2313 8 4
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All the neighborhood kids waited for the school bus on a small cement slab at the bottom of the first big hill on Blackhorse Road. My mother made me scrambled egg sandwiches on wheat toast every morning for breakfast before I left for school. Then one mor
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231267
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The doorbell rang while Ron was masturbating.He closed his eyes tight. Tried to hold the image of Lori bent over the arm of the couch. No use. It was gone. Ron sighed, then levered the recliner down. Tied on the terry-cloth robe Lori had given him. He kicked aside an empty…
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2312103
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Several friends—hers and his—hung around the edges of their marriage, and it would be naive to rule out the possibility of a few stray affairs. The thought didn’t anger him; on the contrary it amused him as if it were some trivia question, the answe
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231153
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“I take him to see all those sexy movies,” she said, “because it puts the passion back in him. I love what he does to me when we get back home after those movies.”
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231111
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You are fishing in a coffee cup. (Your fishing pole is a record player.)
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231197
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when unicorns took to flight / the poles shifted / the world flooded / and Pangaea busted open like calloused palm
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2311177
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To make extra money, my father wrote music reviews for the Calgary Herald, and on Saturday nights, he went to hear the Symphony, or into recital halls to listen to the chamber music that was being performed around the city. He took me, once, to a performa
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231164
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burning for You, caught in between, yearning to remain completely wrapped around Your finger, feeling panoramic, and this alive.
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2311147
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a question that (never) left
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2310138
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I still believe in the very slim chanceI might say something luckyenough to reach your truest insides, your at homespirit, that you will hearand understand ascare on my part, evenif you can never quiteidentify me asits secret sender, that warm…
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23102514
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And you know that notion just goes to show...
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230963
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She...learned the ways of men, especially foreign men, who eyed her mother even as they passed around pictures of their children, wallet-bound photographs that included their reluctantly smiling wives.
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230842
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You like your life. Ducks march in a row. You've reached a certain age but you're strong. Healthy. You've got food, clothing, shelter. You have insurance and important papers. You don't have a man in your life, and you admit— Admit nothing. The…
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23073514
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AFTER DINNER Another cycle gone, wasted. She stares into her bowl of full-fat ice cream (just half a cup a day, every day, for fertility). Beside her sits her husband, building a sundae. When he's done she reaches over, picks the cherry off the top, and hurls it into the…
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230744
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You’re ridiculous. Time travel is impossible, Steven.
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230663
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I slide my hand under the sheets. It’s cool there. An impression. This is where she would be.
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2306144
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He had the cannonball head of Hemingway, the stump neck, sloping shoulders and barrel chest.
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230695
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You are lonely. Let me tell you about the smell of the rain.
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230542
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“Can you do something about that those four stanzas of three lines each at the bottom of the basement steps?” my wife asked.
"That's a villanelle I'm working on."
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23051512
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This is the best kind of crime scene.
Spattered like gore from gunshots,
I'm left covered in trace evidence.
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230585
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You may gather from me
the spring of my youth
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23044314
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Tuesdays she worked afternoons at the bookstore, and he’d secretly go, buy a large order, sit in a corner with a newspaper. Fries covered in vinegar, veins of ketchup.
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230465
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Daniel told himself to push. -- push harder than he'd ever pushed himself before. He reminded himself of what his father once told him: don't give in to pain. Be a real man. You can take it.
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230420
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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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230400
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One of the runners was collecting bags of dead animals to bring back to the van. Nicholas looked inside one of the bags, but all he saw was a stringy mess of fur and tissue.
The runner grabbed the bag from Nicholas. He shrugged and said "hammers.
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230410
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"Isn't it time to remove the nails, and put Jesus to rest once and for all," Mary asks.
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2304175
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I turn my head. Time starts running.
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230320
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Berto had come to live with me a month earlier. He’d been cursed by being the favored child of our parents. Their indulgence resulted in a 40 year old man and heroin addict from age 17 and all that accompanies such an existence such as thievery, larcen
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23032416
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He would lean on his window sill in the evening and watch the whores. They wore gaudy clothes and too much makeup.
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230322
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“What’s a hushpuppy?” 264 asked 118, who knew three words of English.
118 said, “No.”
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