1957 4 1
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She comes in with her white bag with its floral patterns scattered, almost accidentally, all around it
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1957129
|
“Lightning has more longevity than I,”
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195744
|
I’ve had it to here you see.
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19571010
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A block after his first crime, he found a bookstore to commit another.
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195785
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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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19572212
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The drinking will continue/
until morale improves
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195744
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Rhonda looks guilty as it is, don’t you think? That hair! And the unhappiness smeared across her face like war paint after a war.
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1957129
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Harpo sits and looks at something I can't see. I drink beer and ask him questions. I ask him how they found the cancer. Backache, he says. He went to see a doctor.
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1956107
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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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1956155
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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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195621
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Paper Bird, Devotchka, TV On The Radio
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195662
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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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195561
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Bearing the smell of paper on her fingertips. Ink in her hair.
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195566
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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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1955135
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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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1955106
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—Pretty tulips, said the woman.
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195574
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Juniper Mélange was a cat person, not a dog person. Truly detested when she perceived falseness in another person. She wore glasses and drank tea. Had dark straight hair and light skin. She dressed conservatively and would watch the sky most days. She wou
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195511
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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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195500
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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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195532
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‘Hmph! Dream indeed! “Past the wit of man to say what dream it was” - the man's a knotty-pated arse.' The old master-weaver spat into the fire, his rheumy eyes bright with contempt, then looked round furtively; Nathaniel was not yet returned,…
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195522
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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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195410
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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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195460
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“In the process, I’ve created this memory track. Yet had the sense that I had to make fixed memories move as illusion, that they move as illusion.”
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19541415
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There he was, naked and covered in green mud
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195422
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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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195442
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To write a good poem, one needs nothing but the whole intent of goodness.
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195311
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The red laser flashes. He asks if I have an Ace Rewards card. I can't even answer because my beans have stopped jumping. I wonder if the laser light harmed them. Then one jumps and another, and I hand the boy some money, suddenly very fond of my beans.
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19531110
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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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1953169
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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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195320
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She’s right there in Thirsty’s. In her usual spot. Drinking her usual drink. Yuengling on tap. One after another.
And he’s there too. Behind the bar. Pouring drinks. One after another.
Sometimes they speak. But mostly she orders. He pours. And
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