1675 7 4
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"Merry Christmas, Willie."
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167564
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To hear my name, called out across the Roman stones on a bridge in Regensburg through the languid March drizzle,
was to breathe again as my head burst through the water.
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167566
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He begins talking about string theory. He reels me back in, from the dinosaurs to the infinite, human evolution and alternate dimensions, until it makes so little sense that everything makes sense.
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1675138
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A lifeboat came by in the night,
And I finally saw we were sinking.
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167520
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Alysia stretched her left hand out at Kurai, and the electricity connected with her fingertips like beacon.
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167411
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He thought the scarab was bad luck. I knew too little about omens to argue.
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167421
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But Von Rotten was up in Penny’s room right this minute, either banging her or haranguing her, or worse, both. I envisioned him with her, and my guts began twisting and turning, and my insides fell into my shoes. What had I done? She was being held capt
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167432
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The man who plays his flute every day under the archway near Powell station is not very good. He never plays a real tune, just a series of random notes. There is no rhythm or melody either. In fact, it's not even a flute he…
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167430
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"Every single thing ... " Hunk Hokum pronounced from the stage, flexing his muscles and prancing around in his red pseudo-loincloth, "has been totally scripted ... and ... every action ... has been ... preplanned-out ... in advance!"
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167432
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Matthias Fenstermacher loved onions, but hated slicing them, and so he labored to produce a tearless variety. His first attempt was indeed tearless--instead of weeping, the slicer was overcome by fits of uncontrollable giggles. The potential hazard was
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167484
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They knew every word.
They knew EVERY word!
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167433
|
She went up first, I followed, a respectful three paces behind. Now, I know what you’re thinking: I was perfectly placed to steal a quick, if innocent, glance, and she would never see. The house is a center hall colonial, and there are no mirrors on the s
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1674119
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"Jesus was a zombie?" I ask, shocked.
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167442
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{A} So I think maybe I am a robot. If I was a robot, I would do lewd things, metallic (cold, hard, shiny, heavy, malleable, loud, acrid, industrial, immovable, unstoppable) things. I would do the things I do in my dark powerless dreams. People would understand and…
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167432
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A true Rowdies fan begins every conversation about the band with a legend. She would be impressed if he knew the story.
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167411
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Normally I would have never drank such a wine, but it was late on a Friday evening and the bottle was on the house...
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167400
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All I know about the futureis that every one alwaysgets to exactly where they are.
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167453
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Our mothers died in childbirth. Taken in by the village, our new mothers taught us to wave at the river boats, to sell our trinkets to tourists. They offered us coins of a foreign currency and little pathetic smiles. By nightfall, our fingers bled. Then came…
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167456
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In Your Absence the yard-cat, Flower, has started sleeping on top of the fridge
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167365
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He was a beautiful older man, late sixties, who reminded me of a movie star with a thick mane of silver hair parted neatly from left to right and eyes the color of that stretch of Pacific Ocean between San Pedro and Catalina Island, the calming blue of a carefree weekend…
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167333
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Stop! the voice commands in a guttural shriek. Do not move. You are under arrest. But the voice is only in his head; he has created it the way a writer creates characters on a page, and it is just as real to him as if someone were really there.
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167330
|
She burst
Into the glass shop
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167300
|
Such behavior will result in no disciplinary action only: 1) if all blinds are drawn; 2) all doors are locked; and 3) loud groaning is masked by appropriate use of the volume control on the classroom’s closed-circuit TV set.
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1673188
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I told him he was just paying for his sins. He gave me a look. "Why me?" he asked.
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167332
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That black hole isn't really a hole.
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167334
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My people rested naked sandwiches on the arms of chairs, and always had an open saucer with half melted butter, a block of Velveeta cheese in the freezer, an open rice cooker.
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167364
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When I was 17, they said in an e-mail that you would get too drunk to function and that you would abuse them, verbally, and do way more than embarrass them in public. They said you'd yell at them and hit their mom for any reason. They put a restraining order on you.…
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167342
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It wasn't hidden, exactly, but kept in a place where she wouldn't be expected to look: a photograph of Roger, naked and supine, looking at the camera without surprise.
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167311
|
Seventeen-year cicadas are the sometimes-singers that surprise spring with the ugliest mouths of all.
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167353
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The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue just came out, and all over America librarians are flipping through its pages and rolling their eyes. The swimsuit issue, which isn't actually about swimwear at all, but, is, instead, about young, beautifully shaped female…
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