Most recent stories

What Goes Above Our Heads Sometimes Does Not

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We floated balloons to my dead uncle in Heaven for closure. I couldn't figure, at age seven, how he was under the ground and in the sky too. Mom touched Dad on the arm. It was Dad's brother. It seemed like Mom was sorry for something…

King boy

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“He had emerged from slavery, -- not the worst slavery in the world, not a slavery that made all life unbearable, rather a slavery that had here and there something of kindliness, fidelity, and happiness, -- but withal slavery, which, so far a human aspiration…

Carlos The Impossible (Part 1)

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And so the deal was struck. It was arranged that the empresario for the Plaza Mexico would buy the giant bull from Button for Hernando to fight. Come the Fiesta de la Fuerza Irresistible, the Great One would meet the bull that was born of a thunderclap at

Kinesiology

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I tell my doc I’m special, 1 in 1,000,000 special: unhitched, pushing 44, and knocked up. "Call Guinness," I joke, and fake jab his right arm. He puts his two hands over mine, smiles gently, like a father.

underwater with their thumbs

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And your daughter, Mrs. P, and your daughter Mrs. Q, underwater, underwater in the old swimming hole, in the backyard swimming pool. “They’ve all got children there.” La la. Yet when I’m naked, when I enter with my own body the mirror, the small sha

Casting It

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Truth came out of it, a little bug that hovered there...

Amelia

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Every time she tries to sleep they come; legions of small armored things scuttle claws aloft across the purple sand as soon as she stops moving.

the first time I met Terry

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I remember the first time I met the virgin, Terry (not Mary.) She was in the back seat of an old Plymouth convertible with its top down, jam-packed with raucous high school girls vying to see which one of them could be the most loud and obnoxious, and w

Merry Christmas

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He picked at his food. The teen-aged boys gnawed the bones. The conversation was nothing he was interested in. Chitchat and family jokes.

SantaBot, Can You Hear Me?

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Mimi: Santa, I am so down with taking a number, but I really can't have you reading that particular story. Santa: Let me be the judge of that. I am Santa. I give presents to kids.

Miss Miriam

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Miriam smiled as I entered through the old, creaky metal front door of her home. She sat still, face marked of deep wrinkles, tense with the pain only another cancer patient would understand. In that soft, sweet, melodic voice, she greeted me. '"Hello Ms. Monica, I've been…

Casablanca Or Something Like It

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"More and more levels of physicality. And his eyes, man. His eyes were all wet, and... sparkly.” “Wow.” “Yeah. And before I can stop the escalation, he's massaging my heart.” “Get the f__k out..."

First Kiss With Rubber

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Julie studied her brush, plucking a strand of hair from it. She looked up and smiled. "My mother thought you were a peeper."

Freedom

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the darkness held frieghtened by the surveillance of a distant white shimmer.

On Reading Yeats' "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory"

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Two logs to make a fire burn, one real, one fake, for we have learned that's all an evening fire takes.

on a long suburban plain

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We were stuck sweating it out on a long suburban plain when you left. Or else we’d mob the one visible hill (in Palos Hills, or Hillside) and turn the televisions on, looking behind us nervously, hopelessly, until every evening became a Wednesday evenin

A Memo From The CEO

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Over the last 30 days we have seen a radical decrease in our revenue stream. Our Q3 earnings fell dramatically short of what we had projected, and as a result the leadership team has had to look at some difficult cost-reducing measures.

Arcana Magi Memorial - c.3

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Despite the light of the torches, the darkness around them was overwhelming. They could not see the walls unless they leaned the flames close.

Storm Chasers

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“Okay,” I say, “but my point is the only way you’d ever know if someone really loved you is if they put their life on the line when it counts. Otherwise you gotta take their word for it.”

The Magic Treehouse

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It was an unseasonably warm day in early spring when I first saw the man in the treehouse. The boys had just climbed onto the school bus, the older with shoulders hunched, weighted down with the gross unfairness of his early adolescent life, the younger still scribbling…

and dark blood flowed out of our youth

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I remember this shot taken of you in a bright blue summer dress, with your arms spread out, leaning against a wood fence near the beach, or by Lincoln Park maybe, your thin body leaning back and long blonde hair down bare arms. Other men will remember h

The Arctic Express

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Sky: Snows, turns dark. Street: Freezes. Remains on a hill. Traffic: None on this block. Two: Did I miss the bus? One: You either missed it, or it didn't come. Two: Hasn't come. One: One or the other. Which one? Two: I don't know; I asked you. One: I meant which…

Missing the Bus

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Something about her eyes...

Cast list for a play

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Felix, vigorous vendor of Viagra and part-time picture framer, well-fed and fond and faithless as his spouse

Sad without Tears

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Sometimes, to be sad, you don't need tears.

Born Lucky

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He's gonna find he wasn't born lucky after all, his propaganda has got up on the wrong side of the bed and sidled onto the couch.

Fine Yellow Dust

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In the dream Yesler rolled, a broad avenue made of fine yellow dust, from Third down toward Second, and I made my way in the silence and bright morning air. To my left on the corner of Second stood the old Mocambo cafe and lounge, home to drag…

Tough Love

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If they don’t cover consequences in your gifted and talented program, you may care to research it.

Crossing Over

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Joan's biospy showed the cancer had come back. Instead of preparing herself for chemo, she booked us plane tickets to the Galapagos. “Death can wait another ten days,” she said.

On Being Choked

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I was sitting at my desk at work and couldn't figure out why it felt like a person with a very weak grip was trying to strangle me. Then, I realized I was wearing a scarf.