842102
|
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…
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146221
|
“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…
|
150721
|
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
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1384105
|
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.
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113653
|
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
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1502105
|
Truth came out of it, a little bug that hovered there...
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138496
|
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.
|
99752
|
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
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1147118
|
He picked at his food. The teen-aged boys gnawed the bones. The conversation was nothing he was interested in. Chitchat and family jokes.
|
131084
|
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.
|
90820
|
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…
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112721
|
"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..."
|
154783
|
Julie studied her brush, plucking a strand of hair from it. She looked up and smiled. "My mother thought you were a peeper."
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107600
|
the darkness held frieghtened by the surveillance of a distant white shimmer.
|
89731
|
Two logs to make a fire burn,
one real, one fake,
for we have learned
that's all an evening fire takes.
|
87121
|
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
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90221
|
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.
|
128300
|
Despite the light of the torches, the darkness around them was overwhelming. They could not see the walls unless they leaned the flames close.
|
104700
|
“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.”
|
87600
|
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…
|
75300
|
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
|
106922
|
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…
|
11492210
|
Something about her eyes...
|
116052
|
Felix, vigorous vendor of Viagra and part-time picture framer, well-fed and fond and faithless as his spouse
|
98410
|
Sometimes, to be sad, you don't need tears.
|
101931
|
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.
|
129321
|
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…
|
103100
|
If they don’t cover consequences in your gifted and talented program, you may care to research it.
|
101000
|
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.
|
111612
|
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.
|