2379 23 16
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... I know all about ax murderers because Elmo, my uncle by marriage to my sister who never had any sense was one. He done killed six women in a farm outside of Topeka in the space of they say three minutes, including my sister and her bingo friends . . .
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178662
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She walked, thighs flaming fire-cold, without complaining or grumbling or cursing the goddamn Midwestern winters the way the others did.
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134732
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I unwrap my #4, the greasy smell wafting over my nostrils, and I pause, with the understanding that this will be the highlight of my day, and that I should savor the moment, and then I bite in.
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167573
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Maybe she thinks in Czech, dreams in German, pretends in English. Babylon is a beautiful place after all.
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1806198
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You would think when a bowl hits a tree the sound would be fierce, a loud clatter as stoneware explodes on birch bark dispersing shards in daffodils and grape muscari, but the noise is gentle, a thudding clink like empty bourbon bottles rattling hollow in…
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18834314
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Tuesdays she worked afternoons at the bookstore, and he’d secretly go, buy a large order, sit in a corner with a newspaper. Fries covered in vinegar, veins of ketchup.
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1553103
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“I’ll be damned,” he said. “I never knew where that was.”
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88630
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A salesman, a born salesman like my brother, is always and only involved in the Moment, and it is the sale itself that is at the heart of the moment, and my brother Harris was really at the top of his form as a salesman. It can probably best be said, th
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129820
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He gave her cancer. He gave her cancer.
Not what she said. She said her relationship gave her cancer. Her relationship with him. Gave her cancer.
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30501615
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A man and his wife are walking through a museum when the man sees a shield on the wall. Look at that! he says. Isn’t that remarkable?
The two of them walk a little closer.
What’s so remarkable about it? says his wife.
Well, the workmanship! s
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117440
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Green hands
wave
in freezing water.
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111020
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These fern-like weeds grow along the roads. “Watch this,” you say, bending down over a plant. The touch of your fingertip sets it recoiling, stunned–a fun, jungle trick you picked up somewhere along your way.
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45343226
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Time advances. One space between words, two between sentences. When I'm not working, I rehearse the language of newspapers: teez, pica, reefer, jump, hed, sig.
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127790
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Of flowers there Are none In June No sun Upon my cheek The gentle breeze Stirs me not The smiles They cloud my vision Birds they Sing their songs But I hear Them not When tears Rain down My heaven.
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155674
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They had been wintering on the Cape under gunmetal skies...
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178782
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The closest I've been to Ireland is Conwy castle on the coast of Wales. It was summer, mid-way through college. I was naive and dreamy then. I wandered historic and literary monuments throughout England and weighed my future options.
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153221
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I can still feel the texture of those humid Delta mornings, hear the rhythm of the voices of black children echoing down the halls. I still remember the sense of purpose that I had each day, knowing that this, here, mattered: a child’s education, their
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180173
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Already, I can see that, whenever Harold moves, some of his soul escapes, like an accidental exhalation, like breath on powder.
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194193
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His worst nightmare had come true. He wasn't wearing green and all of the other kids were.
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140742
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Something was changing.
We could sense it in the circling air. A loss of stillness - and we'd been still for so long.
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25744420
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He was manic, depressive, schizophrenic, bipolar, paranoid, cyclothymic, borderline, or a genius.
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149773
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Note to self: look up Bobby Sands.
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184720
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. . . not if I have anything to do with it.
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85730
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Near Christmas in Chicago they used to have these pictures of a five dollar bill on billboards all around the city, with the caption: Take Abe to Mass. On the front steps before going into the church, we encountered a ver
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21262911
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On the eve of celebrating their patron saint at the public house, one of his particularly cabbaged mates was bold enough to ask him about his cranial deformity.
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1679104
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They live a simple life..two solitudes by lamplight.
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2913224
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I didn’t understand, you said with a hoot, that it was hard to get hard when my ass was soft.
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2053218
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Women with tremulous breasts. Going down the swimming pool drain.
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117400
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Email flash: Kate Winslet is separated hope wells in dry souls
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28453219
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My wife goes away for a few days to the little town where Hitchcock filmed The Birds. Her sister goes along. When she comes back, I ask her if she had a good time, and she says no.
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