2160 17 6
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A young man pushes a stroller filled with a sleepy child. A young woman strides alongside them, her gait leisurely. They are the first to visit the park today. The trees loom, vigilant.
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216055
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The story will starve. It will crawl up your throat to get the cracker.
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216022
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The difficulty of disabled parenting was predictable,
but nothing could prepare me
for having to say goodbye to my wife again
on problem #7.
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216000
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The warmth flowed around her, and her heart beat at a calming pace. She felt as though the heat bathed her like water and felt her body cleansing within it.
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216075
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You ran so quickly for a while no one could find you. Finally, you sent us a report. You had retreated to the sea, you had your legs stitched together, you became a mermaid and were applying to join the school.
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215921
|
This stage of Junior’s young life was static, moving very little off-center since his graduation from high school five years ago. Treading water both professionally and emotionally never worried him. Not until after what transpired that night when Pr
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215931
|
“You people remember the thing you learned in science about every action creating its own equal and opposite reaction? The same is true in other realms. All of existence is continually recycled…again and again in infinite permutations. In other words,
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21591811
|
She hardly twitches. Her face regards the stars. If her body is an object, it is the isthmus before global warming.
They want to find the source of the glacier in her eyes that is always melting. Maybe they like a woman who cries.
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21591714
|
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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2159198
|
The one he liked best was a middle aged woman who didn't wear underwear. She had a terrific figure.
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2158146
|
"Are you all right?" I ask. He blinks. He sits up. I help him stand. He looks sorrowfully at his coffee cup, which is on the floor.
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2158138
|
Well I too woke up and felt bitterly alive once more;outside there was this shining fish scale attack sunliterally smashing itself against the window like a crazed yet determined yellowbird of paradise but it just couldn't smack through the little rows of…
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215854
|
i am wire i am wiredi am soaking fucking tiredi am sorry i am coldi am so fucking unsoldi am endlessi am statici am past lost time fanatici am wounded i am seethingi am bothered angry leaving.i am metal i am wateri am sister fucking daughteri am nothing i am lazyi am…
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215822
|
It was 1986 when I met you. We both lived on Decatur Avenue in a tank that had enough room for you, me, and all our fake plastic accoutrement. I was 30 years old -- really old for a jellyfish. Some people thought I'd die sooner. But I knew better. I was…
|
215861
|
I am coming to understand how many memories of my father involve him, driving
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215740
|
I am mightily pissed. I was, like, waiting for you last night, at the Greenhouse cafe, and you stood me up. I should have listened to my mom who always advised me not to go on blind dates, but you are so popular that I just couldn't help myself. When I ca
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215700
|
Mayumi did not feel any pain, but it did frighten her. She slid her hand over her shoulder length hair and watched the mist cascade down her back.
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2157118
|
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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215720
|
At first she kept repeating "I don’t know why he's doing this" as if the cops thought she was mixed up in it somehow. When they convinced her that all she needed to do was talk to her brother and tell him to give himself up, she looked hopeless.
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2157138
|
I want nothing to do with anyone,
other than doing nothing with you.
|
2157145
|
And on nights like those I conjure Martha's childhood, a little girl who could make the whole world fall in love with her, with those goddam big seashell eyes, enticing adults to fall into a blue-green sea that never ends, never promises survival.
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215721
|
It felt like he'd just taken his marriage out into the woods, forced it to its knees, and put a bullet through its head. Or they had, together.
|
215641
|
"Make a wish," she whispered.
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2156105
|
I do not yet really understand the power I seem to have at this moment. And I am certainly too young to recognize that it will end up being weakness, too.
|
2156235
|
But it was a necessary evil and one he’d made peace with, easy to do when he arrived home each day to the comforting touch of his wife, his home.
|
215601
|
The teachers who get caught propositioning male students are always wholesome family women. This is why I have repeatedly called for regular round-ups of wholesome family women before another young man’s morals are corrupted.
|
21562418
|
If you’re not dead yet, you’ll die of something.
|
215611
|
Ikkyu liked coming over especially at dinner. I'm a great cook and even though he no longer needed to eat himself, the idea of a sumptuous meal and a nice bottle of wine appealed to him. We'd commune about the poetry of karma flowers, seafood, and women, he in his robes and…
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21563516
|
My heart beat someone up the stairwell.
|
21561712
|
The Gothic-filigreed gate creaks as a guard closes it behind the little girl in the ruffled dress. Standing there in the morning fog, on the sidewalk outside the reform school, she looks remarkably like Shirley Temple. Dimpled, chubby face. Pretty, party dress. Her…
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