1757 3 3
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The next thing we knew, the KGB started tailing us everywhere we went. They must have heard about Lenin’s Paintings, was all we could figure. Because, what if they were real?
That night we went out to a pizza place where we saw the worst graffiti in t
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1757 22 10
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Let’s play a game. I’m thinking of a word.
Do we have to?
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1757 2 0
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His velvet mouth, shaped perfectly to intertwine with hers, teases the space between them until its caress finds her.
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1757 7 4
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1757 4 3
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He’d tossed and turned all night, pondering what to do, afraid she was living alone. He’d decided to email her two words: “Love you” and signed it “Scary Sal,” as she’d always seemed so afraid of him.
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1757 3 2
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You are walking through a canyon made of shelving units lined with colorful masterpieces of three-dimensional minimalist design
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1757 0 0
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I blinked the darkness out of my eyes and saw the man again; I could smell his breath. Just like dad’s. I must have fallen asleep. My eyes felt so heavy. I was cold. Why was I cold?
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1757 0 0
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Everyone else in the bar was looking everywhere else: it was as though they were alone while Journey played loudly all around. “Streetlights, people,” she sang. Time didn't move. What she must be like while driving, singing to herself with the windows fog
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1757 6 5
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1757 5 3
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Smoking is like hooking up with an ex-girlfriend: you know she's bad for you and that it won't work out, but it feels so familiar and comfortable and so easy to slide back into.
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1757 3 1
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1757 2 0
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He slumped forward, drooling into his lap.
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1757 4 2
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I imagined the crystals in my mouth.
Salt flowers blooming on my tongue.
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1756 7 6
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Scavenge at that address only if you feel possessed of great courage, a profound faith in resurrection or reincarnation, or an impatient desire for a premature date with certain death.
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1756 2 2
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I remember thinking the seasons are arriving later every year,
as if the world has been slowed by the weight of graves.
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1756 2 1
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‘Miguel! A pint of Guinness, please!'
I might as well have asked for his mother's immortal soul. A smile as benign as a stiletto. But he served a clean and tidy pint.
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1756 6 5
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There’s a hole in my sock, just large enough that my big toe keeps slipping out.
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1756 8 5
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I didn’t question any of it and instead sat motionless as she dropped my wrists and walked away seconds later.
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1756 3 3
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He was a sushi chef, and he would spend hours in their kitchen practicing his knife skills, and the speed with which he can put that there and this in that and so on; and she would see him on the floor most mornings, still wearing that dirty, tattered ban
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1756 0 0
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The museum’s catalog description changed much less than the painting over those years. He wasn’t curator-in-chief of catalog descriptions, however, that task went to a curator arriving by another door.
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1756 7 6
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She tells me I have to face the fact that I have the heart of the Tin Man. I know the story. He had none. She is very sensitive and I have to measure my remarks because words bruise her so easily. So, I…
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1756 5 4
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Quail looked up at her. Unsmiling, challenging.
Lemme just go wash my hands, he said.
She closed the door, bolted it. You won’t need your hands.
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1756 2 0
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Last night aliens invaded our dishwasher.
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1755 1 1
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[CAUTION: IF YOU ARE UNDULY "FIXATED" ON GOD, AMERICA, MOM, APPLE PIE, AND/OR BASEBALL ... YOU MAY WANT TO AVERT YOUR EYES!]
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1755 18 13
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Taken by agents of the United States of America, Felix Six-Killer grows up at the Carlisle Indian School near Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. His hair is cut and oiled. His shirts are starched and creased. For months he is startled to find himself seated for…
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1755 8 2
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Entering that darkroom is like slipping through the barrel of a rifle.
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1755 9 6
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I have always admired flat-chested women.
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1755 1 1
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Only ever been twelve men on the moon. And one cheese.
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1755 15 16
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He didn't hide it. He told her he was a mortician when he called. He had responded to her ad in the Lonely Hearts section of the newspaper.
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1755 1 0
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Leda looks back over her shoulder at us as the swan
grips her from behind while at the same time nipping at
the nape of her neck. She's a freckled child and
a little frightened. There's a dark smudge beneath her eye
where the shadow runs. The swan
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