2021 15 9
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She's always sitting in a soft chair watching television with little stars dotting her elbows and lightning bolts on her wrists.
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219943
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Sergio is Brazilian and his English has zero inflection, so I don't know how to take this question. The possible meanings are innumerable, some of which are very dangerous...
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191201
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“I heard your dad took out the Dairy Queen drive-thru,” said Pat.
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171111
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For a fleeting moment, eyes seemed to clear and the man spoke as if he were coming out of the pea soup fog that formed over the lake on spring mornings.
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193573
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The child could hear frogs chorusing outside and she wanted to listen only to that. Inside her grandfather gasped for air and she tried to keep her eyes normal as he smiled at her and put the mask back on. She did not want him to see how much she felt like running…
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165082
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Three months had passed since the grease fire melted Jasmine's face.I sat beside her on the hospital bed and held her clamy hand as she trembled. "No more stir-fry," I joked. The doctor and nurse faked a chuckle. Jasmine might have, but the bandages muffled…
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1649205
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He tells me that only a few things had happened in his life but some of them he had felt deeply.
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99700
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This is what you have to do to keep the unruly parts of your brain from open revolt.
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148471
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My mother was Irish as Paddy's pig. So all her family. Lovely people they were. Also, seldom seen among the Folk; stone cold sober. My father's family; Bavarian German. Bavaria's the wrong side of the German tracks. Frankfort people laugh at Bavarians as people in…
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116330
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The last time my old lady threw me out, I decided to go and stay with my brother. I thought, "That's the last place I'll be welcome," and I knew that was true. The drive was calming, which was good, because Steven wouldn't have even let me in if I…
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122430
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After our first kiss,
a team of scientists
scrubbed away the cancer
of your lipstick.
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144161
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I was quite alone in this small room with the tarp and the dying fire.
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171101
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Lydia slid into the pool and rubbed lotion on the exposed areas of skin. She lathered her flipper arms. She lathered her sun-worn face. And she lathered her chest, rubbing some between her chubby breasts.
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1633188
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Overnight, I felt drunk, as if headed for hangover, but I hadn't drunk enough to cause it. What caused it? Superstitions dialed in sleep.
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22702310
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'Hey, are you supposed to be from a cartoon or something?' said the Grim Reaper. I had to take a big drink before I could reply. I didn't know what to say, so I said 'Could I see your watch, please?' He looked down my dress while he thought about it.
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127543
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"You're no good at sex, no good at drugs and, god knows, no good at rock and roll."
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23052312
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Down cellar, my father showed me where he kept his beer stash. It was in a cubbyhole under the bulkhead, where Mom never thought to look.
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149621
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The car has been parked there for slightly more than a day now, and nothing has occurred—there’s nothing “unusual,” nothing “amiss.” Except that it’s there, still, as he follows his boys to school.
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31254327
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Walking to work, Lawrence Settler was struck by a bus as he crossed a one-way street.
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154410
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Shh!
What?
The downstairs neighbors. They’re at it again.
What?
It’s the weekend? They’re both home?
Oh.
Remember?
I think so. Sort of.
Shh!
What’s that grunting?
He must be doing the heavy lifting.
Sounds like he’s hurt
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215300
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Her body shivered from the liquid and she felt loose. Her mind relaxed and a veil of pink mist covered her body.
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108410
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I found Mathew face down, cold and ridged like a plastic doll. I had overslept because he never cried—never told me he was hungry. Rodney had to peel my arms from around my son so the paramedics could take him in a blaze of flashing red and white lights.…
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195721
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The tapping of hard soles moves slowly but forcefully away from the front door and toward the kitchen. Johnny looks at his dinosaur as if its spiked tail and plates of armor will protect him. Clip clop. Clip clop. The footsteps circle the kitchen. The bac
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120700
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He bounds like a lunar explorer into the Edinburgh Castle, the goofy porcelain busts glaring at him with contempt.
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125021
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I hope you enjoyed the celebration last night. Good things always come to you. I thought your family would never go home. I didn't get to sleep this morning until 2:59, although I had set my alarm to 6:10. I didn't want you to miss your plane. At daybreak,…
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2434143
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You should really see my father's bunions. They are as obnoxious as fuchsia bowling bowls.
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160600
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"I think you're a great candidate for a sentinel node biopsy," said Dr. Kartes.
They sat in the small, dark office. On the sofa, not touching. She still wouldn't take his hand.
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22722711
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As soon as she left, I sat down at the computer. Booted up. Read my e-mail, then looked at pictures of bare-naked ladies.
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484500
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Bess spent the summer that year at a lakeside court in Lake Elsinore. They told her she only had to spend three months there, before she was allowed to have a spot of her own at the nudist camp. Just three months. But Lake Elsinore seemed like something
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180551
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Class (appears in my book Breaking it Down; no journal publication) When your neighbor James Frehley cusses you out for hanging a block and tackle from the silver maple in your front lawn, begin to pull the engine from your Galaxie anyway, smile and nod…
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