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She remembered how cold it was in the factory that day. A few of the high windows stood open as usual, necessary for ventilation when the machines were all running, when the concrete floors were packed with the sweating bodies of warm human workers. The
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133121
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For the briefest moment, she was part of the sky. She hung there. Frozen. Suspended. Arms outstretched. She thought maybe she could take off flying, if she strained against gravity hard enough. She would soar into the pale blue until she reached the clouds. They …
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124621
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Jill's number was flashing on Carol's caller ID. Jill, the baby sister she had practically raised after their mother died of a stroke when Carol was 12. It had been months since they'd talked. Jill had been avoiding Carol because Jill's idiot husband Mark…
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129722
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Her wrinkles came into focus, the sort of old woman's face photographed for coffee tables and art galleries and corporate boardrooms, for prize juries and grant selection committees, and Luc searched his formidable memory for an exact match. Over the long, tedious…
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119032
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They looked like girl’s jeans. Matt held them against himself in the mirror. Not that girl’s jeans were a mark against them. Usually, girls had better jeans anyway. Matt took two of the biggest pairs out of the big chest in his grandmother’s back closet.
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112621
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His voice isn't familiar but his words are. He says he knows we haven't spoken in years and apologizes for it. I can hear him pacing on the other end of the line, tapping things and then a shriek of glass shattering. Really, I tell him, no need to…
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108611
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One winter day, walking home from work because his old Honda Civic refused to start out of sheer laziness, Martin found the cat in the alley behind his apartment building. It was terribly thin, with a swollen belly. It twirled around his legs, pleading with big…
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119531
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The ticking must have gone on for an hour before Kathy realized it wasn't a clock. When the line finally moved, the rhythm changed. When the queue stopped again, she glanced behind her and noticed a woman in torn jeans and a filthy sweater tapping a heel on the…
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81960
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100631
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When I bumped my head I almost fell to the ground Not so much stars As flashes of lights That looked like sparklers My mother chasing the dog She never catches it The cat sits on a nearby chair It's head moving as the dog does …
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151041
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Paul Shaffer and his cloned henchman Mini Paul come rattling through the early morning sky in a modified World War I biplane.
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87822
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Happy is a look we are trying to wear better
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“There’s enough food to last here a week.” Ferdinand assured, as a dingy wooden cabin came into view. They were on foot now. He’d insisted on forcing the car into a ravine, using a heavy rock and the last of the gasoline to drive it into a heap of rusted
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99841
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As I looked in her eyes
She told me—
she liked to pull wings off flies.
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99521
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I circled about six times - mesmerized by the sign that said you needed socks. Just passing through it said - As I made my third pass I thought - well, aren't we all.You looked cold. Fragile. And younger than the wrinkles that engulfed your hands, neck…
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125422
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Marilyn turned the kayak away from the target ship, barely visible after all these years, toward the shallow waters by the shore. She recalled her father holding her hand at low tide, as she looked up at him and he told her…
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And then, one fateful day, the world ran out of ideas. The last one was gone, floating away like a balloon full of the helium we had already squandered.
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140241
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Butchie was the one who heard about the bonfire happening over on Harrison Avenue.
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150611
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Not everybody sees Father. Not Mom, not Dad, not even my little brother, Andre, and he see lots of things. Me, I need to.
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130122
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There's a large tunnel that runs under my house. I can only estimate but it's not deep below the ground and that's what worries me.
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125840
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She wakes up sad. She can't shit. She spreads out the foil. no creases. folds it in half. She puts the stuff in the crease. holds a lighter under it. A zippo. then smokes it. Well smokes the smoke. It's like kissing god or the…
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132922
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It would be great if next door to every restaurant, there was a 24 hour dental surgery. Then you could sneak in and grab a few magazines to read if you’re unfortunate enough to be dining alone.
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109722
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I have become a prisoner of my own fractured mind/ A paranoid weirdo behind the horizontal bars of window shades
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“Jus’ because a story told right don’t make it true,” he said. “Sometimes the story is there ain’t no story. Sometimes you look way down inside, and ain’t nuthin’ there. Can’t write no book ‘bout nuthin’. Won’t sell none. But them
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6921
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122922
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No one is a Puritan under all that powder!
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110541
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Some corners of the world seem to be consigned to an eternal hell of never-ending strife. The Middle East; Northern Ireland; the faculty lounge at Oxford University.
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110831
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He pronounced the Afrikaans word with the vowel sound like the vowel in dour. It meant box, but it also meant cunt.
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118622
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I’ve been mentally cataloging all the various ways Myra has fucked me up. I know this is a dangerous game, strapped to our seats inches apart and hurling down the road at 70 mph, but I can’t help fiddling with the fuse.
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