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Unfinished, deeply flawed stories require the kind of handling you see in movies where a Virus That Will Doom Mankind is disposed of by scientists in hazmat suits.
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2332119
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Suddenly there was a crash of thunder, and they raised their eyes for the first time heavenwards. That was the beginning of what we call civilisation. - adapted from Prolegomena to Work in Progress — Stuart GilbertIt's the third year of the third millenium,…
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233111
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And here I am again.
I chew my nails. I tap my foot. I chew my nails. I sweat. I bleed. My nose bleeds. It drips. I drip. I'm dripping through my chair.
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23312515
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I came from the only flat region in the kingdom of mountains and fjords, and called the city “Down in the Dumps”. The beleaguering mountains smelled a flatlander when they saw one, and hated me right back.
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23312117
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There is a tall and leafy tree in our backyard. Also a bride, a groom, and a chicken.
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233132
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Of course, you're eventually struck by the thought that the house you saw on the hill was not your house and that those children and the dog are purely matter for the strange.
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233097
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Should have washed our hands, we thought after, licking sugar-spit and dirt.
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2330910
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I get out of the pitstop at the reststop, wade through parking lot hiphop. Hummers with Jesus Luvs George W bumper stickers, and a subdued slow hurricane of dour obese women in powder blue and tepid brown walking about the place like zombies. And I see t
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233020
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I was afraid of needles and ponds of water and I was transfixed by both.
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232921
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round & round
this empty block
again & again i go
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2329144
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He had the cannonball head of Hemingway, the stump neck, sloping shoulders and barrel chest.
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232943
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That’s the way it went all day with me—didn’t get far, didn’t see much, just, with Mary, drank tea here and there. A fine day it was, too; not cloudy, not raining...
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232893
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The year I lick so much windowpane off stamps I have to use Elmer's glue to back the twenty-center for a postcard cash request to my mother, that I am alive note at the end of term, is the year of all the "wine" parties.
"Wine" is what we put down
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23282215
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Mariposa, the skinny hound, crawls out from under the trailer
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23281412
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I interviewed in an hour and didn’t have an umbrella, so I ducked inside the next door I passed. It didn’t matter what they sold, I wasn’t there to make a purchase.
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232883
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The Parachutist closes his eyes, takes a breath, and then opens them back up again. The earth is very beautiful, and very small from where he is. It is getting larger quickly, which is vaguely alarming.
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232775
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His open door was interpreted by the neighbor as an invitation to all but place a mirror under his nose. She demanded opportunities to fluff his pillows and coerced him into accepting gifts of food, more than he could possibly eat, and sometimes ate with
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232753
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Show me where to go, he said out of defiance for the moment in which time was malleable and fat minutes were consumed by wayward, languid hours. And all I could do for the time being was sit there excruciatingly anxious for this to pass, so it…
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232720
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"James, can you take a peek at problem://7ac5e46f today?"
"It's just another big dumb object. Seems low priority."
"Escalated by the directorate."
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2326118
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Erin Hoffmeyer Zulkoski. I was at work today, doodling on a piece of scrap paper. I often find myself writing my name, practicing my signature, for when I become famous. I have always written "Erin Zulkoski." Today, I wrote "Erin Hoffmeyer." This…
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23261210
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SeesWe fell into this lake together and traced the clean soft lines straight back to ourselves, with a carefree laugh, ha ha ha-- an embarrassing ease. This small miracle does tend to put in orbit something high flying besides clouds into the sky inside of…
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232620
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Old man Hensley was fed up. With everything, he would say, if one was so inclined to ask (which was not advisable). It was his first morning as an official retiree and, if it was…
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232686
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There was man from antiquity that sat next to me. His belief in the healing qualities of Aloe Vera so pronounced, that the house brimmed with such. He had no use for modernity in any of its forms but was fond of supermarkets. When in one he was overwhelmed with an…
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232593
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Backs in the grass, legs straight, bare feet resting at angles, Rachel and I, both of us seven, looked up through the oak limbs that made black lightning cracks across a blinding blue sky. Three hula hoops sat trapped in the trees’ sprawled grasp.
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232592
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It's not that you want to be silkworm all your life. That's what I'm telling my on-again-off-again girlfriend aboard the plane. Her name is Phoebe as in that song about a girl who lived in her own world within the shell of another. Phoebe, I'm saying, to bridge distances…
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23251210
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I hate math. I hate everything about it.
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2325138
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I want nothing to do with anyone,
other than doing nothing with you.
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23251211
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Mick Jagger and I strolled rue Gabrielle in Montmartre. Our conversation spread from apples to shellfish. We stopped for some oysters. Do you remember a time when books were venerated, I asked? I remember a time, he said, when rock and roll was a fetus in the tank of…
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2324139
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We argue on the way down. We bicker on the walk to the bistro. I get coffee and croissants at the bar and bring them back to our table, and she is still talking, proving me wrong, when I return.
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232495
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For two days, I bashed out words with grimacing fingers, wrenching images from my whining consciousness – a weak, lumbering, uninspired piece – and now for what?
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