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Tumbalalaika

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When the arguing started, their voices would get louder and louder, till they broke into my dreams. That night, I woke and listened in the dark for what felt like a very long time. Perhaps I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. For one thing, they never

Eggshell White Frigidaire

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He ran for home, screaming for help in the silent ravine.

Third World Problems: On Breaking My Kindle in Africa

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I blame the fucking mosquito net.

Family Happenings

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Saturday afternoons: tartan blanket spread on the pebble beach, transistor radio hissing static, fish paste sandwiches and seagulls. Why fish paste, Mum? She didn't dare ask.

Local Man Makes Good

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A junkyard Bison seems an odd choice over the usual dog, but it did the job--trampling trespassers, vagrants and unautorized salvagers with a violent and admirable efficiency

Back Story

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I wanted you in the worst way but that's not how I got you.

Honesty

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Bill decided he hated his neighbors on a Sunday morning in June.

Late Night / Early Morning

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It's 2am. The wind is moving at speed, whipping gently the tree branches, and their leaves rustle simultaneously to create a audible sound, like hands flipping through sheets of paper, or that feeling you get on your fingertips when going across a textured surface. I'm…

Junior League Therapy

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She laughed as she stuck up the word flaccid, it kept falling down

Dear Caddy

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I would advise the younger you to change your underpants, and not to let those boys do the talking for you.

Protection

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You're a good dog, she whispered to him, a good brave dog. Her face was tight with soap.

20,000 Years of The Apartment For The Dead

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He saw places that he hadn't thought existed. He found his analog from 17,000 years ago praying inside of a white pyramid in Kathmandu, and saw how the fireballs being catapulted through the air outside were stopped in midair by a beam coming from the top

Mercator Projections

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the devil is beating his wife

A Walk on Ferry Beach, Maine

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"and I turned to you, at some joke we shared, and saw winter ease its hand,"

Bearded Lamb

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I was bleeding from the soul It took its toll I fell all the way down in a hole I saw some burning coal I didn’t know where the hell I was Or what went wrong As I sang some unholy song Where I did not belong There was a frozen carcas

Metaphor Therapy

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"Psst! You can't hide behind a broken dream.The gardenia's hint that fills your air with her perfumed scent will remain like a residue on your mind. I wish there were an antidote I could share with you, but alas, my apothecary drawer is empty. Many times it's been my…

Ugly People

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They stumble and curse prettily, their thin arms traversed with colored lines of drainage from the swooping trays, snakes of pricey liquor tinkling down their armpits and disappearing into unwashed bras packed with soggy filler.

19.

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They made posters and hung them everywhere. With the passing days she became the photograph at its center: hair always in the same ponytail; always with the same smile

Hoops

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Backs in the grass, legs straight, bare feet resting at angles, Rachel and I, both of us seven, looked up through the oak limbs that made black lightning cracks across a blinding blue sky. Three hula hoops sat trapped in the trees’ sprawled grasp.

Owl, Glass, Deer

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He calls it an owl glass: he’s allowed: he’s six.

The Havisham Complex

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Zinvushka Zokolovskaya and I first met at the local botanical garden.

Strange Sign At the Outskirts to Paradise

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In an area of high winds and strong convictions, I have lived among the ever-changing crowd that is always the same. I must have died overnight, and now my wings are flapping in my own face. I used to be an owl, a night owl, to be sure

Honey Bee Men

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"...she's been seeming like she's been dreaming while awake lately..."

In the small hours

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In the small hours

The mannequins are only playing dead

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at nightthe mannequins leave their glass prisons and hunt owls in the forest***sometimes they dance a slo-mo tarantella in a clearingbone-white …

Your Call Is Not Very Important To Us

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Please stay on the line. Or don't stay on the line. We don't care. If we cared about your call, we'd answer it. Which, to be honest, isn't going to happen. We're going to make you hold. And while you hold, we're going to subject you to some really bad…

Food & Treasure

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She wakes up with rosemary.

ANNIES CHASE

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Annie remembers clearly the smell of that classroom, the look and taste of it. Thirty little cruel girls, as cruel as only girls can be, sitting in rows of five.

Jagged Dog Story

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But I had learned from ingesting Roberto’s glitter-eyed fear, it could make you never close enough, and then, never far enough away. And both at the same time.

We Loved We Laughed We Cried

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My wife broke the news to me. She enjoyed it, too, I'm certain of that. It was a juicy piece of gossip.