Stories tagged story

A lie must not advertise itself.

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Dreaming a word I woke: Encomium? There was no one about and I looked. Maybe I was grateful for waking from sleep again or just from sleep. A fool's freedom. Both. All. Time now looked like a door. But behaved like a vacuum. Still the consequences were the …

Dad, August 10, 2010

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Satchmo sings a love song over the sound system. People read books, tap keyboards, drink coffee, eat cake. In Barnes & Noble—more a coffee shop these days than a bookstore—I am thinking about my dad and his stomach cancer.The terror he…

Rags to Riches to Rags: Prologue

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My grandfather rode with the Czar’s army. He was abducted from a village in Austria, trained to pillage and drink, plunder and rape, and ride the best horses that could be had. They were given the best vodka and the sharpest swords. They were all just boy

More Rags to Riches to Rags

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one day one of the young barbers-in-training accidently snipped off the tip of a bum's ear. So they hurriedly scotch-taped the snipped-off ear part back onto the bleeding bum and then shouted at him to leave, get the heck out of there before they called t

Icebreaker (second draft)

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A short play based on college life.

81/2 Characters

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Memoir: 8 1/2 characters with dissociative-identity-disorder.

HOW TO TELL PEOPLE WE SHOULD EVACUATE THE PLANET BECAUSE, APPARENTLY, YOU'VE BEEN INSANE ALL ALONG by Stephen Hawking

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[E ≠ mc²; 2 + 2 = 5; etc.]

A Figure Left the Building

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A figure left the building.

My Whole Life Story (Again and Again)

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When John wakes up, the first thing he does is run a bath, because his shower is broken, and while the bath is running he gets his breakfast ready.

Much Ado About Exploring.

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John was sitting at his computer one night after work, when he read an article linked to him by a friend.

Rags to Riches to Rags, 1

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1 Al Capone was ruling the backstreets and alleyways of Chicago during Prohibition, and we lived in a little house right next door to a speak-easy. I could peak through our curtains and see right into the bar next door when cops came in to get pai

Rags to Riches to Rags, 2

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My brothers, who helped support our poor mother, were Rudy and Emil, and there was a sister Blanche, who got married early on and ran off to Atlanta and never looked back at our dire situation. And Helen, who stayed in Chicago. And Silvia, who moved out

The Blistering Continent

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So as the train thundered through a backdrop of palms, skewered yellowish squid on grills and Wi-Fi leaking out into the jaws of the 76 provinces...

THERE IS NOTHING MORE HONEST THAN PAIN

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My parrot Poe freezes when a crow soars outside the window the same way I do when you approach my door. You come knocking late at night. What do you want this time? I yell. To come in you say, please. Go the fuck away, I respond but you keep…

Jesse Lee

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There were many times I had not been Jesse’s friend, and she hadn’t been mine. The difference is that I should have known better.