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The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 19

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But when the KGB went out the castle window, what a surprise was waiting for them. Because we had lined the pit with a huge dung heap, and camouflaged it with a colored pink wrapping as if it were feathers, just like Cristo had done. We wrapped the shit p

The Weather in Paradise

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I immediately felt anxious guilt, being the one responsible for opening the way for infection.

Father Dunne's School for Wayward Boys #1

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A young girl wavering between celibacy and punk mother-lust despair came to visit us each night

Awaiting the End of Time

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The alphabets will disappear.

What I Learned From Magazines This Week

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At least ten people have been shot by their dogs since 2004, usually in hunting accidents. (AARP Bulletin, January February 2016)If somebody phones you claiming to be with the IRS, it's a scam. The real IRS will only open communications with a taxpayer via the U.S.…

She Rose From the Weeds

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you drove by the woman standing on the verge the woman with the shoulders of a long distance swimmer and you told yourself her story: she'd slept in the wiregrass she carries…

Love in the Time of Ebola

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Me: In my orange hazmat, the one that makes my eyes look intensely blue.Him: His flexi-human-hamster ball. Fun, but a bit informal for a first date, I think.We're outside because doorways are not easy for him. After some impromptu rounds of bumper balls on the square, he…

A Life of My Own - 5

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angels give them names of important people, people under the control of evil demons whose influence must be negated at all cost if humanity is to survive into the future and achieve its ultimate potential.

Leaking

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The bathroom faucet is leaking again. Do they make diapers for faucets?

The Funeral

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Over the years, Morgana had grown. She was so much more than what Xavier remembered. So much different. She had an astute, almost shrewd air about her. She didn't seem nearly as fragile as he had left her. No, she had an eye out for herself now.…

Threads of a Dream

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I'm gonna go find a hole to dwell in deep in the mountains where the Indians used to live dig a cave into my subconscious learn to be less secretive

The Man in the coat

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A man wearing a dark green coat closed the door loudly. Tanu sat up straight, and stared at him. He looked around till he found her face and sat down in front of her.

Beer, for my Gravediggers

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It's cheap beer, but cold you welcome that rushing hiss and the following long drink of chilly wetness washing away the parched, dust dry, cotton mouth of grave-digging in the desert sun

(4) Caution

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“You shouldn’t have gone inside,” he said, after she told him what had happened. “I know that’s what you’re used to doing here, with people we know. But he’s not from around here. Don’t go back over there, okay?”

The Evening News

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When I got home from work I parked my briefcase in the hall, acknowledged our dog and immediately went into the kitchen where wife, Sherry, was cooking supper. Without turning around at the sink, she said her usual, How was your day? I said, Fine, and yours? She turned…

The Works

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The woman in green doesn’t want to encounter the meter maid who is actually a man and so waits to one side at the newspaper racks as if purchasing a paper while that person writes the parking ticket (this city needs that money) and drives away in his li

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.

White Noise

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I don't like listening to the radio anymore. Nothing is clearer than a live voice with something to say. Give me a big field with no one around but the birds and I will send the bees away from me. I will deny all bugs to buzz.

masters of their trade

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vampires seem not to be victims of drought . . .

The Unbearable Thickness of Meat Loaf

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This morning I found A big black crow Working over a flattened Squirrel in the middle Of the road First day of winter Longest night Shortest day No problem The rest of the year Should be a breeze

Love Stories

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I've got an appointment to see my shrink next Wednesday. She's pretty sharp. Not bad looking, either.

Uniquely Portland

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He saw his mother standing over him, and he called out to her for help, but she only laughed and faded into the paper towel dispenser.

Trees

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years later, she won’t go near the trees

Picnic Jugs

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The car was a two-tone black and white Chevy...

Leftovers

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That evening she sat on sofa and sniffled and twisted her handkerchief with her fingers. I decided it wasn't the right time to show her the picture....

Broken Vase

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Once was when we were in Vegas on layover from L.A., I told her I thought we should go to the Elvis Chapel and get remarried.

The French Horn Behind Me

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And right there beside me That single wobbling Snail-like trail of my heavy French Horn case

Sole Music

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You're on the good side of thirty, probably with a little girl or boy of your own sleeping at home, and here you are dragnetting at three in the morning. We're all broken, and the scars we trade are all that remains of our fragile, once complex lives.

GRACE IN SUFFERING

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What I did I wouldn't call criminal, just stupid. Even my judge, after so many court appointments, didn't understand what had happened. And there's a reason I got out on illegal sentencing but, either way, I paid the better part of a year for it all. I don't want to tell…

Flicker

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His eyes were marbles floating over a void.