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Hat Shop Girls

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My favorite was a red bowler, a man's hat, which I never dared wear outside my tiny bedroom. My three brothers wanted it too much to take that kind of a risk. They'd poke me with various sharp objects: the serrated edge of the bread knife, the rusted TV

Appearance

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After you lost sight in your left eye, mom made me go on the road with you that last summer to help you see.

Shout to the dead

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All the years since, until this morning, I'd thought the actor was James Gregory.

Guess Who Was At The Party?

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She didn’t look a thing like his girlfriend. This alone should have been a sign that she was just a fling, a diversion from what he had known for the past five years. She began to think of his girlfriend as guess who. Guess who was at the opening, peopl

line breaks

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I wish

Air

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In the gutter, the paper signs turned back to pulp.

Old Joke

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How many exceptional people/ does it take to change a light bulb?

What He Knows What She Knows What You Know

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next time i come around i want to be a redwood.

Night Letters from the Underground

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As ghosts, they became lovers. Rodion would strum the Underwood keys like a balalaika. Lizaveta would sing.

Privacy

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Spying is a different concern. Privacy also. I feel there is a loss of privacy just in believing or realizing it is possible; our forebears did not experience loss of privacy digitally, perhaps in another way.

someone tweeted f. scott fitzgerald reciting ode to a nightingale

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poor son of a bitch

Birdhouses

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That year, if you asked Al, was truly the best of times, the worst of times.

Zeta Reticuli

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We've talked often about that night, where six hours of our life disappeared, about our shared experience, and the big question of why.

Peacemaker

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He had the cannonball head of Hemingway, the stump neck, sloping shoulders and barrel chest.

Five Bones

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When the storm broke, my late aunt's dog fetched five favourite bones from his corner, and arranged a crude protective circle.

Major Chaos

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Major Chaos came here one of those hot days. I was washing the floor, wearing old clothes, when he knocked on my door. Since I don’t have many visits, I let him in. At first, he seemed like a soldier, but upon reflection I realized he was a big green fr

The Monolingual’s Regret

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Polylinguists lash me with tongues I cannot conjugate

Boo!

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"Why didn't you tell me it was Halloween?" he asked. She shook her head. The doorbell rang.

Rwanda Suite: Ape Woman

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I should have buried him on the saddleback and kept my mouth shut. I'll murder the bastard who did it.

Me and the Fleeting Glimpse

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I worry about my garden. I know there are larger concerns lurking in the stale shadows than my limp little flowers, things more pressing to the meeting of minds than thick lush green leaves might bring, but this is my own greenish way of …

Some Things Can't Be Fixed

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Orchids strewn over the floor...

Bird-Watching

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I didn’t understand, you said with a hoot, that it was hard to get hard when my ass was soft.

A Brooklyn Tale

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"Everything except food and sex."

Breakfast Dance - a 55 word story

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The handsome man at the opposite table swivels his head at the tall cool slim blonde entering the breakfast cafe. The ordinary woman sitting with him adjusts her chair accordingly. She pretends to ignore her husband's distraction, smoothes her hair, licks her…

As Pleat

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I turn up the music and slip into drone, rock it like a tunnel in canary. When that does not erase his face, I cup my breast with one hand and let my hair fall.

By 4th Grade at St. Paul’s Elementary, No One Believes in the Spanking-Machine-in-the-Closet of Sister Alice Elenita’s Office

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Arthur farts. Pandemonium. Miss O'Kelly shouts, “Quiet!” 32 nine year-olds freeze. “Close your books, fold your hands on your desk, put your heads down.” Obedience. Silence. Until…

Michelle from Southport

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True story, I swear to God.

The Empty City - Chapter 1 - Early Summer

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Every day the trains transported the young and successful and the not so young and less successful who belonged to the five buildings.

The Mouths of Babes

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Moans and whispers woke me. I rubbed crust from my eyes and glanced at the G.I. Joe clock on my nightstand. 9:36. I pulled the covers back and stumbled out of my room. The living room light was on. Father Osborne's black suit coat was draped over the back of the couch. He…

Medusa Song

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She scrambles the eggs while the baby howls at her knees. To drown out the racket, she hums as she jabs her fork into the yolks. She enjoys the way they spill their yellow color and swirl into the whites. She matches her tune to the schook, schook, schook of the…