1906 35 13
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She walks through the house she’d bought. The filth and the stench of mould nearly make her retch. Dead fleas line the windowsills, the dressers, the floors.
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190681
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Ted did not understand turn-of-the-century costume dramas, and because he didn’t understand them, he often referred to them as "chick flicks" or "English crap." Even when the principals were not British. Even when the principals were Winona Ryder.
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190651
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Their footsteps stopped suddenly, leaving them staring at one another across the bleak expanse of playground at south Los Angeles' Gompers Middle School. His uniform's white polo shirt felt too restrictive as he watched her budding solar plexus rise and f
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190552
|
. . . at midnight three zombies and a vampire gather for a game of Texas hold ’em.
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1905185
|
She scrambles the eggs while the baby howls at her knees. To drown out the racket, she hums as she jabs her fork into the yolks. She enjoys the way they spill their yellow color and swirl into the whites. She matches her tune to the schook, schook, schook of the…
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190521
|
A drag queen thrown from the mechanical bull Thursday night is my fault, they say, they meaning management. And because of the ensuing brouhaha and the ambulance and the medics and a thousand flannel shirts straining for a look, I failed to pick up Jenny, my six-year-old…
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190399
|
There were trees where I lived
and clean pavement
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190343
|
[testing ... one, two, three ... testing ... is this thing on? ... ok, here goes:]
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19033518
|
She doesn’t notice the small group of women in saris, emerald and garnet, sapphire and citrine, the cloth covered with mirrors glinting in the light. Or how they link plump brown arms, frightened or delighted by the attention, huddled close, bird-like ch
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190300
|
My half-brother Salvy laughs each time we meet here at the hospital to visit our father Phil, who has lung cancer. He laughs because Phil married my mother, not his. He laughs at my job in Valhalla, the final resting place for those who lose at the…
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190221
|
You find a wall to lie down against and focus your eyes on an orange light. You no longer hear any music. You are lying down at the bottom of a dark, green, filthy pool, holding your breath and looking up at the sun.
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19011315
|
Love is always going to be all even when all else is
floating to the burning ground.
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190142
|
I lock the last of the beer and wine doors and head back to the cash register. Our clocks are not on bar time so I only have a few minutes. I check the till. A stack of ones and three fives. Enough to break a twenty, but looking bare. The parking lot's empty. The air…
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190044
|
"There's a guy and he's standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon."
|
1900119
|
An old man, a widower; living alone, defenseless. It was a given.
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1900115
|
Boys of summer in Yonkers played stickball and baseball.
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189931
|
[ETIQUETTE ... DECORUM ... BOUNDARIES ... BAH!]
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18992720
|
I peeled his tongue, word by contemptuous word, until he had nothing left but a scrappy shred of muscle flapping in his empty head...
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18994722
|
Only strong personalities can endure such size, the weak ones are extinguished by it.
|
189941
|
This is a story about Jim and Robin. They are strangers. Or at least they were. They are at the same party, but standing on opposite sides of the room. Robin is standing near the door thinking, “I wish there was someone here to talk to,” when she sees Jim. …
|
189943
|
I. When I was young, my best friend was only three inches high. He was chubby, always cheerful, and very funny. He didn't start out as anything much. I always imagined he came into being in a small factory, in China, at the mercy of two small, yellow hands and a …
|
1898366
|
I do not trust Shay anymore.
|
189883
|
I pick up a pile of postcards, but all the pictures are of bees. There are close-ups of the bees and their perfect anatomy. My favorite picture shows the bees swarming, and I am at the center, their queen.
|
1897136
|
When we say "Nanoism is looking for twitter-fiction serials for its current contest," this is one example of what we mean.
|
189511
|
|
189432
|
Also, our daughter had learned to splash, causing us each time to break into spontaneous renditions of “Splish Splash (I Was Taking a Bath),” which made us not mind so much that we were getting covered in water.
|
189486
|
I was in the kitchen peeling onions. They stung my eyes, and perhaps I was crying. I heard my dear husband run into the room and turned with the knife in my hand.
|
18943924
|
I hit the pole near Whited Avenue a year to the day.
|
189378
|
We watched kids tweeze snapping turtles out of the park grass. They dropped them into a styrophoam cup and called it the snap turtle home. When they grow up they will bite your arms off, their father said laughing.
|
189211
|
Let's be honest. Ugly people have an uphill battle in this culture. From the time they slide out of their ugly mothers they stand at the plate with two strikes.
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