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198610
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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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198662
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Whoever came up with the term kismet is an absolute moron. There isn't a single reason, or word, that can describe what exactly my brain has concocted in the face of him. No, kismet isn't what makes it happen. It's my own stupidity..
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198621
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He had expected more -- at least his grandfather's classic Packard touring car.
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198582
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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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19852018
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or the voice that wants/
to be inscribed/
forgets the sounds
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198566
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She sang will you still need me
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198500
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2 sticks soft (like your heart) butter...
... 1 cup crushed (like you) walnuts...
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198500
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The old mage said nothing. She did not even return the complement. All she had was disgust in her eyes as she looked at the grown men and women. To her they had no hearts.
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1985228
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"Ha ha!" I said triumphantly, "I've got some left and you don't!"
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198543
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She brought the ends of her fingers to her mouth and moistened them in her warm saliva. The whorls of her prints glistened in the harsh light of the room, but it wasn't her own outlines she was interested in raising. His hand lay outstretched in his…
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