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A Study in Plastics

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She sat Indian style against the strawberry tree. In her hand she held a little mirror and a note that her father left her that morning. What a night, eh? See you in the morning. That’s what it said.

You Pour Vodka In Your Coffee

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I wonder if she is my real mother, if I could get one of those paternity tests and find out if she’s my real mother and if the guy she told me was my father was really my father. I can’t remember him very well, just a lot of him screaming and hollering an

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.7 - c.4

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Mayumi flicked her hand, making her circle deflect the spell. She picked up speed and her hand grabbed Emi.

The Invitation

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The poet could not speak of himself but only of the gradations leading toward him and away. ~ Mark Strand

Kaddish

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Summer nights or frozen winter, the crackles of his black.

A Storm A-Brewin'

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"I'm just saying," the older man continues, "We oughta be ready in case she hits." "We'll be fine," the woman says. "We've weathered every storm that's ever come through here just fine."

The Frog

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Publisehd in Linguistic Erosionhttp://www.linguisticerosion.com/2014/08/the-frog.html When Jesus and Magdalene began to cross the sunflower field they met a group of boys, squatting before a rocky outcrop. Covered with…

Myra's Mind

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She once told me that cleanliness is next to godliness, but I think everything is next to godliness, if you care enough to pay attention.

Salzburg

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One night while in rehab I had a dream that I worked as a violin maker in Salzburg.

Weed Fire

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Wind was a sorry excuse for force

Puffer Fish in the Infinite Laboratory

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They put me in charge of developing a drug that stifles fear.

On the Way To

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Robbie’s wrists itched hard, the cord was sunk in so tight his hands were bordering now on blue, now purple. Too late to matter.

Bible Stories for Atheist Babysitters

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What the five-year-old I baby sit for wanted to do yesterday was torture his Barbies. “Why would you want to do that?” I asked.“Because we're bad guys!” said Hanina. “Can't we be good guys?”“Not today. Today we're bad…

Ghost Story

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They come to wipe themselves from my memory, but that, of course, is impossible. In this place, we are bound together, the long line of men who have killed me, and I.

Star Light, Star Bright

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I am experience and information// at a small but irredeemable remove.

Allergic Reaction

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On his way to his first fishing expedition in the Bay Area, the man remembered the rustle and shimmer of the willows by the muddied Jemez River in New Mexico, cold beer, the clean camaraderie of childhood friends. He walked along a path choked with greenery to the San Pablo…

Sourballs

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Lights of human occupation burn/ in patterns like the growth/ of a bacillus, lethal and prodigious,

Dear Mei

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I planned and planned. I followed the veterinarians around and I took vials of panda tranquilizers when they were not looking, and it was often that they forgot to look. The earth kept shaking, they were hungry, and many did not know what had become of th

Reburial at sea

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“Sloshes to sloshes. Drip to drip,” I said, then ceremoniously flushed the toilet bowl, our heads bowed in reverence as Molly and I gave Swimmy its last rites. Swimmy, named by Molly whose overstatement of the obvious is endearing in a three-year-old, was…

God Wanted Us to Come Here

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Betty had been looking for a distraction; the lawsuits were out of control. Her last nonprofit, Faith and Life Children's Organization, had run into some difficulties due to the recession and the obvious result of trying to do more with less. Why couldn't people…

On Deciding Not to Be a Bitch

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Deny yourself that pleasure For my sake; that feeling beyond measure That you get when you finally, and with much angst, Decide not to be a bitch, to a round of general thanks.

Stellar

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After our first kiss, a team of scientists scrubbed away the cancer of your lipstick.

My Yogurt Jones

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And so began my love affair with a thick, semisold substance. Sort of like Mary Van de Velde, the chubby girl who was my partner in my 6th grade polka troupe.

How to Tell if Your Loved One Belongs in the Booby Hatch

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It is well known around town that Ray's dad went crazy. Today, when asked, everyone will tell you that they knew all along he had a screw loose, told their wife, “That Mick Borkowski's gone bat-shit.” But when it was happening, no one paid it any…

In the Air Tonight

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But that last night in Europe, getting ready to fly out of Amsterdam back to the States, I heard this Phil Collins song, “In the Air Tonight,” which expressed some of the turmoil and confusion and whole-life hysteria I was feeling inside. Waves of fru

Erasing the Modern World

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An electromagnetic pulse/ scrubbed the servers./ The clouds wisped and blew away, empty./ Markets lost what little mind they had.

forgiveness

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she sees that no one has considered her needsshe feels left out, and so she strikes outon the offensive, nostrils flaringpoints her finger and makes her caseshe has been wronged, justified in her angershe will not back downthe accused one is hurtstrikes back with her own…

Virgo

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I said he was cold. I said I like cold.

The Late, Late Show

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Camilla and I watched a movie, then we were the movie. A man wandered in a decrepit house, or in a dream of a house, which had wallpaper hanging like shredded flesh and little mounds of filth and a madwoman with a butcher knife creeping from room to room with fear or…

The Sun's Curtains

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It must be nice not to have to worry About certain things because those things are not yet In your circle, or in your circus, of life. I don't begrudge you for being almost grown in A much different, sweeter place and time. I'm thrilled By…