AJ couldn’t find the office suite they were looking for. He slowed the car to a creep and squinted into the gathering dusk. Several of the building’s lights had burned out, making it tough to decipher the suite numbers. He circled the lot
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A young man remains in the room after I dismiss class. I dread having to counsel him on homesickness or a girl who shot him down because he thinks I’m emotionally available because my eyes watered when I discussed Jocasta’s suicide. I
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I pulled the kettle from the stove before it boiled to a whistle, and I lurched down to the basement as silently as my creaking bones would allow. That is where my flowers slept, waiting for me. After all, is it not
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The question the emu had for the pig was, “Why headless?” “It’s just the sort of thing he does.” The pig’s corkscrew tail did not twitch as he explained, fixed as it was to his plaster haunches. “It’s his vision, if you will.”
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In all of the pictures from your dad’s funeral, your mother was smiling. Years after his death and freshly trained in the family tradition, you knew it was only because she hadn’t yet discovered that the ritual had a time limit. “It’s
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Sometimes I forget how to speakand have to shake words outlike salt I am used to being alone When I am walkingearly in the morningor after rainand I accidentally step on the snails—their tiny shells cracking unfairly underneath my feet. I always apologize
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Nina, do you remember that summer we spent up north at Loon Lake Resort? You were so little then, all tangled hair and hand-me-down dresses with straps that slid down your shoulders. The trip north was Mom’s idea. It was the
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The rains make it impossible to drive home. She has to leave her car in the Walgreens parking lot and wade the rest of the way to her apartment. Later she hears that someone was washed away when they got out of
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She didn’t like whiskey, but she made herself drink it sometimes. She didn’t like the way it tasted, but she liked the way it made her feel: strong. She liked how the ice in her real glass glass sounded fancy clinking off
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