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THEY SAID
She said, “If youhave something to sayjust say it.”He said, “I already did,I said it all.”She said, “Saysomething else, then.”He said, “I havenothing else to say,it has allbeen said already.”She said, “Thatis the problemwith you,you never wantto talk aboutthings I want.”He said, “I do haveone more thingI must say to you –Goodbye.”
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THAT SUMMER
That summer was onehe would always remember.She was special, she told him soand he had no reasonto doubt her. Thatand he was one to fallso easily into whathe thought was love.It lasted well into August,when she said it was over.He did not understand whybut he was not one to argueso he consigned herto a memory…
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MOTHER TONGUE
The English language is a joyif you have a truly twistedsense of normalcy, and the wordfashion can easily be its role model.As verb you fashion something,make, construct with an implicationof personal physical activity,an active verb after all.As a noun it is all a quitedifferent world, a world of clothing,of style and, properly, the prevailingstyle of…
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PAINFUL LEARNING
It was a lesson that took himfar too long to learn,was one he needed for years.He couldn’t remember all the timesthat he had set out to accomplish somethingyet that day was given over to Murphyor the corollary of his famous law,for he almost never accomplishedwhat he had set out to do.But the lesson was deeply…
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AND COUNTING
The dawn brokethe counting beganeach daya new dawna new count.The resultswere notedwrittenfor posterityout of habitfor no reasonfor no onecared any longer.No onecould remembera day whenthe countwas zerowhen the gunswere for oncetruly silent.
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ANTIPATHY
Some of his acquaintences said his problemwas that he constantly demonstratedantipathy toward people, toward things.He knew, of course, that was not thecase but he dared not say that lestthey use it as yet another exampleof his antipathy. The reason, he leftunsaid, was that he didn’t have antipathy,it was that such an emotionrequired feelings about things…
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PRAGUE
When we walked the streetsof Prague, we felt at once alienbut surrounded by so many tourists,almost somewhat at home.Unlike in Lyon or Arles wheremy limited high school Frenchallowed me the most rudimentaryof conversations, in Pragueit was pointing or Google Translate,and then I wore the mark of touristdespite wearing clothes Ihad purchased there the day before.We…
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THE NEW GODS
From their two-bedroom apartmenton the outer edge of Cupertino,the Gods evicted from Olympusare creating their pulsating metahell.They know how easily we, lemmingsenchanted by the sparkling void,offer ourselves up in sacrifice, alwayswanting still another gigabyte,entranced by the idea of the Deusex machina, blind to our own truth.They promise us eternity, a heavenof a parallel binary universe,redemption…
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FAMILY
Of the few remaining cousins, nowas old as I, a number we do not mentionor want to believe that he was her onlylover, as though she was the young girlwho left Charleston for Washington, D.C.They cite, as justifying empirical evidence,that she never married, alwaysthe beloved aunt, nothing more allowed.My later discovered existencelaid waste to their…
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IMAGINE THAT
There is a certain joy in writing fiction,for many readers will assume the protagonistis the author or at least partially basedon the author, never pausing to considerthat the villains and lesser charactersare just as likely to be based to some extenton the author or bits of his or her life.And often the readers are not…
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an old writer and his words 