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Arcana Magi - c.27: Hard Battle

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A burst of mud spilled out over Jonas and scooped his body up like a raging river. It spun his body over in a rebound rather than pushing him through the door.

THE MOON, THE SUN, AND RYAN W. BRADLEY (not quite a fortune-telling)

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“That’s just Ryan W. Bradley—son of a bitch knows better by now.”

The Unpublished Writer and His Love Interest (The Painter)

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When the writer expressed with subtle alacrity that he adored the painter, she was flattered and didn't raise objection. The writer-in his aloof manner, with experienced caution-pointedly wrote a poem directly for his muse. She never spoke of it, and hi

Buoyancy

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When I ate with my girls, Bliss and Victoria, I would lift my head up and look at us eating until I could imagine him chiding me. “Our daughters are looking more and more like you each day,” he’d say. “Fat!” I didn’t feel like eating when I thought abo

I Like You ‘Cause You Like Me

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And you don't like much. No handholding or brand name sweaters. No phone calls late at night. This is not you. And you certainly don't go for kisses in the rain or cards from the grocery store with…

Frostproof Suite: Saint John’s Eve

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Everyone at the Bermudez Brothers Combined Shows and Circus held one low opinion or another about Jimmy Dubcek.

What The Hell Nationality Are You?

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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

Letter to the Bean Factory

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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

Wednesdays They Pay Us, But Now It's Thursday

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fire rolls through the drive-thru

Zombies Calling

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The zombie apocalypse was long foretold as a rather exciting bit of bother involving shotguns and chainsaws, but the reality of it is rather depressingly boring.

The Celebrity

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"He doesn't have a parish," I said. "He works in a hospital in the East Bay. He told me that if I were in that hospital and I woke up and saw him, I was in big trouble."

Do you dream?

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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.

Only a Memory Away

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When Uncle Dan got sent to the Alzheimer's ward, the ladies licked their lips. Fresh meat.

77 Words About Nothing (Triad)

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My mind has started to finish thoughts at 77 Words. These are just a few.

The Crickets Try to Organize Themselves Into Some Raucous Pentameter.

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A secret search rolled from Odette's eyes. A gulch split her down the middle and she had the world believing this was the way she liked it. Odette was a woman who spent entire days bending backward within herself, never letting on that she was…

A Bear Story

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In the spring, my father would dress for class in a bear costume and chase students around campus.

To the Bonfire Rhumba (ELECTRIC DELIRIUM 1.9)

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The night is a jelly slosh, a fertile rumble, a rhumba, black and seeping, thick. An arm rises.

The Woman Who Cut Down Her Husband

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The woman carried a wooden log which was her husband into the house.

Birth and Death of a Concrete Icon

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Homer relaxes in his tan, faded recliner, remote in hand, and watches death unfold on his television.

Perversion

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“It’s a sad thing,” I said, “when a man has to suffer just for getting a little on the side.”

Mud

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People ask me sometimes what it’s like to meet your wife when you’re six years old, and I have to admit now that I don’t really understand the question. Marla and I, we were just friends for most of that time. She made me laugh. I let her crib off my math

Wild Garden

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Even though it was late November, it still bloomed. Extravagantly. Obviously it had no shame, obviously it reveled in its own beauty.

Relativity

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It seems every time we get together, Seiko is there. She just started working in Keiko's department and now they're always together. I think Keiko feels responsible for Seiko. Like if Seiko's not getting any, it's bad manners for Keiko to do it.

A New Notion about an Old Story

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A dark girl, quite poor, maybe three, maybe four, leaned on a statue of a horse and his man. (The rider rode him in place, but as if in a race.) Her dress needed patching, her heart needed smoothing. She'd tried to sell…

The Strongest Girl in the World

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At the edge of the forest, his sister began to complain about how everybody—their mother and father and all of her friends included—hated her. It was exasperating, the light she sometimes put herself in. The fact of the matter was that she received more

MY BOYFRIEND WAS A LUNATIC

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Had I scoured all five boroughs of New York I couldn’t have found a more perfect imperfect object for my affections. Morgan was crazy as a loon, with the common sense of a mackerel and the emotional stability of a canary. But believing love could conquer

A House Made of Stars

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My cousin had put them up last year, showed me when we stood on her bed as her fingers pointed, traced over the outlines, then turned out the lights, so that I could see them glow.

Oversleeping & Getting in Trouble for It

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A few people bristled and looked at Jim, but since he was avoiding their gaze, they had no choice but to return their attention to their own table and pretend to pay attention to the conversation they previously had been pretending to pay attention to.

Tradition and the Individual Talent

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Wee-wee-sweet-pea me? I live, I weep, a third of me passed in sleep, start a scene or two, play and dance the fool, …

Jumping Beans

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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.