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The night is very clear and unusually cold. We are so near to the star that its light banishes the darkness that tries futilely to extinguish it. A small village twinkles in the foothills to our east. The cry of a lost sheep cuts the night like a blade
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159411
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Zorro lived in his mother’s basement until he could get back on his feet.
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159430
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159400
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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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159497
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Out in the world again, pretending to belong.
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159464
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Harpo was there with his wife. Harpo’s girlfriend came up behind the couch where I was sitting, and I ran my hand up her leg underneath her dress.
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159443
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The Rapture comes and goes unannounced in carbonated soda bubbles spicing the air.
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15942714
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159355
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Innocent victims know their tonsils. Or know the sound of their forceful removal. Their mangled beauty is the grain that has gracefully substituted all the limb-hacking. The creature used to have a friend whose gestures were very harmless, …
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159376
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I read it all wrong. In writing her novel, I thought Marilynne Robinson was writing about twins — writing, in some way, about me. Instead, these characters, Lucille and Ruthie, were standard sisters, one older than the other. In fact, Robinson explains th
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15931815
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When I first met Luther he was sitting on the sidewalk, his back pushed up against a vacant storefront wall, thumbing through the “help wanted” section of a few-days-old copy of our local paper and I was moved to offer him a couple of dollars for which he said,…
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159310
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It was the middle of May when I found out my teacher was screwing my mother.
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159365
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Ivan was used to explosions, but this was high in the sky. He was on his back between tall sunflowers that grew infinitely in all directions. The blast made the flowers bow their heads. Bits of debris fell from the blue sky, some shiny, trailing fire or smoke. The boy…
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159371
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Things don't always go to plan. Gem knew what people would have said back then, of course. She wasn't stupid.
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159377
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I wondered if Mr. Slane even knew/
how many dogs he owned
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159300
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Crack open the roof-- raise the battery on a platform with chains
up into the lightning
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159354
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She allowed him to wash her hair. Touching it in a wet state, running his hands through it in a soapy state, wringing the water out when he was finished—he was ecstatic.
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159343
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Her back turned, she wanders off
searching for the way home
wringing her hands,
trying to think, but thoughts
evade her.
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15931410
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In those years,
you and I were told to leap
for a world suffused with sound
and industry.
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159344
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unwrapping
the gauze from her wrists....
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15931410
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Microscopic purposes emerged//
with their combinations and permutations
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159331
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“Let me in,” I begged.
“No. Get back stinky feet.”
“I washed them.”
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15931211
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After my vasectomy, I got a T-shirt with a picture of an orange on it. It said "All Juice, No Seeds."
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159322
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159221
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my maddening pyromaniac,/ you're burning up my heart/ so open up your broad-toothed mouth/ and let me pour the ashes in.
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159200
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Caster had always imagined the Consensus as a big room, as big as the world, filled with white space and people with quantum wings, flitting about, creating information. There were tinted bubbles for people to share for privacy, and the lights never went
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159212
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What a beautiful day it was, what a wonderful day to lose one's mind. This is what you think going into it, that it is all a wonderful dream come true, and sure I'll have my hands full, but at the end of the day it will be worth something. If I hang in long enough,…
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159241
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"His middle name is Valentine, and when asked about it, he isn't sure why."
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1592107
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I wander toward the midnight dock
a neon sine curve stabs my eyes
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159211
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“We know you’re in there, motherfucker. Step out, slowly, and we might keep you fit for an open casket funeral."
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