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Strangeness

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The goose on the roof isn’t aware it is doing anything odd...

A Story

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The next moment is a convergence made from a single repeating sequence that disappears behind the voice that tells of it.

Mr. Kunitz, Mr. Lowell, Mrs. Craig

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Although I think we can easily work it out because we are not here in the Yale graduate school, and diction is the theme of the story. Diction is a choice in language.

Breakfast for Ten

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Chuck woke when he smelled cooking.

Speeding on the Highway at 2AM

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I am speeding on the highway at 2AM because no one is here...

Happy Birthday Mr. Watterson, Wherever You Are!

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Bill Watterson isn't just the creator of the world's best comic strip. According to the book “Looking for Calvin and Hobbes,” a biography of the elusive and reclusive cartoonist, Watterson is also a world-class introvert. Watterson refuses to make…

My Date with Edgar Allen Poe

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Now, if someone is tellin' you that she had a date with Edgar Allen Poe, you might be tempted to say, "Hey, sister, what kind of drugs you be doin' for the last two days?" But I swear on my Aunt Boo's chastity belt that's what went down and with my…

Philip Guston Painting of the Courtroom

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While the head of the KKK stands by for the next order, ready to mete out punishment, and smoking a cigar. They are so efficient, like ex-Nazis.

To Really Hear

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He's driving in the Sierra Nevada with his wife and their small daughters and the girls are fighting and he can't take much more of it.

Bait Shop

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They wanted to go fresh water fishing, so I had to buy worms. None there in the saltwater town. Drove about 10 miles over the long bridge to cross the bay. I'd been there before. Walked in and a crusty, little skinny man got up from his chair. He: Watcha need? Me: Fresh…

Luce

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Lucy shrugs into the corner of the train's seat. She envelopes her IPod in both hands as if she's praying or holding a conch shell: safe, secure like when she visited a Morcombe beach in the school holidays. The only giveaway's the white headphone cord.

My 27th Great-Grandparents

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Early Spring, 1075, Northumbria: Judith, too ashamed to speak, too angry to cry, waves her handmaiden away. She wants no food. Wind drives icy rain across the thickness of…

Thumbing For a Ride

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Here comes my speed dealer he's riding shotgun in the open

Hardware Store Tour

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The Plaza had a chess-board floor, green wood booths, and the lights stayed up. I might be combining a memory of Fitzie's in Binghamton. The Plaza felt like a preppy soda fountain with beer.

December 1, 2016

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Polite society will cheer/ as another body is discovered// and disposed of. The cheers/ will drown out the gasps

Sisyphus

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He’s more than a little pissed at all this eternal boulder rolling.

Dream(ed) Life

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From room to room, neither closet nor drawer contained any remnant of pleasant memory.

Matt Slade, Esq.--Mascot Defense Attorney

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I’ve got a full day ahead of me; I have to write a brief in Lipshutz v. Fredbird, a property damage claim against the St. Louis Cardinals’ mascot for breaking a fan’s glasses as part of his routine.

The Arrow

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"Give it to me I said, you dip! Fork it over!"

Who’s Calling?

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“I’m a sucker for a good first sentence but I won’t dismiss the whole work based on a bad one. Besides, anybody with an MFA can write a decent first sentence. You can’t judge the whole work based on that.”

Kingfish

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Time stole you from underneath the goldendock. Writhing there, slick as a flapping tongue;lips gored, red, whose gaping could embolden weak hands behind the blazing buck blade, long ago pierced in your summer quietus, beneath the soft shade of a tackle box, as the…

Arcana Magi Zero Arc 2 - c.2

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Alysia and Megumi made their magic circles, but they stopped short when they saw a young man at the end of the street. Their eyes trembled and their feet moved them back without thought.

The Underlying Order

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“Choices overwhelmed us,” Thomas continued, years later, “like waves crashing.”

There is a woman

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There is

Heirloom Pendant of an Ash-Tracked Snow

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If I do not hear you leaving by the door... The nearness here of this yet questions when I know you will not come so back again, Nowise the same as you were there before. My own reflection, centred at its core On knowing each …

At the Reception

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"Check out these dudes,” he says. “They're all wearing kilts. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as they're wearing underwear.

How (not) to Cheat

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...I’m honest enough to know that fucking around has never been accidental or unplanned. Every time I did it, even in the rock bottom throes of esteem, sobriety, and life, yes, even on the brink of suicide, I knew exactly what I was doing...

The Twenty Minute War

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Maybe there was no truth. Things had become so strange that sometimes Jannsun suspected that everything had already happened and we were just toying with selective memory.

Dusty Winnemucca Road

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respect your parents. or not. stay put. or not. finish school. or not. get married. or not. stay married. or not.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 58

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Anatoly Gringovitch was listening to the dress rehearsal of Hausenstockmann’s Constellations at Auditorium Rainier III in Monte Carlo.