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He went to the switchboard and rang one of the rooms. I moved away to a discreet distance so he could make his pitch in private, and soon he came back to the desk front. "He d-didn't like it much, b-but he said to s-send you up. Room 412."
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186910
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And so the man-faced boy grew alone, knowing little of kindness and love. As he grew, he explored the limits of his cold world; crawling in dusty nappies, toddling in hand-me-down rags, at last walking on worn sandals, haunting the edges of human life loo
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1869118
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In the morning, I lay on my side and ran a finger down the girl’s back, lightly tracing her spine. I remarked on the whiteness of her skin.
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186830
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186888
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and I can't help it if it is. I know it won't stay that way for long, but for now that's all I've got to work with, shining in my window, made of all eight fingers and a couple of thumbs. But the latest pushy words still want to give…
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18681211
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I peed on Rick’s toothbrush. I nearly repented and cleansed it with hydrogen peroxide in the middle of the night. But I didn’t.
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186844
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A man jumped off the High Level Bridge this morning.
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18681910
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The jail, where I stayed for 48 hours, gave me enough information to write a 180-page book, something I resisted setting out upon due to the insult of it.
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18682410
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Clayton had a grin like the hand of a beast that stretched as long as her gravel road...
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186822
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Jacob could tell it was a man he had just walked past, a broken man with an olive green Vietnam era military jacket, a man who had probably served his country as honorably as anyone chosen at lottery and forced to kill for a subsistence wage…
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186863
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Marlene smiles at me with her lips pressed together. The young girl standing with her can't be more than fourteen or fifteen although she is tall for her age. She too smiles. She has an intricate set of braces on her teeth. I can't tell if Marlene has teeth
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186821
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People crawling up out of the chimney, then onto the roof, then sliding down it and off over the edge disappearing from view.
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186820
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She suggested just moving in together. A lot less constrained by convention she, on occasion, did not wear a bra.
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1868119
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What if I never feel like a real artist? What does it even mean to be a "real" artist? What if nobody ever cares about what I make?
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186720
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The plan was this: We would take our first vacation. My husband and I would take our 2 ½-year-old son Ethan and 13-month-old son Jonas to Mystic, Connecticut, a 90 minute drive from our home outside of Boston. We would stay at the Hilton, which was right near the Aquarium,…
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186776
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I'm a librarian. A reader. I identify as a four-eyed person. I've always worn glasses. I got my first pair in the second grade. It was a miracle! The blurry world I'd inhabited all my life suddenly came into focus. I could see the blackboard! I could read street signs! I…
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186730
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They sprinkled me in the holes of Auburn Maine. They covered me in grain, and salmon colored sand. My shell had swirls of chartreuse, and chocolate painted on it. I was made from glass and Gods left eye. Picked and sorted through, we all landed into a tiny paper bag…
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Her wrinkles came into focus, the sort of old woman's face photographed for coffee tables and art galleries and corporate boardrooms, for prize juries and grant selection committees, and Luc searched his formidable memory for an exact match. Over the long, tedious…
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1867116
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She thinks she trusts this man; she wants to trust him. His face reminds her of a man who once took care of her on an airplane when she was a kid traveling by herself.
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186755
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After shooing away the filthy pigeons and closely inspecting the bench, he squinted with his good eye at a second-page article on noise abatement headphones.
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186700
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The desk calendar was brilliant, unused. The problems with it didn't begin until March.
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186700
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Once upon a time, not so long ago in Los Angeles, Jack and Jill Woodman’s father remarried.
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18662517
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18661513
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I'm still working on this. I'm always open to your thoughts.
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186600
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"Dude!" James smacked Peter's head. "Don't be a jerk. Did you get a look at her or not?"
Peter said, "I didn't really see her face. Is she hot? Do you wanna kiss her face?"
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186621
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Tara was so tired. The bus connection was off again, and her ankles were so swollen. Maybe it was the heat, the humidity, she wasn't sure… but things were definitely getting worse. She sighed. At least the bus shelter had an empty spot on the bench, so as she…
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186600
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you choose to be mine
when you take hold of my hand -
silently, i'm yours
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186631
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The weird thing was that standing here with himself, or what appeared to be himself, he had got so self-conscious that it was almost paralyzing.
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186510
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"I read a cute animal story yesterday," I tell them. "And I was filled with rage. I can't live like this. There must be no more bears, or hamster-bears, or manatees, being hopeless and depressed. There must be no more cute animal stories—ever."
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186500
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He was arrested for a horrible crime. It took more than three weeks to identify the body. The newspapers were vague so as not to terrify anyone. He hung his head low as he pled guilty.
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