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Alice in Hell: 13 slithy variations

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1. Having made Alice from one of the Mad Hatter's ribs, Humpty Dumpty told her she could do anything, except speak. “How bothersome!” she said.2. In the church, Alice was horrified to be presented with a talking lamb. “EAT ME!” it bleated and, as the…

The Town, Part 1

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Waiting for the light to turn, his mind wandered, wondering how it was that bridges of this sort collected stories. Old thru truss bridges with grated deckings, or any older bridge for that matter. The stories seemed to have died out since the concrete

Wedding

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It was cold in the church. The Lutherans were freezing to death. The Catholics brought their winter coats.

Pigs Fly

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You are rounded just the way the mountain is, out the window. The sun sets on both of you now. Three of you, I should say: the mountain, and you, and little Frank, who is currently batting my ear because he doesn't want to be named Frank but it's for your dead father,…

A little bit of babysitting

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Roy Williams was his real name. It had been for the last 15 years. Since retiring from the Firm he’d lived innocuously in an apartment near the Old City walls of Dubrovnik doing the occasional quick job for them. You never entirely retired from the Firm.

the fine hair on your belly

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On the beaches in the summer the fine hair rose up from under the material of your bikini and swirled around your deep navel, almost invisible to the naked eye, but not to the mind, which imagines everything funneling down into the center of your being,

Casualties of War

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When Jimmy – and Frank and John and all the rest – joined up, it all seemed a big lark. Little Mary – she can’t have been more than about five years old – was dead proud her Dad was going off to fight the Germans. I doubt she really knew who the

To Christine, Whom I Loved Because Another Would

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She was from Tennessee, with advantages over me. An upbringing surrounded by books and sensitivity.

Project Undeath (Work in Progress)

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The moon bulges with meticulous sick amber fire while first night’s chest heaves and sputters free infantine monstrosity from plague-wormed hovels, din mold choked grottos, and stale metal-cast labyrinth catacombs.

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…

Consequently, I Rejoice

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The infinite terrifies.

Assiduity Thirteen

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My relationship with Uzma exists on several levels, from basic to abstract, from animal magnetism to spiritual journey.

The small of her back

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The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 48

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If you shoot at them now, it'll be attempted murder or, worse, premeditated murder.

Room # 23

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She stood for a moment to think about what happened inside. She had just killed her husband of twenty three years.

The Price of Empire

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I saw three kids the other day, two girls and a boy, crouched in conspiracy

Fugue No. 2

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Moonless sky of stars, silently flickered by bats, with constellations defined and bold. The curve of the plough matching that of your shoulder, as if it were a decoration.

the leisure to walk about sweetly

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You seemed to have that leisure to walk about sweetly when I was with you, honey-singing the reward for the intensity of emotion you lunged about in. Nothing seemed like it was going to hurt or harm anyone, even while I was going nuts between the legs.

scraps

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i’m trying to remember don’t all the best apples happen in September?

Missing Her

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When the teacher was out of the room Myron pretended to play with himself, saying, “down boy” and smiling to the nervous gasping and fake coughs from the other classmates and, since he's my close friend, I think he does silly stuff like this to contend with…

Sourballs

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

Red and Blue Lines of the German Painter, Otto Dix

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They can’t help Seeing a child even there In the crude brushstrokes. They say it is me.

Arcana Magi Zero - c.2

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It was so dark below, there was only flashlights weaving about and headlights pointing in one direction.

Smooth and Crunchy

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No freebies. You want to read it, you have to read all of it.

The $275 Root Beer Float

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That was some root beer float. It cost us a grand total of $275. She pulls up in front of Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor and leaves the motor running while I jump out and run into the parlor. It was early evening. We HAD to have a root beer float. You

The shoes of 9/11

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thunder striking in a pancake cumulative, his building bouncing upon itself, life going Richtor Scale, a billion pounds of panic per square second

Snowbound

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Shut up.You shut up.That's disgusting.You should talk.Fuck off.Fuck me.whore.Yes.More.Shut up.

Reduced

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There I was at the OPEN HOUSE. It was easy, three doors down. The sign on the lawn said, PRICE REDUCED. The real estate lady said, “Back again? Thinking of buying”? I laughed. There were several couples there. People have…

OldSchool

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The gated community of Dos was named for one of Babbage’s landmark educational figures, Ms. Dos.

Pathology

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PATHOLOGY How awful it is to dissect a marriage! It lays naked on the therapist's steely table. He makes his first incision into the bloated stomach of our malnourished union. He polishes his glasses and peers, cuts the thin taut skin of our…