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Waterstones and The Fridge

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I try to slot into order the sequence of events: the book deal that appeared and then winked away like a dying star, the white gloves and the brick through Waterstone's window; my novel lying in the shop front in a bed of glass.

Black Wheat, 6

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The soul was in the eyes but (it) isn't The animal is in the body and can't be hidden One senses the density of the blood there Occasionally the soul rises to the surface Occasionally the animal comes into the eyes They use people and throw them away

Who's Going To Clip the Toenails of God?

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Who will plume the chicken? Who tend the little flower of the soft person? Who steal the pea out from under the bank while you’re holding it up?

Olfactory

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Life to her had come to resemble one of those mazes you find in a puzzle book, inscrutable except by those with exceptional IQs. Mary would run her pencil down one path in search of the passage that might penetrate to the exit, then another, but the paths

Rain Dance

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You were gone, long gone, and I could no longer smell your scent as I walked through the empty house. I couldn't bring myself to unpack the boxes, and they lurked like a forest of overgrown drab Legos.

In transit

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Clare sits bolt upright in the hard plastic chair, warily tracking every passer-by. In her lap, Kim’s hair is damp with sweat, dark blonde curls melting against her flushed cheeks. Clare absently strokes the length, soothing both of them.

Six Ways to Say Butterfly

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He repeated these six words like a prayer. His only confession.

13 Halloweens

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1. The Walking Heart Attack Man has two outfits. In the summer he dresses in a short sleeve checkered button down shirt and high waisted Bermuda shorts with sandals. In the winter he wears dark pants and loafers with a gray corduroy coat…

Hazel - alt.punk excerpt

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This is why people go into work one day with a shotgun. This is why people turn to the masses and drink Kool-Aid. This is one of the reasons behind Chuck Palahnuik’s conceptualization of Project Mayhem.

The Panda

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“Maybe she will like Boo-Ba-Loo, the large male from America,” they said. So they shipped in Boo-Ba-Loo and put him in the pen next to Ding-a-Ling.

Annals of the Naked Rowdies #532

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Bardan O'Connor stared at himself in the mirror but didn't recognize the image before him. He was pale and looked like death. He tried to psyche himself up for the latest show with a shot of Irish whiskey. He slapped himself hard in the face. "Get it together man." The…

Chief Seattle

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Neighbors trade novels through windows

King Street Station

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Despite the newly bright bricks and the working clock, Cassie couldn't help but take a deep breath before entering King Street Station. She had always tried to hold her breath when her family cut through it on the way to Mariners games but had never succeeded, not…

lucy, the ghost who liked it

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lucy had simply taken a kitchen knife and removed the outer layer, the layer of things people notice

Prologue: April 16, 1970

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The muster zone was south of U.S. 119, off the Halleck Road. The search began on a large parcel, some 75 acres of farmland, property of one Mr. Shakelford. Shakelford had allowed the earth to go wild; brush, thistle and small…

Eve in the House of Mirrors: 13 fragments

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1. On the morning of her eighteenth birthday, Eve woke to find herself transformed into a gigantic chess piece made of zeros and ones.2. Eve gazed so long at her smartphone that she found herself falling into it.3. She fell for a time that may have been short or long or…

Our Notorious Youth

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Our flesh was on fire like a flute with wind, or a little reed next to the dried river. I was like a voyeur whose heart was a sponge, brushing up against all that disturbed man. I was only and ever the flower of our notorious youth, aware of more than the

Picked Up

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Tucker walked the long and lonely stretch of highway in front of him. The loneliness didn't matter; he had his own way of handling that feeling. The walking, however, was wearing away at his mind. How…

To Be Undone

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. . . hands before your face, heart without blood . . .

Anselm Kiefer Painting, 1

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The damaged sky is not more black than your hair, Ashen tonight and floating over the land in blackened Smoke, where the furrows run with milk light Or snow, blue and white, and the world-ash floats. Your patient body sleeps and the white pain

song of the love atheist

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"chemical", love is/as long as saccharine is/served in coffees sweet . . .

Your Pet & Vet Conciliator

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There is no love triangle more tangled than that which snares a pet, its owner and an amorous veterinarian.

the wicked daughter

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The air has its dark confessional, and I have mine. Hot is called raw by some, hate mixed with malice for others. I am only separated by this dark window of time from you, but you never feared the lovely or the lonely.

Orange Tears

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Remember me? I am the large, dented acorn you threw at your brother, Ken, during the huge acorn war of 1969. You were thirteen. He was eleven. And the entire neighborhood was in your backyard that day. Steve, Jack, Jerry, Tom, Dan, Jeff, Drew. A bunch of the kids…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 51

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Francesco tried to fix Oriana's face in his mind as he blindly walked to the taxi queue.

Trot fast, my dapple gray!

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It was night. It was Massachusetts. It was an interview in a snowstorm that Detective Vivian Diaz wished would go away.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 3

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Now you are a raving bare-forked fool madman with nothing.

Your dog, or hazelnut gelato - which would it be?

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It’s hard to lose. Harder than you think. I guess the ultimate question is: If I had to give up one thing, my dog, or hazelnut gelato, which would it be? I’ll tell you, between those two, it would have been easy to choose. But losing you, that was a who

Body to go

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I’m squatting naked over the hand mirror, feet cold on the terrazzo floor, looking at my winking arsehole.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 54

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Ben was cheered to see Monique in good spirits again.