1950 2 1
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The young male sat off by himself and nursed his wounds and a grudge.
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1950 15 5
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Megalomania is a kind of backwards leprosy. It rots your insides out while your skin glistens and grows tighter around your bones.
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1950 1 1
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When I was six, my father brought home a fishbowl. Look out for the inhabitants, he said. You can play Neptune in their microcosm of the sea.
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1950 2 2
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Marion had decided to stop whenever she came upon Amarillo. It was close to two a.m. when she pulled into the motel parking lot. Momma, read the nametag on the woman at reception. Her face was illuminated by a TV. Her hair curlers were illuminated by the lone desk lamp…
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1950 30 18
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I dreamed that coffee grounds had spilled on my Buffet. There was another clarinet, a silver one, that belonged to a man not in the room, that was clean of debris.
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1950 12 5
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Thistle and cracked corn were thrown to us each morning and the occasional live chicken...
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1950 1 0
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Elin and I had religious differences about the garage. To her the garage required regular sweeping and organization--it was an extension of our house. Elin believed dust and mold to be manifestations of inner sin. I insisted that they were agents of evolu
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1949 3 3
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A joust. A tournament. A playing field. ¶ Hmm . . .
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1949 7 4
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Every Friday night she gets liberated at The Haymarket Square doing a bunny hop or a do si do with ex-members of The Saint Augustine Women's Choir. She remembers how as kids, shy or awkward in dresses, their voices formed the harmony, the flight of something V-shaped…
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1949 13 5
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She slipped into a silky sheath dress, and stepped into black sequined heels just as the doorbell rang. Her date had arrived to take her to his much touted Art opening in town. Reaching under the bathroom sink for a final mist of hair spray she realized too late…
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1949 1 0
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Almost on cue, Xavier emerges and is in the vendor’s face. “X,” as he is known around here, is indoctrinating the obvious newbie on the merits of showing up earlier and the logistics of placeholders and markers.
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1949 4 4
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I’ve had it to here you see.
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1949 10 4
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What happens to a town when all of its songbirds go on strike?
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1949 8 5
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We were old. Wind came in with small threats and played games with drapes. A print of orchids and some other green affair that looked to me like kiwis. Sadie was arranging some items on a desk and I noticed there was a cricket on the window. I was thinking…
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1949 1 1
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I spent the whole day at Oliveira's, writing furiously in my notebooks. The words came pouring out. Just before seven, Darrell picked me up. I grew anxious driving down to Parker's studio because it was in a bad area on the border between Oakland
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1948 10 7
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Things get lost in Big John, too. I see the other guys throw jokes about his size at his body that wedge their way into his armpits or into the wrinkles of his laugh lines and disappear. I’m not sure if it all disappears to remind us how small we are,
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1948 6 6
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When I wake up and look to my left, will you be there with me, snoring like an asthmatic bear?
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1948 0 0
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My novel-in-stories, NAN, is now available as an ebook for $6.99. Thanks to everyone who read the first 7 published stories here on Fictionaut.
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1948 6 2
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The figure was covered in a light blue chenille bathrobe, splayed out on her back on the floor by the glass door, her hair done up in large curlers, a slipper lying askew by her left foot. Richie crouched near the face and the rancid flame of bourbon lea
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1948 22 12
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The drinking will continue/
until morale improves
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1947 6 1
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Bearing the smell of paper on her fingertips. Ink in her hair.
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1947 2 1
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Paper Bird, Devotchka, TV On The Radio
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1947 4 2
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I know I know how many times you want me to tell you I’m sorry, okay?
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1947 0 0
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His footing unsure and his clothes covered in vomit, he grabs the railing and stumbles up the three steps. He pulls off his shirt, finds a cleaner area on the puke-covered garment, wipes sweat off his forehead, dripping wet from the humid, stormy night, a
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1947 9 6
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I’m maybe only four. Not smoking cigarettes found in street gutters yet. That will come the next year, when I’m five. Maybe when I’m six, and Andy’s five, my pal from across the street. That’s my tricycle parked behind this pack of kids that look to be ne
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1947 11 10
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Slip me in Between the cracks in your schedule Between the sheets of your bed Between your memories and your fears Between your eyes and the moon where I'll twinkle at you Slip me in somewhere, I won't disturb you Won't make you want to push me away Let…
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1947 16 9
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She was as distant as Mao, someone I never met, but whom everyone carried in their eyes,
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1947 8 8
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It took all four of his kids to convince my father to pull the plug. Mom's car crash had left her a vegetable, but of course he hung on. Once they withdrew life support, she was gone in ten minutes. The first thing our father said was that he was hungry. He felt…
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1947 2 2
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She hated the noiseless dying sound they made as he stuck the hook through their eyes. She always wanted for them to scream, but they never did. They didn’t even blink.
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1947 2 2
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I know it’s nobody’s fault, and that one thing had nothing to do with the other, because it was this way for me since I was born; they just didn’t figure it out for a while that with one of my ears I could hardly hear, and with the other, I couldn
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