1511 8 1
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We sat in a row on the long couch and no one's legs could reach the floor. Granddaddy took the first one the kid who no one knew and said to us "the rest of you stay put."
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1271 11 6
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She stood with her sisters, pretty maids in a row, felt cold despite the scorching spring sun. Heard what the man said but didn’t register; words from the Lord flew around her like the flighty trill of the robins up above. The birds made more sense.
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1312 0 0
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7
We sat in Darrell's truck in the deserted silent world of the down-trodden industrial area of West Berkeley, where no one in his right mind went at five in the morning. "Put the gun away, Darrell," I said. "I mean it."
"I can't help but keep
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850 2 0
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It's eight fifteen in the morning, my favorite time to call, and a guy named Ernie DeCampo answers the door in his work pants and a t-shirt. “Good morning, Mr.De Campo,” I say. “Do you have any fireworks in your home?” …
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852 5 1
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Joey tried to shoot the cop with his air gun but the cop sprayed Joey with pepper spray.
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915 2 0
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Irrational Obligations In honor of National Pi Day Any excuse for a circle, a way to pinch the day. They are calling it something like a celebration only with bigger words and too many numbers to count. We'll have to approximate the amount of joy …
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853 0 0
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Late spring, summer before cancer. Frank drove Max and his pal Jason to Cincinnati for their first rock show. Less Than Jake at Bogart's. A two-hour drive for ska-punk.
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1523 3 2
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Julius winced, knowing there was no way out. Amy showed him every worm, every insect, every dead mouse she’d found when they were in the fields. She pulled him forward, making his bruised shoulder burn.
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1037 5 0
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The sound of it wasn't right in his head yet. When he said it aloud he didn't really believe it.
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1309 1 0
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My only celebrity anecdote involves seeing Barbara Bush in the back of the Presidential limo ...
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1584 17 6
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The Boys The Boys, they call my brothers in the neighborhood, or Those Boys. The Taylor Boys. Sometimes, Mom calls them Thing One and Thing Two, like in The Cat in the Hat. Those bad boys. Nobody has brothers like my brothers, kicked off the school bus, barred…
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1913 35 19
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The gull put its foot down, stretched its wings out and swept into the salty breeze.
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996 1 0
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It's saying, "It feels as if you've given me your old, your tired and your poor. I feel much older than the years you've logged."
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1187 5 5
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Vibrations of a cavern a mile beneath silver willows.At two in the morning beyond the Sheratona lumination of pollution intercedes realism.Cardinals and doves develop their melodyprogressively caught in beat/heart echoes,as with spelunker canaries fluting noxious gasa small…
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871 1 0
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1862 7 2
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"Because of the way our society is structured, a lot of people have to climb hard to get to anywhere reasonable in their lives, losing fingernails and a sense of dignity on the way up."
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937 4 0
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I'm not dreaming anymore.
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1276 27 14
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Your writing offended the editors greatly, and we would select certain word choices we disliked, but we truly hated every word, including mere articles, prepositions, and conjunctions.
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1824 6 4
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The man looked at him for a moment, as if he didn’t understand him, “Mr. Wallace, you have a genuine miracle in your bathroom. This isn’t something that just wraps up.”
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1562 7 3
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We walk in silence. We water our plants. We don’t eat as well as we should. We try to love. We try to forget.
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1483 4 2
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I want to break that mug. (Break him.)
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1305 6 3
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Doc and I talked for several hours. When I told him Mona was pregnant, he turned his head and looked at me. “Who's the father?” he asked. Don't know, I said. Mona didn't know, either.
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1544 2 1
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The diner was half filled with the loose ends of humanity that stayed up until five in the morning. We picked a booth by the window. The light in the diner was a dingy yellow, and the seats were that lobster-red vinyl that could only have been installe
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896 0 0
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Michael lay on his back and counted his breaths, measuring their depth of inhalation and release.
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1205 2 1
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Six thousand dollars was a small price for a man's life. Mario was in the back seat of the Honda with Johnny next to him handcuffed, all tense. Francisco had it on a rap station, the sort of music that gave Mario a headache.
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983 0 0
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They've put down roots under the dome. Want to push through the ceiling, blot out the sun. I have other plans.
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2068 36 16
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I looked at it awhile waiting for it to cool. She said, "Ahh, go on! - Go on, go on.”
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1021 2 1
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the Griot Grrrls stopped playing their distinctive brand of power progressive acoustic worldfunk at open-mics around campus
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765 4 0
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laying with you, thinking with you, breathing with you
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1336 10 5
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As a boy I fished under the Tappan Zee bridge which spans the Hudson River above New York City.
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