2258 7 3
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Smoke is pouring outta my ears! (And outta my mouth and nostrils, but that's normal.) The Fast-o-matic Supermart has changed their coupons. Now you can't swap them for plastic surgery. So all those tubes of New Orleans-style Cottil-i-Lard dog sausage…
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225753
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He blew out the candle. There was the tang of candle smoke, scattered by a sudden rush of wings, and the immediacy of another breathing thing in the dark. I heard the birdcage open, and the bird fluttering in there without crying out.
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225723
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I am remembering this day for all days. Remembering. All days. Always. This is the day you threw the TV out the upstairs window. I'm remembering. Always. This is the day that started with you shaking the toaster over me so all the crumbs fell out.…
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225761
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I'll be honest, and tell you that I am in a bad way. The weather is very hot up here, extremely so, almost hellish.
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225642
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My ghost has already been places I'll never see.
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225600
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Ai picked up the ball and noticed the feathers. Wings unfurled and the head looked up. Staring deep into the bird’s eyes, Ai could have sworn she saw flames.
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2256114
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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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225621
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Harry Reed does not want to die in this room, in front of Giselle, who has been his wife for exactly six months, who has slept beside him for twelve months.
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22552114
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225596
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Not that their pa really needs the suitcase; he's been coming and going for so long it doesn't matter. The suitcase's just for show. A final goodbye.
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22551915
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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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22541413
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Are you interested in a new account?
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225410
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And the only time the TI-83 sees the light of day is when I'm rectifying my debit card purchases at such places as Kmart, Office Depot, Walmart, and Office Max, to make sure everything comes out even and good and perfect, a skill never learned in Trysics,
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22541410
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I can never tell if he’s drunk or using some sort of substance or if perhaps his brain just doesn’t fire at the pace that we have come to accept as normal.
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225451
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I’ve never liked birds. There’s something smug about the way they look at us, we prisoners of gravity, something self-congratulatory in their songs. Maybe I’m just projecting my own feelings about being stuck on the ground, attributing attitudes t
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22543211
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Jane watched her mother remove her wedding ring with butter.
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2254116
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Your opal eyesYour sea-blue eyesYour sky-blue eyesYour ice-blue eyesYour gray-blue eyes, your periwinklesYour hazel eyesYour violet eyes(almond-shaped and almost cubist)Your indigo eyesYour topaz eyes, your sunkissed lashesYour turtle-sundae eyes.I loved your black shiny…
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225373
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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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22522513
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I was sitting on the therapist’s couch in someone else’s boxer shorts.
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224944
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Blueberries are like testicles: you have to hold them gently, from underneath.
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2249119
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Dude -- I DON'T want to date your boat!
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224820
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Well, I turn the car off, the song turns off, I gather all of my stuff, turn off my lights, inevitably drop something as I’m getting out of the car, shut the door, lock the car, fumble for my house key, walk up the stairs, unlock the front door, set my
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22481813
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"You know, there really is a death of the heart."
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224800
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“… and that concludes my presentation. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.”
Meixu Liao smiled and turned her hands out, palms upwards. Americans typically saw this combination of facial expression and body language as conveyin
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224856
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2248158
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It is pain taking a form, Plato’s dream, born from your hands father that rejected me, giving me the color of abandonment, eyes dulled by isolation, a body deceased without life-giving touch.
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224864
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The last time Ray and I broke up, I flew my flag at half-mast. It was the kind of thing that pissed him off. He was very big on flag etiquette: how the flag should be folded, the fact that it should never touch the ground, when to fly it at half-mast, the rules regarding…
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224740
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He had what was commonly referred to in junior high as the ‘bullshit mustache’.
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224753
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He looked up as he reached the intersection, and crossed as it cleared. His head was down again as he walked toward his car, which was parked beside a schoolyard, where junior high students were involved in an after-school game of touch football. He smi
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224677
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One of the pieces, I noticed, had the real shape of a miniature chicken, its mohawk, pin legs, and small definition of wing. “Look at that,” I said to my friend. And just then, the wing twitched.
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