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The Signal

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I take the plastic off of the last videotape and stick it in the VCR. I make sure the channel is on 6. Still a commercial. I get my notebook, turn it to the next page and write today's date on top. I get ready. I don't really like the back and forth banter the other news…

Paperclip

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The Americans don't want us. They want knowledge. They want to eat with us. They want technology and weapons. They want the results of research they themselves are too craven to perform, answers to questions they ask themselves in whispers, in the dark. T

Criminals

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What about the goons? Those criminals thwarted and left for dead in every action movie for the past thirty years. I'm sure at least a dozen survived the slaughters. I'm sure at least one or two came out if it reformed. This one who quit working for Columbian drug smugglers…

Verboten

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Scales were installed on station platforms. Those who were overweight were turned away

The Edge of Night

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The night wrapped its arms around us as we drove west, taking the highway past Medford towards Philly. The kids were asleep in the backseat and we were both counting the mile markers, staring out the windows with quiet eyes. I listened to the drone of the…

Pharaoh

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Altodog was dressed in filthy chef’s trousers and a long-sleeved purple dress shirt, somewhat dignified by a tattered black vest.

The Lake

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The Lake I. When the weather was nice, the fisherman and his girl spread a blanket over the shore's rough sand and watched the cargo ships cleave their way to the…

Dead Woman's Shoes

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Loving you, I always knew, was a job I’d only get via a dead woman’s shoes. There you were, the recipient of pot roasts, fresh bread, at a loss amongst neighbourhood widows and divorcees. A tide of them rolled over you in calico blouses, cut off jeans

SMOKE & MIRRORS

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These days I wear a flag pin.

The Dark

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Outlined against the thinly layered darkness of the room, there is a silhouette of a small boy with his feet pulled up to the chin, failing to hold its own against the thousand stares from the deep violating the stillness of his room, their long familiarity with the…

Scene from the Clinic

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No way to know why she's here, but scars and scabs can hold more information than a file or chart.

Security

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Her preferred post-coital activity is to pant, to suck in air with urgent greed.

Wrong Number

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"...just like you rehearsed..."

Clockwork

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At any moment, she'll come outside to pick up the day’s newspaper. He can see it resting beneath the blooming crape myrtle, its plastic wrapper glistening with dew.

Wandering Eye

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“If they look that good in shorts.” I warned him once, in a candid, humorous moment, “Then they’re probably too young for you to look at.”

Maritzer's Axiom

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We were just as bourgeois as Bloomingdale’s, one generation past canned ravioli dinners with cheap white bread.

Edward Ogle the Third

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Assimilated wheat germ integrated ant worm the capital of brazil.

A Little Bit of Syrup

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"I made up my mind then, in the backseat, sucking on a cherry Popsicle, that I wanted to be like Ruby’s mother..."

One Regrettable Talent for Tragedy

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Vandalina embarked on her career of serious dramatic roles to widespread acclaim, her depth of feeling and potency of delivery winning her thunderous ovations and gushing reviews . . .

Fin

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She doesn’t answer. Ten minutes slide by unmolested in the anesthesia of cheap wine and resignation, the bouncers blurring and unblurring, the room dimming, quieting, the kaleidoscope of sundown giving way to the gentle sadness of candlelight.

Collision

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That black hole isn't really a hole.

Water, Water Everywhere

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Later I asked Mark if he wanted to watch, but his wife wouldn’t let him. She didn’t like kinky stuff, she said.

77 Words About Saturday

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Another Saturday in April. Another set of scars.

PTSD

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My therapist told me I have post traumatic stress disorder My uncle had that He fought in the war I guess I fought in my own kind Not between countries Between children and father Between husband and wife Between addiction and sobriety When my father got…

Refuge

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cotton balls in your ears do not deafen you to the rocking of your mother's bed...as she and the new uncle set forth on the turbulent sea of their maiden voyage.

Creator

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What purpose other than misery/ can cancer serve? And Parkinson's,/ AIDS, and STDs?

Understudy

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All young and loud and big and I swear her face like a lighthouse lamp, glowing—I remember thinking, ‘She’s drunk at nine in the morning.’

Storage Access Framework

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At first we thought metadata rich, non-hierarchical, network based, multi-provider filesystems were our future. An arduous journey but well worth the efforts for the beforehand unimaginable user experiences enabled by new technologies that thereupon displaced the…

The Moral of This Story Is

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Always take the train.

Crackle

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As he brushes his shoulders against other people's shoulders until he almost has no shoulders –