1666 4 3
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Except for the bathroom stalls—you know the one that goes “Here I sit all broken-hearted”—the only poetry in the house is composed by Hazel, recited to her fawning sycophants.
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166600
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“Hello, Cheryl” the voice on the other end of the phone replied. It was strong but raspy, yet quiet and controlled. The fellow sounded like he had a frog in his throat.
“How do you know my name?” she asked.
“I know a lot of things about y
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166611
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she knows that's the natural place of a man, above everything, closest to god, eyes slowly filling with rain.
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166622
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Why yes I began writing this, my bildungsroman, Who is Mitsy Jackson, in spring, 1974 or thereabouts, and thank you so much for asking.
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166687
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tumbling for you from afar as close-up. They will rewrite your dancing form like a proper magical spell on all their maddest days, using the branches of cherished trees dipped into the trapped wells of certain hosts of …
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166663
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It was only a dream. No one died, nor were they even harmed. So horrifying!
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166600
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Jumping from roof to roof, Keiko and Rumiko remained quiet after hearing Mayumi’s story. They saw the shrine ahead but they knew they were going to run out of buildings to stay above.
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166676
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Regime is elected officials ignoring constituents, ignoring protestors, ignoring history
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166620
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One day when they were sitting on the curb together at 4th Street and Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa and Joe was calling out to passers by in a singsong voice, “Spare change for cigs,” she had persuaded them that they should try to join the circus.
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1666118
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“The beginning was good. That’s what he likes. The moment when you’re driving in the open air and your hair is flying and your skirt is whipping up around your knees, and he’s smoking, of all things, and happy and looking at you."
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16661414
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I realize the kid is still smoking. Shocked, I tear the cigarette from his mouth, throw it to the earth, and grind it to death with the heel of my boot.
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166600
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THE LAST THING I WANTED, expected, or needed was to be standing in the doorway of Carly Ray's room, watching her clutch a picture of her father, my old friend Beryl, up to her face. She is so tiny, but at the same time there is something very adult about the way she looks.…
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166620
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And now, the weather. The Cloud Wranglers have roped three solid clouds this morning, preventing the clouds from raining iron bars onto Human Brain Storage Center #17.
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166664
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We bobbed and weaved using our words like the sniffs of two unfamiliar dogs in a Wal-mart parking lot. Wary, but sensing we could be more than just polite neighbors, once we got past the normal darkness of strangers. There was no plot to our story yet, but we both seemed to…
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166672
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Underwater your eyes collapseand your feet touch decayed leavesand soft sand at the lake's bottom, the texture of tenderized flesh,maybe an intestineYou spring to the surface tofind your skull met by waterflies, and their limbstweak your peaceOn the shore your…
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166676
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Despite what the bible says, Shadrach and Meshach had no third brother named Abednego. To pay for his cello lessons, Yo-Yo Ma worked the subways of New York as a busker. Just chill. After Sal went into witness protection, he yearned for a job at the art…
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16661612
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He was losing his fight with
malaria, but you would never
know it from his dreams
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166644
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I imagine diving into a vat of dried fruit, enjoying the unmistakable sweetness in each shriveled morsel, until I find myself biting into an undetected metal shard.
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166564
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His face was creased with sadness the first time in the room and he danced his tai chi like a young man half his age, and laughed, like headtrippers do, from the neck up.
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166543
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The print is not ideal, it's true.
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166563
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"Eye contact is essential as it shows confidence. I walk with purpose and hope that my skirt isn’t too short. "
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1665108
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After his chemotherapy failed, he went water skiing.
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166542
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Although badly educated, and although the Michoacána fought to deny it, she held the complex notion that borders are not abrupt lines, simple artifacts of geography and cartography.
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1665158
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Susan said since her divorce three years ago there have been too many Jacks in her life. Seven, if she counted that older guy. She knew that now. Too many. It was the name and little else that drew her to men. She told me the name alone was like Pavlov's bell. It…
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166597
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166511
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Roanne hungered. Memory had ruled her forever. Shards really, edged like machetes: daddy, whose fingers had eyes in the dark. Momma, ensconced in the shadows. Inside the church, those pairs of short…
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1665136
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It wasn't so much the softness of the bed that kept her from sleep, or the pungent bleach-scent of the unfamiliar sheets, but the lack of her clock's familiar tick, tick, tick. Or was it a missing heartbeat? Awake, she watched his chest. On the table, an empty pill …
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166500
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Tadd Dameron once described himself as “the most misplaced musician in the business,” and one needn’t call the missing persons bureau to determine that he may have been right.
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16651312
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My eyes hold my mother. It's not easy being human she tells me. She always told me. Sure, but the stories are lovely. We all know that. We generate the tales, tell the tales, kiss our children. Live on in their eyes, though, don't…
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166510
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I was shooting baskets in the driveway when the Mexican kid delivered the groceries. He drove in fast and loud . . .
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