1582 1 0
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Shh!
What?
The downstairs neighbors. They’re at it again.
What?
It’s the weekend? They’re both home?
Oh.
Remember?
I think so. Sort of.
Shh!
What’s that grunting?
He must be doing the heavy lifting.
Sounds like he’s hurt
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158221
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Miriam forced herself to focus on the kitchen door and on putting one foot in front of the other.
“Is everything alright?” she heard Ada ask the family.
“Of course, everything is fine,” the woman said. “What could be wrong other than the impossible serv
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158276
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Uh oh, the dry cleaning ticket
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158210
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Sophie hoped that Ryan would just stay in the bathroom and never come out. Her stomach turned just thinking about him, but wealthy nerds were easier to work than wealthy regular guys. No self-esteem, no experience with women…no problem.
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158133
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Her whole life was lived between high tide and low tide, moments of giggling grandeur and moments of sheer emptiness.
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15811510
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that guy/ MOSTLY understood / endings
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158154
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158111
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I held at my gut and immediately regretted laughing at Frank when he pulled the pocket-knife out on me. I doubled over and fell to the floor.
"John, was a typer all this important?" Frank asked, knife in hand.
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158111
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A rose and two dollars. Where did they come from? I didn't know anyone who had visited my parents' grave recently, yet that evening I saw a white rose on my mother's side and two bucks on my father's. I took the money and placed my own flowers with the rose. It had to have…
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158186
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...this dim and empty room, and behind a wall of glass a flag materialized, backlit and fluttering, and I am not saying what country's flag it was, just that it was a flag, that awesome symbol of the nation state and fervid jingoism...
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1581148
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She parks the car and trudges insidefor her daily visithoping that the new rouge hidesthe old tears.Five years now she has been comingto see himHe looks nothing like the pictures toanyone but her.They say she should go homeand rest, relaxShe doesn't know how…
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1581910
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She always wore a little smile. When she took off her robe, the class grew quiet.
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1581105
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My banker said, "We've millions we can spare,
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158121
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I knew nothing about the letter at first. When I came in that morning and smiled and said good morning, it was a genuine smile and a heartfelt good morning. But the letter, which had arrived the previous afternoon, was already doing its corrosive work of
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158132
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The trash is full. Again. I open the bathroom trash—because the diaper genie is stuffed—but there’s no room. I try the kitchen next. The lid swings open, catapulting carrot shavings onto the floor. I lay the diaper on the counter for later.
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158163
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If you're in an airport in the predawn hours, you are by definition a failure. You failed to make your flight; the airline gave you motel money but you're hoarding it
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15812315
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I am long of tooth, too, and when I go, maybe a box with my ashes inside will join the boxes containing the cats’ remains.
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158088
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1580179
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watch/
the second hand sweep
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1580108
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That's demeaning enough, but not as hard to take as the customers. They're all jaded hipsters, thumb diddling smartphone freaks, pretending their online interactions actually count as relationships and that “tweets” are real conversations. It's sad, reall
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158022
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I sat there, observing the city people. Frowns upon all our faces. The rain moistened my heart and journal. A blind family; a trio. They used their wands to lead the way.Their faces read joy but, most importantly, satisfaction.My envy filled the damp page.
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158073
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Where I went to college, you couldn’t swing a dead cat in a physics lab without hitting a Nobel laureate. I know–we tried. They finally made us stop–it wasn’t fair to the cat.
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158042
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There were three other guys on the bus. The landlord (or buslord) let us use the kitchen and bathroom in the house he shared with his wife. I rode into San José City College with the other guys, who were also taking classes there. I remember frigid autum
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158000
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A brief novel excerpt featuring two characters breaking out in song, with lines like 'Arabian knights dance sheikh to sheikh.'
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1580104
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Digging in another garden, jumping into another space and time, I impaled a toad on the tines of a garden fork. At first I thought the toad was a clump of clay, stuck to the thick tine, but before I could kick the clay off with my…
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158033
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I remember mad strong words out of a teenager, fresh from the shower without a blouse: First! He will be my age, period! He will be the first to walk me to my room as my fear crashes to earth, final, considered.
And I will be the first to milk the w
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158084
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I had to kill someone today. Do not be alarmed, she was only real to me.
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158032
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We love the sparkling, speckless, spotless, spic-n-span, sanitary.
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158031
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“She never knew her, you know?”
Chief Jack Gardner, retired, said to the duty officer absently, thumbing a well-worn photo in his rough calloused hands. His gravelly voice cracked a bit when he said it, catching his throat.
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15801911
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I'm just a rental dog myself
looking for the guardian of starlight
peeing on the expired parking meters
and barking up all the wrong trees.
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