Stories tagged short-story

Letting Go

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Jerrod's lips and tongue were like slabs of bologna someone shook in Kirsten’s face as she hit the turn signal. Kirsten was proud of herself. She'd been taking it well and she was pretty sure her real feelings weren’t poking through.

Moment of Truth

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When the woman asks, she means well. Say it's the second Sunday in May, Mother's Day, and say you're in Chicago visiting your aunt again this year to stay with her most of the spring. You do it every year, ever since she moved here…

Visitation

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she wanted to sit by the water's edge first, to look out over the harbor. She found a suitable bench. We were facing east, with the sun in our eyes. She'd left her beret at my house.

Lark Mirror

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We parked in the lot behind Marvelous Market. The other back door is Politics & Prose. They have an espresso machine in the basement. You can't take the coffee upstairs. We sat down at one of the tables. I looked at brochures about my old life.

fly

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She liked him. He was hot. He made the big bucks. He was smart.

The Ring of Gyges

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I pretended I could see the forms she invoked, but mostly I only watched hers. Even the movements of the air around her, the reflections on stacked silver tins as she passed. At corners in convex mirrors, angled for thieves. In the glass of a wall mounted

Arboretum

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In front of the jury, he tore off her robe. They quickly voted acquittal. Her form was an attribute of the divine, or a sign of the goddess's favor. All the beautiful are blameless.

Requiem

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Only surrounded by mosaic walls is she fully herself, only when her voice lingers around the marble columns lit by rose windows, her face glowing in the tinted light, the wind singing through her in the windless space

Athena

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I was sitting on my back porch, with my coffee, overlooking the night's events, when I heard the front door open at her hand. She swept through the rooms and to me. "And whither," I said, "are you rolling, little apple?"

Woman without Time

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The men who have come to take me have science on their side. I know this is true, and yet I sit on the same bed I've had since girlhood, unable to move myself to pack even a pair of socks. What does one wear at the asylum anyway? Pajamas? Certainly my suits will be useless.…

loon

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I used to have a crush on Cliff in high school. He was tall and blond with cool blue eyes, though he had developed a small paunch. He met my husband Daryl in college and then was best man in our wedding.

god's man

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He’s got the pages he ripped out of the Bible at the motel. He has crumpled them up into a ball and stuffed them into his pocket. The sharp little crinkles in the text are the teeth of God.

Desire

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I want to feel myself feeling the experience of desire. Take strawberries. It's not that I want to consume them, to enjoy the momentary taste. I love wanting them, I love the moment when I'm reaching to take one in my hand, knowing its ripeness can be min

Saaki

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Her form was curved a little, extended almost into a vine shape, so she could gaze while sitting. Heels began the scene. Her ankles were uncovered, and her knees only slightly bent. There were no coins on her skirt.

Depot

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She looked at me, skeptically. "I know plumbers. I once worked out a discount with one, in Vermont. It's a sweet memory. But I've seen your work. You are not a plumber!" Hard to argue with that. The evidence was all over her blouse.