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Medusa Song

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She scrambles the eggs while the baby howls at her knees. To drown out the racket, she hums as she jabs her fork into the yolks. She enjoys the way they spill their yellow color and swirl into the whites. She matches her tune to the schook, schook, schook of the…

Three Teeth

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Three teeth. You can pick them out if you hit pause just right. Probably not a person in the entire valley who hasn’t seen that video from the Eastern Cheerleading Finals. They even showed the tape on the eleven o’clock news in Scranton, my face ci

Jeremy's Crane

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I saw magic for the first time when I was eight, on the day Jeremy Chendo showed me that paper cranes can fly.

If This Were Baltimore

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If This Were Baltimore East A spray of change in the lilies and loose rubber, she pulled close to the wall. She smiled at the trucks, her handful of loot. Hallelujah, he said, converting. West Like 4 miles of cakes, they counted…

Record of a Living Being

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Kurosawa was silent as we traipsed through the destruction, carefully side-stepping piles of sodden pages and heaps of swollen, broken-backed texts. Workers in coveralls used wide brooms to push water toward a floor-drain at the back of the store.

Water

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The water rolls gently this evening, barely touching my toes before retreating. The tide has been going out for over an hour and already there are several victims – crustaceans, spider crabs, minnows.

The Book You'll Never Read

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THE BOOK YOU'LL NEVER READ CONTENTS This Is Not A Test In The Event Of A Nuclear Attack, This Message Will Be Followed By A Message From Your Local Civilian Defense Authority Fuck, The Radio Doesn't Work Trouble Shooting Radios The Top 40…

Ways in Which Looks Deceive

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Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.

#5

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and the other guy goes

The Words Fall Into Ash

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The two were huddled in a corner of an alley, joined by some others that I’m sure wandered into the darkness when they realized they were far from alone. That alley was the one off Market Street. I used to steal candy from the corner shop when I was nin

Conjecture

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Sunday, May 9, 1773 Sir — The world must at present be perpetual on the primitive state of human nature Conjecture The jealousy and envy boils over a dead weight strangled serpents in the Temple

Gone Shopping

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She found Matthew toward the back, cradling an urn with a tasteful black and gold pattern. When he saw her approaching, he held it up for inspection. “You think I’d look good in this?” he asked.

What Our Fathers Knew

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The clickity-click of poker chips spills out to the six of us waiting for a table. We're old college buddies, drunk since one this afternoon, sporting the ball caps our wives never let us wear. We brag. About our poker wins, how easy it is to read each other, how we can…

Four, in the Morning

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We’d told her that Kasey waitressed. We talked about it a lot, trying to figure something out. I wanted to be honest with her. Kasey said she was too young to understand. I said that was why honesty wouldn’t hurt anything. Kasey said what about later.

Old Man's Winter

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The old man’s face is worn and tired, his nose and cheeks tinted red over his pale black skin from the frosty January winds blustering through town. He looks more than half frozen, which I don’t find surprising.

Tenderoni

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"Oh, damn,” I say. “A kitty.”

Dinner in Mexico

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If he had not just decapitated a chicken, he was a man I could have loved.

Early Decision

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Melinda said forget the kegger last night, what we’re about to do will help you figure out whether you want to apply here.

The Lies You Tell Yourself

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I am skinniest in the morning. My belly forgets the previous day’s sins, and I wake up looking taut like a model. Then it starts.

The Polymath

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Now that I am dead, my god will fight your god...

The Girl in the Storm

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There once was a girl who was lost in a storm. She wandered this way and that, this way and that, trying to find a way home. But the sky was too dark, and the rain too fierce; all the girl did was go in circles. Then, suddenly, there were arms around her

Big Slide

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The screams and howls of other people's children set him on edge. But he struggled to stay cheerful. They had season passes, so the visits there cost nothing and it had consequently become a weekly tradition to go. The children had not, as far as he could

All Fur and Bones

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I wonder how much time she has left. I think she’s seventeen. I don’t know for sure because she was already grown when I got her from the pound, just before Christmas, years ago this was --back when I had hair and hope.

In Portland, Where It Rains

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So many opportunities for mud can be found in these hills,

Subway Imitator

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The imitator’s segue to his sad life story was, “But what isn’t funny…”

Windowers

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naturally, the windowless ones are the worst.

Chalk, Fish and Monkey

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She picked the fish out of the box leaving a pool of mucus and blood slowly congealing on the shelf and dripped it toward the kitchen table. Outside the wind lashed the tops of the poplar trees together and rain sprayed from the barn roof opposite.

Lalla, Chuckachucka

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He cut the heads off, and in doing this, their eyes came off. He placed the four discs on the windowsill next to the petrified avocado pit and Chia Pet clay shell. The eyes glittered like globs of jam.

Exit Strategy

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I was still on track to be your average American with a six inch dick and a pair of sneakers.

Big Al Dissects Literary Fiction since No One Else in the Bar could pronounce Aristotle

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“Well” I say. “What do you think about the dilemma of a guy who’s tortured by a history of incest and bondage?” “Depends” Says Al. “On who was cested and who was bonded.