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Get Me Gone

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On a corkboard in the entryway of the Leetonia Shurfine Market a curling handwritten sign said Room for Rent. Kitchen Living Room Laundry Privlages. $65 Weekly.

A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING

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My best friend and roommate Eliza woke up one morning with the sudden conviction that she had to become very fat, as soon as possible.

Why'd You Come Back?

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But there, up the street, just coming into the corner of the window, someone was in the middle of the road. Walking literally down the middle, dragging one leg like it was heavy or broken, carving a fat line next to the skinny one the good one made.

Tuesday, Before Noon

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It came up heads so he is going first. He puts on a condom and gets in

A Love Letter to Norwich, England

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The number 25 double-decker bus threads its way through the narrow two-lane streets. Coughing and burping without a hint of embarrassment, it carries us from the train station, with its cheerful round clockface and neat front of red brick, over the weepin

Flying Tiger

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I screwed my courage to the sticking point and asked him if he had shot down any Japanese airplanes. He grinned at me. “One,” he said.

Écriture de la chatte

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YKK is a zipper manufacturer whose initials stand for Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushikigaisha. A boy told me (and I believed as a child) that YKK was my name in code.

Ishpeming

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Ishpeming straddles Lake Superior to Marathon, reaches into the water, pulls out a clump of frozen hotdogs, breaks them apart one by one, rolls them between its fingers, heats them on the thigh of its corduroy pants, and throws them into the sky. Comets t

At This Particular Moment

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in time there is nothing more important for meto write than this line. It isn't defined in the way you'd like perhaps, but it doesn't matter because it will be true, and you will be true, and I will be the message you get. Some signal has…

Destroy the Evidence

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The oven door topples off of its hinges as she kicks and climbs out. She growls and quickly slaps out her still smoldering sweater shoulder. Taking a kitchen chair by the back, she swings it over her head and shatters the window. The chair breaks into splinters as she…

Obituary

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Patrick Savage, who has died aged 29, was a poker player fast on his way to becoming a cult figure in the music scene.

Scoop

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“What about the other groups coming here?” I ask. “Were they asked what they wanted in these houses?” She turns and looks at me, like I've suddenly come onto her radar.

Suppose, I ask my friend

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nothing has ever happened in this or that or any other or maybe too damn many parallel universes. . . .

Taste

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I. Sweet Anthill The anthill is in front of my house. It started with a cupcake I dropped on the ground, frosting first. The ants started to congregate, carrying sprinkles and cake crumbs into the deep sidewalk crack. A week…

How to Have a Fulfilling Sexual Relationship with Your Own Parents (Part One)

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Hi, I'm Alexander Payne. I hate sex.

Lilith: The Unforgiven

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I saw life and beauty choking

Holding Hands in Public

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Take my hand. Take my hand and we will sail through the atmosphere leaving trails of rainbow speckled life written in musical notes behind us. We can go anywhere you want, whenever you wish. The moon in 1974. I hear the earth looks gorgeous during the seventies.…

A List of Ways I Have Failed to Express My Love for You

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The gaudy belt buckle I got you, which would have been well-received except that you hate gaudy belt buckles.The custom t-shirt I made for you using iron-on felt letters that generously enhanced the shape of your breasts in a way unfit for public display.The wedding…

Europe, 1960

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The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

Valentine's Day: Say it with Chickens

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Love at first sight? Not for me.

First Chapter of Rain (novel)

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Every day she loves me a little less, and justifies it by saying that there is less of me to love. At some crucial, overlooked space in our life together, I used up my compassion and started to spend hers.

Five Bucks.

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“For Chrissake! Just get me one of fucking Tony's half-assed, made in China bullshit, getaway cars. My plate is hot!” I had never hated cars so much before. Not so much the cars, but the sound the cheap ones made when they drove past my house. The…

Cure

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It's as if there are little men inside her head, wielding hammers.

The Lost Boys

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Every day hurts, just a little, but not enough

Blueberries

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Cold water shocked Ernest's face. The evening with Gracie had his nerves hot and popping. She was his fifth date and the closest to his memory of Sadie in college so far. He looked up at himself in the bathroom mirror with his mouth agape. Redness flooded…

patti, did art get us?

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often as i lie awake i wonder are you awake too?/ we never had any children, he said ruefully/ that summer i cried so much that robert called me soakie/ robert, dying: creating silence

Missed

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How I felt in Ireland.

The Party

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Mike poured vermouth over his Campari and ice. “Gotta say, you have the most amazing view up here.” “Thanks. It's great when I'm washing dishes.” “Yeah, and the view in your front room isn't bad either. This cocktail …

Blues Machine

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Rockin' Joe Heath stumbled into the stairwell in nothing but a black Zildjian t-shirt, shushing himself, trying to see right, pounding head. He recalled the old lily pattern of the wall­paper and something about the tattered edges…

Lucky Strike

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I like the smoke going in but I like it even more when it's coming out