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{Chapter iv of Undermind} "What do you think of the light in our city at night?" It spreads out in every direction, following the hills and valleys of the city, visible into the far distance from the Penthouse party room on the 44th floor. "Gorgeous!…
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161196
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We married in the ruins of a pachinko hall, the tiny bones in the pocket of your tracksuit luring a pack of wild dogs out from the underpass.
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161110
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Vito suddenly found himself wide awake. He was unable to recall having fallen asleep or dreaming or awakening. It seemed he'd just entered bed, yet a glance at the windows told him it was already the middle of the night.
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161100
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The words of prophets only serve to demonstrate that ‘unreliable narrative’ can often result in poor literature; unfortunately, poor literature can attract a very large following.
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16101210
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I'm dying but that's not to say what you think it says. I've crossed the river of myself many, many times before and wandered to the shore, broken and drenched and full of the fever of dyingdreams. Each time was a kind of ritual mask, drying off the beat ofmy newly…
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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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161075
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Came to admire Kiyoko Matsumoto. Japanese. Aged 19. Lesbian. 1933. Jumped into a volcano.
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16101510
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There was gonna be a rumble in our schoolyard. An outright brawl. It was gonna be just like Blackboard Jungle. Only real. Not some movie at the Duwamish Drive-In. Every boy in my school, it seemed like, was lined up outside except me. All the third and fourth graders…
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My father's hands were huge. His left knuckles gashed as a kid when he rode his bike too close to a moving train. When his fingers fisted around a glass, the scarred joints bulged from his grip like blind eyes.
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Steam rolls out of the bathroom as Mr. Larson opens the door with a white towel around his waist. Pepper strolls up to him and purrs as she rubs her long, gray tail against his tanned legs."Hey, girl.” He runs his coarse, scarred fingers through the cat's soft coat.…
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It's as if there are little men inside her head, wielding hammers.
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Somewhere there are fires burning in oil barrels, ragged homeless men warming torn-mittened hands―one day I'll be with them.
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Alma Tucker settled into middle age with the comfort that escapes most women. Her festival queen days gone. Along with her wispy waist and cherry blond hair, replaced by broader curves and graying tresses. She was content with the way age had changed her
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And you don't like much. No handholding or brand name sweaters. No phone calls late at night. This is not you. And you certainly don't go for kisses in the rain or cards from the grocery store with…
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"...I wonder if it held magical powers..."
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Go ahead, boy, pout like a fool.
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Standing hard at the windowCold clouds move, slowBlue horizon in the distance—It's just a slice of blue.All this beautyI miss it in the bitterness.I'm consumed by the missingThe emptinessThe unfairnessAlways some unfairness cropping upand capturing joy.Glancing high…
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A secret search rolled from Odette's eyes. A gulch split her down the middle and she had the world believing this was the way she liked it. Odette was a woman who spent entire days bending backward within herself, never letting on that she was…
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I answered with my usual economy of words. If someone wants more, they must ask, and he did.
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My swinging purse sent saucers tinkling to the tile and the copper-headed waitress flew over, swooping on the shatter, clutching clean forks like a handful of flowers.
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Where seldom is heard
an encouraging word
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160897
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Every night famous authors read not only to us, but to a duck. A wild female who emerged from the lake just as we were gathering, settled her gray-brown feathers down not three feet from the podium, tucked her head inside her wing, and remained there. If the duck liked…
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160866
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The book mind, just like its namesake the book, is capable of movement only after its assembly: otherwise, it boasts no moving parts.
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160856
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Being a grandparent is most joyous when deliberately subversive.
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16072713
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This is not a story you expect to end at Cape Horn.
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160721
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At the TV station across the street two sports team mascots are dancing and miming for the cameras. There are some young men wearing baseball caps at the viewing window simulating sex acts for the cameras.
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160700
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A dark-haired, handsome man adjusted the headset he was wearing, leaned toward a microphone, and eyed his host, a curly-haired man with a toothy grin, who sat up straight as he received a cue from his producer.
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The boy giggled, splashing his father and howling at the cold.
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160712
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The zombie apocalypse was long foretold as a rather exciting bit of bother involving shotguns and chainsaws, but the reality of it is rather depressingly boring.
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