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If only one more thing

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If I could say only one thing more to Tony who died a month ago, there is one thing I could find to say

ANSWER: (g)

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[CAUTION: READING THIS STORY COULD CAUSE IRREPARABLE "CULTURE SHOCK" AND IS NOT ADVISED FOR OLD FOLKS, PREGNANT WOMEN, OR THOSE WITH "MONSTROUS, FRAGILE EGOS"!]

The Watchers

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Up at the top, a quarter mile south, billows of black smoke crawled up the faint blue of the sky.

I Am Quantum

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He had a lean build, except, remarkably, his midsection was perfectly barrel-like. As if he kept an alien lifeform in his belly, cultivated by years of Pabst and Yuengling transfusions.

Where's Waldo?

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Over his usual ham sandwich and skim milk for lunch Uncle Waldo used to always say, “Going out in the dead of night without a flashlight is dangerous.” But I knew what I was doing. After dark, I'd slip out and sneaker on down the path to take a dip in a…

The Judge's Wife Part 8

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—You're convinced I'm crazy. I'm convinced you're incompetent.

Books

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'Like poems,’ I said she paused and nodded her black mop.

Bridges Are a Lot Like Long Corridors

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Nothing good ever waits at the end of a long corridor.

“The Confession of the Sorcerer of Darkness”

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A dark and mysterious account of an ancient traveler seeking arcane literature, and the miserable results to him after he receives what he sought.

Youngish Professor, or Grad Student TA

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Natty looking in his 2-tone shoes and argyle socks blue blazer with 3 gold buttons on each cuff pale yellow hemp or burlap necktie, of course with a blue shirt (never white!!) long mopish hair hanging on his forehead and a

Great Books of the Western Bedroom

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Artie Shaw gave Ava Gardner a reading list in preparation for their honeymoon that included The Brothers Karamazov, The Origin of the Species, Das Kapital and The Magic Mountain.

His Name is Chaos

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Should probably be faster at the cash register

Deus Ex Machina

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He rolls in unbidden across the stubble fields / Old acquaintance astride a newly booming cloud/ Under sky an alien shade of strawberries whipped/ Her watch stops ticking out the rest of her/ scheduled breathing poses

Strawberry Swirl

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Keisha selected a strawberry swirl cupcake from the waiter's tray, so pretty, from the hottest, coolest, newest patisserie. Moist strawberrylishious cake, swirly pink frosting, sprinkles. Keisha was one lucky lady, scoring a bizdev gig at recession-proof…

The Bird King's employees

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The Bird King's advisors and ministers are a range of rusty kitchen utensils. They all observe a respectful silence in his presence.——Contrary to popular belief, the Bird King is not an atheist. His meathook priests do their rounds at twilight.——The…

The Rat, His Treadwheel

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The rat had been informed, assured, cajoled in order to gain his assent—duly lied to, in other words, by the researchers with not one tear of remorse, with no smudge or smear of conscience . . .

Happy Birthday to Me

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Happy Birthday to me. It takes just a second on waking to remember, It's June but it feels like December.

Sleeping Apes and Washing Dishes: What I Learned From Magazines This Week

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Eat blueberries every day and you'll live to be a 92 year old mogul. Really.

Fragment from a Paper Story

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While Leif was still very young, his emotions were very easy to read, for they appeared on his parchment coloured skin, named in his mother's writing. When he was seventeen, Leif fell in love. She was a pretty maid, one of the college servants who kept his…

Taking Leave

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A walled city doesn’t let you out any more easily that it has let you in earlier.

Falling

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Sometimes when I fall I see a ...

Paradise

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From the rumple of pre-dawn Queens, sure South on 95, to almost Savannah by dark; still cold, but we’re full of what’s coming:

Music That Tastes Like Blood

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It is your music that makes me want to crack open my ribcage and rip out my heart as it still beats, to cauterize my carotids, and shove the mechanical insides of a clock into my thoracic cavity.

Tissue

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A tissue, she was saying - hand me a tissue. Her seat belt was locked and she was rocking back and forth in it cinching wrinkles into her favorite blue silk blouse. I can't remember her wearing anything else. Her hands were gesturing - on and on- an endless loop…

Capital Offense

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They can’t exterminate the poor just yet

The Blue Jay

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His mother hated blue jays, hated them with a passion she usually reserved for no-count trash who drank beer on their front steps and worked on their cars in the street.

The Rodeo of Doom (Excerpt)

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Today is the last day of the semester. It also marks the end of my tenth year as what is referred to as an adjunct, an appendage, a necessary but unidentifiable tentacle in the College of Architecture at Andreas Tangen University in Los Angeles.

Assiduity Seven

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Uzma dashes up the stairs ahead of me . . .

The Body in the Other Room

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I couldn’t parse the grammar of her body nor decode the secret softness of her neck.

Never Said

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We're at the Park Diner. My dad Tommie is sitting across from me. He looks haggard, tired. His skin is pasty and washed-out. He's not talking, so I'm not talking either, but it doesn't matter because it's hanging there between us.Cancer.Motherfucker.“Don't look so…