1569 6 6
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My grandfather rode with the Czar’s army. He was abducted from a village in Austria, trained to pillage and drink, plunder and rape, and ride the best horses that could be had. They were given the best vodka and the sharpest swords. They were all just boy
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156954
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.... The sun tears through the windshield as if it were an six-foot wide magnifying glass and for a moment it feels to them both as if they are in a manipulated universe of fire and ice, storm and heaven, as it does when the skies crack and spread open a
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156984
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It calmed the guilt in my heart while kids reveled, laughed, and "made time" with the neighborhood girls on that final night of freedom.
No one would talk to those girls again.
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156942
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It scraped at Paul’s brain like a cat’s claw at the door. He hadn’t heard the song in years. Was that the Searchers? The Seekers?
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1569157
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My editor even said so: “Ralph, the Karmann Ghia is the only car for Henry. The only one he could have possibly driven.”
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15681711
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I would be proud to be your house rabbit. I make this case: I will listen flop-eared close to your every concern
and exhultation. If I doze off nudge me. I wake quickly.
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1568196
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She's at an artist colony in the state of Virginia. She's in her studio. She should be writing. That's what everybody thinks she's doing out here. Why else would she be in her studio alone at 3:00 a.m.? But there's an interloper. A new painter? Sculptor? Maybe he…
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1568104
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I feel a strange loneliness for her...I think I will go to the beach, and forgive it for its sharp sand and lack of trees.
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156800
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She found herself standing before a mirror, her body was not in the reflection. A pulse shot out of the glass and her heart matched its resonance.
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156820
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How curious that the thought arrived first in Portuguese; perhaps, after so many years, he was finally becoming Brazilian.
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156810
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If you don't know what you're getting into maybe you shouldn't take the job. Driving in the rain with the windows open, holding your breath for minutes at a time, sticking your head out to gasp for air, you begin to understand the depravity to which people in poverty…
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1568122
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15671815
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15671613
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I am a purveyor of leeches. All my
friends are purveyors of leeches.
We meet weekly to compare our wares.
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156799
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I heard the worm
was interested
in the fat robin’s song.
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15672314
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Henry yells at her when she lights cigarettes and candles. But this is her small secret ritual, her way of making good with the god she is no longer sure she believes in...
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156731
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There, at that cabin, she had first tasted the back of a hand in anger, the sting of a horsewhip, bone-deep fear and, finally, an unthinkable act of self defense.
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156765
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My Grandma caressed
my sleeping Grandfather’s feet
as we sat in his hospital room after hours.
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15674314
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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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156700
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But, as his mind twisted like a square peg beating a hole into a round mallet, he sensed it had something to do with penguins. Not that he knew anything about penguins, at that point in time. That would come later, in his days, after this history, where h
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156600
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Gerald's law practice wasn't new. He'd worked on the law review and finished near the top of his class thirty years ago. After earning his J.D., he'd gotten a master of law in taxation. His favorite cases required researching legal precedents, and he…
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156686
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Someone's shaking powdered sugar on the tree limbs. Someone's turned out the lights. It's a beautiful morning.
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156632
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Love at first sight?
Not for me.
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1566145
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“This is where we suck the skin off the beasts,” remarks the General, pointing to a small white tube dangling from the ceiling. “We coat the mouthpiece with mushroom sauce, and as soon as they wrap their stinky bulbous lips around it... VROOOP!"
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156621
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A recent book reveals that nature documentaries are staged. Shocked by such claims we went on location to discover for ourselves the behind-the-scenes manipulations and more. Director: “You'll spot the wildebeest, freeze, and then charge. Okay? And try to bring…
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15661516
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You should be calling 911
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15651614
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The psychiatrist was a man who clearly meant to calm his patients, the students. You could tell by his sweater and his neatly combed, plumy hair and the wire-rim glasses he wore. But he was not good at his job. You could tell this by how bad he was at cal
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1565134
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. . . she didn’t bow her head.
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1565128
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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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156594
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Take it from inside you and draw it out. Do it before it decides you are not what you seem to be and, as a result, holds you up by the thumbs.
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