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Billionaire* Consternation - a play in three acts

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Is it you with that fucking gold and platinum yacht?!?

Inconstant Nature

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I think for a second that I should have called my husband out to witness this thing, but I am instantly made aware of why I have not.

Just leave it and get out.

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The money stank on the table. Money is dirty she said, one of the dirtiest things. So many people touch it. This pile of brine would not explain its reek, only demanded that we accepted its stench as requisite. It had to have been the cash that stank, prior to its arrival…

Wild Dreams of Reality, 12

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I went out behind Parker's house and saw Darrell's tent set up in the grass. The flaps of the pup tent were open. I could see him through the mosquito netting. He had a Coleman lamp burning and lay on his back in his underwear on top of his sleeping bag.

Charlotte and the Avalanche of Hope

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”My goodness how that child nurses hope,” Edward’s Grandad would often say, “were it not for her where indeed would this family be?”

Where I work you cannot see the sun.

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Where I work people use words like leverage. They do not appear to denote anything.

Book of Genesis

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Almost to the elevation of regret.

Darkroom Tech

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Entering that darkroom is like slipping through the barrel of a rifle.

Hart Crane Pantoum No. 1

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One must be drenched in words.

Life Experience

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Karen likes to make a big deal about life experience. Specifically how much more she has than me. What that actually means, she's never made clear. The definition changes and mutates as the years go by, always in her…

Five Being Ten at the New Afterlife Dance Theatre

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We got our holes in our hearts bundled onto soft wrapping cloth just like the gentleman on TV said; with smiles we set out towards our matching end of the same old stories. That's just the way…

Where is Love?

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I didn’t always have this metal thing poking out of the top of my head. I used to be a self-respecting farm animal amongst a barnyard of toys, but then the kids grew up.

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 2: In Which Spousal Abuse May Occur

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The separation—the plan—had been a long time coming. After years of fighting and therapy and apologizing and, finally, silence, their marriage was about to die of exhaustion.

Museum of Everything

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It is the monad.

Istanbul

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They are plastering on lipstick in pay-to-enter toilets around the corner from the mosques, where old men sit on back streets selling toilet seats, spices by the shovel, flashlights, and Audrey Hepburn t-shirts

Bookends of a Life: II

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The clacking ventilator reminds me of ice cubes rattling in your highball...

Buzzkill.

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[EXPLETIVE DELETED]

Mount Baldy

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The most beautiful possible thing is to deprive all places of their meanings.

Nest

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He spends his Sunday morning spraying WD-40 through the straw-like stream attachment at the expansive paper nest of beige and ivory striped wasps.

A Body Divided, 3

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A group of nuns arrived in the middle of my first night at Hinsdale Hospital. I guess I must have dozed off when this odd noise, like curtains being moved, woke me up. At first I couldn't make out what that rustling sound was in the hallway outside my doo

In the North Woods (or, The War of Art)

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For the residents of Oak Morrow, entropy is an art form. They break their own windows and crash their cars into their living rooms. Grannies and pets can usually scoot out of the way before they’re crushed under the juggernaut of creativity.

Why We Were Arrested

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We have a responsibility,” she says, “to enrich our local business community while delivering quality products to customers.” She had brought over some application forms for the Better Business Bureau, and we sit at the big table and fill them out, marki

Road Trip

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I threw my hand / at the gearshift/ the car glided off.

Ricky's Condition

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At first it was just holding hands and talking about Ricky's condition. Then it was leaning into each other on the sofa, Ben whispering my name into my hair, me wanting to put my hand on his thigh.

SWAMPLANDS by Paul D. Brazill

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Elvis awoke in a cold, dank sweat, hungover from bourbon and bad dreams.

I Wish I Could Say This to Your Face

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The day you came home, after three extended tours in Afghanistan, I wanted to welcome you at the bus station, but I was afraid you'd attach yourself to me again.

Christmas Magic

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You know what parents have to do to get an Xbox? They don't just stand in line and someone hands them an Xbox, OK? That's sacrifice. They have to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice. I mean, I chase alpacas a mile every night in subfreezing conditions,

Mind Your Inspiration

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Be careful when you choose your muse, for she may be a siren.

Motley Crew

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Paul had come to Hawaii, like many young haoles from the mainland, to party. Partying proved to be lucrative for him. By early October 1982 he had done well for himself in Hawaii, living in a country house with sprawling lawns that held back the jungle foliage…

Another "Accidental" Tryst

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She smacked his back a couple of times with the flat of her hand