1596 6 5
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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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159600
|
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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159671
|
Emma Louise is walking over a concrete bridge when she spies, out of the corner of her eye, a man fishing, waist deep, in the river tumbling below. She is thinking that the water must be very cold on this autumn day, when she sees an extraordinary thing.
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159600
|
The artist leans back in his chair, smoking a cigarette
after lunch, looking away from the table toward the right
He is dressed in white, and he's practically stretched out
his entire length, to relax after rowing the boat all
morning. Sunlight
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159654
|
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.
|
159651
|
He was choking on the fumes.
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159600
|
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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159671
|
There was an empty box on his facebook page asking to be filled in with, “What’s on your mind?” He thought. "Hair?"
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159641
|
"His middle name is Valentine, and when asked about it, he isn't sure why."
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159611
|
“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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159600
|
She didn’t think of herself as an undesirable, no, she didn’t, but did find herself cowering in face of the presumed judgment of those around her. They had more money, more clout, more everything.
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159585
|
Snipers wear camouflage clothing to avoid being seen. It wouldn’t do for a sniper to be seen because then the sniper might become the snipee.
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159574
|
They found it naught however as it was lost at metro stops, canceled appointments and in ever dimming light that failed to reflect what was instead of what could have been.
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159576
|
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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159510
|
It was the middle of May when I found out my teacher was screwing my mother.
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159598
|
Everybody called her The Crier because from time to time we would hear her crying.
|
159511
|
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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159511
|
Zorro lived in his mother’s basement until he could get back on his feet.
|
159544
|
unwrapping
the gauze from her wrists....
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15951410
|
Microscopic purposes emerged//
with their combinations and permutations
|
159577
|
A new philosophy stirs in its surgery.
|
159594
|
In this lab, where I work 40 hours a week,
live the ghosts of questions asked.
|
159531
|
“Let me in,” I begged.
“No. Get back stinky feet.”
“I washed them.”
|
159543
|
The Rapture comes and goes unannounced in carbonated soda bubbles spicing the air.
|
159575
|
One day it was boring / to be alive.
|
1594105
|
salmon sits gentler on my palate
|
159452
|
Jojo dolls & basketballs
a mindflex & pick-up sticks
Parcheesi and—no, not Parcheesi
a supersoaker, a Care Bear
|
159471
|
Things don't always go to plan. Gem knew what people would have said back then, of course. She wasn't stupid.
|
159400
|
Crack open the roof-- raise the battery on a platform with chains
up into the lightning
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1594118
|
“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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