2343 7 3
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We walk in silence. We water our plants. We don’t eat as well as we should. We try to love. We try to forget.
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23421510
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Life was small. It was tiny even, so tiny it was hard to see it sometimes. Life curled up to make itself even smaller, to fit into the kinds of holes that insects crawl into to get away from bigger insects. Life was sad. Life didn't want to be an insect.
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2342114
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My name is Wanda McClure and I lived in the foothills of Eastern Kentucky. A small town miles off the interchange, and mostly in the middle of nowhere. I lived in a trailer. I was 52 years old.
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2342155
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Quiet. You sit quiet as a mouse in the corner. Push a little doll around and hum la-la-la so they forget you’re there while they have the cocktail hour.
That’s how you find out they’re killing Grandma.
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23412013
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A tiny story, 55 words, just enough to fit on a . . .
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23412210
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The Count was used to boredom but he had reached the point where he was even bored with boredom.
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23413918
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Sometimes, under the gauze and yellow salves, I glimpse you...
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23401915
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"You're publishing too much too / quickly. We think that's unhealthy. We want you / to slow down. You're becoming a fame whore."
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2340115
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“This is not turning out to be a wholesome project,” my brother hissed into the phone one night.
“Yo, Alan, it’s ELVIS. It’s American gothic, and the child needs to know the underbelly of the myth,” I hissed back.“Did you, or did you not, wear makeup to
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234010
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Sure, we'll look at the causes for the lack of smackers, but, really, if you had a Swiss bank account stuffed with dinero, you wouldn't care how much your spouse's sex-change operation costs or if your boss approved of your lunch-hour massages you receive
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233996
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Schrödinger did not keep cats about just by accident, and were they keeping an eye on him!
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2339119
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Traveling with a live chicken on a city bus is an experience I hope never to repeat.
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233964
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"Fax the Beaver" was its last, secret title. The beaver is a dirty trick, and it belongs on the index card.
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233975
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The base of the monastery before him, he let her go into a warm updraft and she cascaded out and up, never falling as she rode the tiger into her next.
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233900
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“Why have you not voted Mindeo”, Tidi squeaked. “Because there is a third way. If we stay only here, we will eventually be driven out. To attack the erect worms to extend our…
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233900
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The man is middle-aged, although not rich, and the girl, aside from being very young, is not exceptionally pretty. But she has recently shed twenty pounds for the express purpose of looking fabulous on…
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233833
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I got your card in the mail via my ex-wife in Saskatoon. On it you wonder where I am, if I am still writing, and if I have any stories I would send for you to look at because you think I should be published, too.
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233820
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The specialist had kept what he'd taken out of Sue May. I made an appointment with him and was shown it floating in a jar of clean unguent.
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2338193
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"And you’ll forgive my sayin’, your Maggie’s in heat, and if ya want to keep her you’re gonna ‘ave to fight. To be sure after this they’ll leave ya alone.”
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233874
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Teddy laughs like a machine gun. People back away when they hear him. Every time I see him at work, I try to make his skinny body rattle. I would never back away.
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23371413
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Are you interested in a new account?
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2337119
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233700
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Tina saw a tear escape from beneath the frame of the man’s broken glasses. It followed the contour of his cheek until it quivered along his jaw line.
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2337128
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The juice that stays on my neck when you tip me back, catching me in an alleyway, holding me upright as the oranges tumble and strike the backs of my knees. You cup your strong-smelling, sticky-soft fingers around my ear and say let's blow this city.
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233753
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So she leans over the patio table like that model in that magazine ad and then takes a sip of her blended coffee drink as if a director had said to pretend the straw is a penis. As if this director only just shouted, “And you're a dirty, dirty girl, and
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2336168
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I didn't go to China, however. I would have gone there in debt wearing their clothing. I was afraid to owe even $4,000 (what I still owe) living overseas.
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233695
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I guess it’s extremely difficult to be a decent human being in all aspects of your life.
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2336238
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233651
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"From up here the city lights burn like a thousand miles of fire," he croaked, his voice scratchy from sobbing. In pinpoints of illumination he imagined his wife - *former* wife - Calli in that Mustang convertible he'd gotten her for a birthday surprise
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23353820
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They cut the tall specious tree storms snapped the night in two or three. At times
they pause most piously to count each ring of truth, drive nails into the stiff cathartic spine, divine if this unseasoned cigar topiary agrees with its own everlasting te
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