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The
Idylls of Staff Bickerston
by Tom Sheehan
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This is such an old story
with me, about Staff and his rules in life, how they were never
formed, but came of themselves, like up out of the ground along
the lake, perhaps like frost heaves, not belonging but suddenly
there. I am compelled to tell you about him. Once there was a
man, his name was Staff, and I came upon him once, fully live,
marveling at the lot given him in this life. |
Bone
Yard by Way of Brickyard
by Bob Church
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The rain beat down on Daddy's
'57 Merc, transforming the already-gray day into a tribute to
all things bleak. We'd just left the church and as I sat in the
backseat, I stared at Momma's eyes, usually large and vivacious,
barely managing meager, dolorous slits. Nearly fifty years later,
I can still hear her sobs as she continually dabbed at her face
with a plain white hanky, her very life filling the cloth until
the windows fogged up so that Daddy had to wipe the inside of
the windshield with his hanky in order to proceed. |
The
French Teacher by Margaret
Karmazin
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"You must not forget the accent agu!"
instructed Bertrand. "Je vois que vous le faites habituellement."
He was wearing his usual tormented expression.
Had anyone ever told him about it? And what was it that seemed
to worry him so?
"Je suis désolée,"
Julianne said. "I will try to remember."
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- Dor
L'Dor: A Grandmother's Reflections
by
- KJ
Hannah Greenberg
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When my youngest grandson
asked, ever so nicely, in that little bird voice of his, for
a third serving of cholent and for an extra portion of kugel,
I forgot, so glamoured was I by his smile and by the curl that
sticks out from his otherwise neat payot, that his mother's holiday
stomach had always been smaller than had been his mother's holiday
appetite. I forgot, as well, that by catering to his mother's
tummy rather than to relating to his mother's head, for years,
I had invited disaster. |
STRIPPED
BARE by Barry O'Donohue
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Jason Smiley logged off his
work computer, sighed and breathed deeply as he pushed his chair
from his desk, stood, twisted his head from side to side and
rolled his shoulders. He took little satisfaction from the resultant
cracks in his neck and Thoracic spine. |
The
Purchase by Bob Church
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The old woman running the
roadside antique store spoke with a heavy eastern accent, that
vague 'Boston/Bangor/Providence' brogue featuring misplaced and
elided "r" sounds whenever and wherever they appeared,
as though every other non-New Englander used the alphabet incorrectly
or with a naiveté developed as a result of unsophisticated
Midwestern upbringing. |
THE POSTMODERN
PRIZE by Kevin Wu
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The postmodern prize.
An award.
So thought of with valiance, bravado, warriors and generals.
The postmodern thought, again and again.
Lost, the prize shows itself around, no one would pick it up,
except the man who wants it always; all his life he has worked
for it, every moment planning for its reception, every day he
looks toward the sun, with his whole heart for the future. For
the recipient, of the prize. |
And For the
Kids...
SIR
POOPALOT by Norbert Luciano
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I'm not happy about people
calling me, "poop a lot." That's not my name -- and
I don't do that a lot. Not more than any other duck, anyway.
My name is No'rlins, and I'm from down Louisiana way, born and
bred along the banks of the Pontchartrain. But because "I'm
pooped," was an expression of mine, as I tired easily, when
yet a duckling, some dimwit thought it funny to say that I pooped
a lot... And when he laughingly addressed me as, "Sir,"
the name stuck -- and it stuck because everyone thought it was
funny! |
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