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True Story, Every Word

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So, I see this is story one-upmanship now. You think you’ve got stories! Here’s one for the books. Here goes! In 1968 I had a day job as a payroll clerk at the Kroger Company, but, to maintain my glamorous lifestyle and my impressive efficiency ap

The Persistence of Loss

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"I packed up the rest of his things today. Irony is the fact I'm still picking up after him, despite the fact he's been gone for two weeks."

Things You Can Do, Some Can't Be Done

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The deep breathing has helped. My heart rate is back down to a normal resting rate somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 beats per minute, about one solid thump every second like clockwork, a precision I can truly appreciate.

Becky

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But it was one of those odd moments in America when you get to see the opposite sex with most of their clothes off, other than at a swimming pool in the summertime. One thing led to another and she wheedled out of me the fact that I drove a very fast ’

Five Million Yen: Chapter 13

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-That’s more like it. He released Ben and holstered his gun under his leather jacket.

Frederick and Sarah

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They'd driven the car there but had lost the keys so that it simply sat out in the yard, the yard of the house they couldn't leave because they'd lost the keys to the house as well as to the car, so they were kind of stuck. Their neighbors…

Pharmaceutical Funnies

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Dracula enters the pharmacy looking sad but hopeful. The pharmacist pulls a sonnet out of his thumb and hands it to him. This is a novel by Bugs Bunny. Each page is a…

Teller of Tales

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He came to us with wandering tales of wild things Savage, biting, slashing, tearing A violent voice boomed becoming of beasts

Need food for family

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The young man pulls out his wallet, grabs a couple of bills and stops short of handing them to the bedraggled man. “So how do I know you’re not going to go out and buy some crack with this money?”

The Fat Geisha Sings The Ballad of the Bamboo Shoot

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Come gather round and listen to me You senior VPs from AIG As full of yourselves As you are of wealth So engorged are you with raging greed The warnings you neither see nor heed. Come gather round and listen to me Sing of the Minister of the Third Degree. …

Sulfur and Wishes

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Some mornings he would wake up with his hand in the curve of her side. But her scent would awaken him further to his reality. This was not his wife. No, the women he vowed to protect was asleep in the arms of another.Lost to adultery, his dreams fell to…

Shakespeare's dead, and so is Homer

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I remember one time I was downtown when this little old lady came up to me at a café, looked in my face, and said, “You know what?” I was surprised she was even speaking to me, a young blonde girl sitting alone at a restaurant, with the shadows play

Masdy's Silver

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Cheater was a Goblin. He carried a long knife, not quite a sword, but more than your average pocket blade.

Sometimes It Rained

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He always felt safe with a gun in his hands. Back home anyway. Russ was from a rural part of South Carolina. A place where you could brush the humidity away from your face with your hand and drink down sweet tea in glasses so big, it cooled your toes. He was not…

I know ...

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But here it was, Friday afternoon with Deborah checking MySpace for interesting bulletins or messages before she made some weekend plans, finding a blog from Fred posted that same morning with two simple sentences. "I know. I've known for a long time.

The Shadow

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"Did I have a dream, or did the dream have me?" - Rush, "Nocturne"

Broadbeach Bargain Bin

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The ice in Mum’s drink clinked as she rolled the glass across her forehead. “Ith that a gay thing or ith that a vampire thing? ’Coth I’m finding thith all a bit confuthing.”

You Don't Listen

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What time is it? 3:47. Adam says before 5 is too early. Maybe he should stay home with our daughters once in a while. Let’s see him make it to 5 o’clock. It is Friday. I’ll mix it with orange juice. He never notices. I better check on Debra.

The Canoeist's Luncheon. Renoir

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The artist leans back in his chair, smoking a cigarette after lunch, looking away from the table toward the right He is dressed in white, and he's practically stretched out his entire length, to relax after rowing the boat all morning. Sunlight

WE NEVER

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No news spreads faster than news of a death. Word of the death of a child can be heard simultaneously in a thousand places. . . the word spread by telephone, in back yards from clothesline to clothesline, with whispers in grocery stores, in the looks on faces stunned into…

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.5 - c.4

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Sora and Ciel stood before Dean Morden inside his office. It felt weird to the girls looking at him sitting behind Madam Mayweather’s desk

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.

An Uncertain Age -- Chapter One

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Where was my real soul mate, I wanted to know, and why were there no twitchy children on my lap, and how had I been so dumb to believe that beauty's currency would never run out? So, Paris....

Five Million Yen: Chapter 24

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As Zoë says, “You and your musician friends drink in industrial quantities.”

Underneath

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"Holy shit. Holy shit holy shit holy shit..."

TGIF

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The mid-town bar was loud with neighborhood regulars and Friday night office workers; the bartenders were straining to hear wait staff yell drink orders over a blaring '90's soundtrack. Smokers had been relegated to the patio cafe behind the building. At the long bar, Adam…

'32 Ford

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Highway Z's white lines turned to dots in the rearview mirror as the needle crept toward one hundred. Buco horsehide warded off the cool night air as the car raced over freshly paved blacktop. Al's smile was as loud as the coup's roar that shattered the calm…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 45

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Ben woke in a black mood. His head was ready to explode and his throat was raw

Living but Dead, In-between

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You ask yourself, how can you be living but dead? It is not possible. Yet it can be and it can be slightly reversible, but realistically, for most people, it is not. Living but dead, is walking in the world of the in-between. Standing with one foot on the

Suicide Rough Drafts

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The morbidity of red ink is almost entirely lost on the playfulness of Snoopy stationary. But I boldly pressed on with my darkest thoughts to strengthen the effort of my offbeat creative exercise.