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Hi. I'm Shirley. I'm not here to help you. You might think because I wear this ticky-tack name badge that I'm your servant. But I'm not. I'm here at K-mart because my grandson said I need to get out of the house. I wish he'd get out of my house. Here are some survival tips…
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113146
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Her husband goes hard on her. No blushes--he goes hard all over, not just in the assumed area. He could have Blip! disappeared instead, how would his wife have liked that? He has to make a choice, his captors are waiting, they don't have time, that is to…
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My muscles ached but I was awake.
That night I didn’t sleep as soon as my body wanted to. I stared at the picture facing me, knowing the young man her father had been was behind it. I kept thinking of his eyes looking out, at the old man who eventu
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We were the same and different. I was wild, wild, and she was calm. A pair of dolls we were. Holding hands in thin white dresses. Running through fields. Spying on boys. Making small things from grass and weed and wildflower. One day (it was a Tuesday) al
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142461
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It Is Not Gravity Which Pulls Us Down Only these tired neglected gods still wander the floor of the universe, sifting joylessly through the detritus that lies there: the fragments of fallen planets grown so heavy with sadness they had lost the will to spin…
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75951
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Because he tells her to, she puts on a vintage Easter dress one size too small and sprawls in a circle of light on the dusty floor...
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“Help us, help us,” the children are saying. “They’ll come back. Help us. They bite.”
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Whenever I hear Adam Sandler's song, “My Piece of Shit Car”, it brings back memories. Notice I don't say fond memories. It brings me back just like the really bad backwash regurgitation flavor…
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1617127
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It's an easy thing to take out an eye.
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1038143
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Unfortunately, the question had a similar impact on me that a command not to have thought about rhinoceroses would have—once suggested, I could think of little else
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On Friday evenings they play Scrabble, a whole crowd of them. They use books to keep score, page numbers, instead of a long column of pencil scratches. They organize themselves into teams; the English majors all together, versus biology, history and horn players. She and he…
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99865
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At age eleven, I murder the coffee table. I gouge with every available implement: thumbtacks, Lefty scissors, the plastic hand of my Barbie accomplice (who really should have known better). It is a slow death. In the end, there is nowhere to hide the body. When I am…
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51610
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I have never met Joe’s brother, of course.
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The fabric on the waiting room chairs is stained and matted, but has been cleaned over and over.
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Our house was big, red brick, with off-white walls that watched over us while we slept, while we prayed for our souls to be kept, while we shared bath water and bunk beds and the secret of the back closet we will die with and never reveal.
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The midsummer sky is black above us when I hear Dad say my name, quiet like I’ve never heard before. I let my hands drop away from my face and crawl towards him.
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“Excuse me,” said the girl. “You aren’t allowed to eat your own food in here.”
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Had this been a film, I’d have seen you at once. Extreme close-up: my finger on the green button that opens the door to the park. Long shot: my leaving my bike at the entrance. Slow shot: my walking down the narrow stone path.
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Upon learning the fetus has fingernails, Missy texts her boyfriend: It has nails! He won’t reply because he’s just left for war, but she does it just the same.
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Dragonfly She danced out of the burning rubble, wrapped in a shawl made of iridescent silk. It must have been her grandmother's. Her arms were wings, the silk translucent and fluttering. Fire fell from the sky. Thatched roofs, walls of mud-daubed sticks, the huts…
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I had been in bed for a couple of days and by this I mean sleeping for fifteen or sixteen hours at a time. I don’t think that I believed in God anymore. I no longer knew how to stay awake.
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I pass the Grief Benches on my way to work. No one is on them today. Last night I saw a couple there, him wet eyed and her with her head down. She scrunched her eyes tight as I passed and I remember thinking she was a fraud. It's alright if you don't want
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The plumber has three lives left or else he is already dead.
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We are in search of free hor d’oeuvres, me and Jane – Jane from H.R., Jane who is exactly as plain as her name implies, Jane, who, for now anyway, for this company retreat, is my kindred spirit in broke-ass hangover land.
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Brian had spent the morning filling out applications all over Knox County, and by noon he was more than ready to call it a day. But apparently there was one last squirt of virtue in him, because heading home he saw a Help…
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63740
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We’ve already agreed on a date when Jack posts some new pictures of himself. I have to swallow. Hard. In four days Jack’s become twenty years older!
On Thursday, a boyish thirty-something was smiling at me from my PC. This Monday I find myself stari
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63231
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As a rule, she calls me whenever she’s waiting for her train or bus. ‘Hiya… How’s life-’ she starts off sweetly. Even though I should know better by now, I can only respond in the same old way. I’ll say: ‘Hi Kate!’. Next, I’ll try to te
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65200
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You can’t start living in The Netherlands just like that; you need to be registered first. Once an official has confirmed you’re the person you claim to be, you can start in a job. Once an employer has confirmed you’re employed, you can apply for yo
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