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The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 17

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The next day we were sitting at that same outdoor café on the square, trying to savor a peaceful meal of duck plucked fresh from the Vltava River, when the very same waiter passed by and said, “Bet you wish you had some peeg now, no?” There were camer

2001, What I Wanted

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feet that would run until their soles were pages of Gideon’s Bibles, worn too thin to touch

Winter '69

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One minute Rudy was sitting up close to me, asking me how could Geppetto make a little boy out of a piece of wood, and the next, Steve was pounding up the stairs, yelling, "Carla, get blankets, warm clothes; we're leaving, we won't be back."

The Code of Hammurabi

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We pull up chairs. I breathe in her Bath and Body Works vanilla, read her paper slowly and aloud because the ears catch what the eyes miss. Her sentences are awkward, stilted.

Man, Ending

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The man had decided that this was going to be his last day. He’d find out one final thing and he’d be done. He had spent the last few years of his life unwinding things that had been wound and untying knots that had been tied.

Same Old Song and Dance

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You want to get laid talking socks

Should Have Gotten Delivery Instead

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My mind raced at the endless possibilities one could die while driving to get a pizza.

Summer, 1995.

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I am no different to her, living seven days ahead of myself, looking forward to looking back, as we Irish do so fondly

By Derangement of All Our Senses

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We will collapse in a storm of images

Alternate Tale

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Suppose Eve, strolling through the sunlit Garden, had not stumbled on that particular Tree at all, the wily serpent twined in its lower branches?

Crazy Later

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A year ago, my neighbor was a sexy graduate student in fashion design, sounds perhaps shabby, yet if it is, then we in the Middle West are all shabby. That girl's father graduated from high school with Bob Dylan in Hibbing, not entitling her to a child.

Blackout

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The blackout lasted longer than anyone thought. From my fifth story window, the whole city seemed to shut down. I heard noises above me. How could it be?

Mariposa

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He would not take Prozac and talked Jesus to her as if from a bucket.

My Latest Failure

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Jason, the obnoxious host, thrusts his microphone against my nose.

The Eleventh Brother, After the Swan

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I turned a maiden to a witch / and back again

The Ageing Beaver

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This was just noise now – pure, raw noise, grabbed from their throats and flung high by some sharp claws of violence buried in their breasts. Even from his third floor apartment, they sounded like they were right outside his window now. It was if they h

Axes

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You think about the first time you saw an axe

Five Breaths Or Less

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She flew through the air, linen skirt billowing around her. Below, her buckled bicycle was taking a different route. Less aerodynamic than she, its trajectory was brief, crashing into the ditch. Elspeth kept on flying. Time slowed, and expanded

Robots Among Us

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Father hands Billy a length of rope. Billy builds his resolve, fights back his tears, heads into the kitchen. It's time to become a man.

Conversations

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That won’t kill me, will it? I asked. Maybe, the doctor said.

1888: Mrs. Sherwood

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Margaret will take her seven away from his raging Irish hammers slurry Saturday night honks smashing red eyes. They'll board a secret train countryside bound where they sing the songs of her own dead Mam who lived poor in the world but…

A Fine Life

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It's really not too bad. The personI am was me. We laughed insidethose sacred places at all the monieswell spent. We walked in the gardenswithout any shoes on. Not one singleflower seemed to mind. And now it'sa forgotten mess or so I've imagined.I'd rather you think about…

Sisters

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What Did We Fight Over?

news through a window

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TV and power cord valorized in dust,/ wires and digital guts unimpaired, I’d guess . . .

The Book

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The following is a true story, or rather it is a true experience from the story of my life. Some say that just because something happens doesn’t really make it “true”.

Gone

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Erased. Like chalk across my body, a fine powder of forgetfulness, with a few swipes --- all those names and faces, gone. The letters burned.

The Train

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"You'll be alright! Just pinch your nose!"

Pillow

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“I was just dreaming about you,” he said, sleepy-voiced. “What's for breakfast?”

Full Frame

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A month before the real flowers came, amputated trees for 31 miles were festooned with pink blossoms. The petals were tufts of Fiberglass insulation shorn from houses incapable of withstanding 260-mph winds -- more than twice the punch Katrina delivered t

Presage

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I am calling to tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow.