Stories tagged books

Bookworm

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   They met for coffee almost every afternoon. She liked to talk, he liked to listen. He pretended her voice reminded him of wind chimes. He knew it was an ordinary voice, but it resonated in his loneliness, and sometimes he heard her in his sleep.    “My…

Hands like wings

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You materialize out of the darkness

Book Killer

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Sometimes after bookbinding for a few hours at the hand-sewing table, Jillie would, after scraping her knife too roughly over the glue of an old book's spine, feel not like a resurrector of literature, as she should, but a killer. Not a calculating or

Far

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His mother named him Far because she had high hopes for him

The Nameless Boy Files: Books creative non-fiction

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...he tries to read ‘Advanced’ Pynchon after I’ve conquered and recommended what I’d consider ‘Beginner’ Pynchon. Mason Dixon is a loud swarm of ink he sideswipes, hardcover, bought remaindered at Trident in Boston, mine, and returned. But, it’s one I tak

Sunrises and Borrowed Pages

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I'm sitting on the B-line toward Park, and there is a woman with the same black bob as Mad TV's Miss Swan, and she is leaning the whole front of her body against the whole pole in front of me, and even though there is plenty of space around her, she is pressed up…

Please Take

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I have a ball-pein hammer in my coat pocket.

Pieces

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I find my mother’s pink Pyrex mixing bowl at the antique store on Fairview Avenue. It’s in the hands of a fat woman in a blue down parka, and she’s holding it upside down, squinting at the sticker on the bottom.

Smart

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"A little knowledge truly is a dangerous thing."

Cradle

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Fingers fan like birds’ wings cradling the volume, head hanging low and lips moving silently...

Ignorance

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On the street / The protesters stand / Yelling words empty as wind

Terror of Nod

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onward, soldier

Jeffy Jeffy Jeffy

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Today Emily wasn’t in a mood to be ignored. She had had a tough morning at day care. An evil little boy had pushed her over a plastic tricycle. Emily, after a suitable cry, had retaliated by punching the boy in the eye. The harassed teacher had scolded th

We're all Stories in the End

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Like all libraries, the one run by Grant had the floors blanketed with a harsh silence. No noises aside from the familiar squeals of chairs moving or the heavy footsteps that struck the solid hardwood floor were made. Silence was needed to …

Reading at the Table

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I would like to say that story sent me reeling and nauseated from the table but no, I kept shoveling my soup without missing a beat and reading the TIME magazine folded next to my plate.