Story
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What offended him was not a lack of quality, but of purpose. He simply couldn’t tolerate—perhaps due to his profession, which was accounting—things that remained forever and intentionally ambiguous. He’d been trained to view unsolved problems as errors. To John, a balance sheet was poetry, and a bookkeeping ledger, a metaphor for human life.
August 29, 2024
15 mins
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The sound of a scuffle from the other side of the fence. Something tore. Another slap. 'You scratched me, you bitch...' I heard a loud smack. Silence. Then Gloria croaked, 'Look ... look what you’ve done ... You hit me! Oh, you bastard, you bastard...'
August 4, 2024
10 mins
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"The weather has become attuned to our states of mind -- or vice versa -- and we forget everything very fast. We understand that every experience is momentary. Have you noticed? You can’t hold onto anything in a climate like this: it very quickly becomes debris and rubble, whether it is a moveable asset or a feeling"
July 28, 2024
11 mins
The latest
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"Her lover left her shipwrecked, heart shucked open like an oyster. Doesn’t every love story end with someone jumping ship, one way or another? She should have walked the plank at the start. For the final scene Ana kneels by her dance partner’s limp body. Ondine’s heartbroken kiss kills the mortal man"
July 27, 2024
6 mins
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"Bob finally noticed that Ernie had fallen asleep. His chin was on his chest, his heavy bottom lip drooping. As the background babble of the lecture ended, the old man gave a start, slowly opened his eyes, and looked up. He wasn’t smiling"
July 21, 2024
10 mins
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“I don’t mean to be rude, but you fit a certain mould," she said, smirking, "the unhappily married guy in a Beemer. You must’ve picked me up on the off chance I might fall in love with you on the thirty-minute drive”
June 16, 2024
8 mins
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Jack and Judy had been married for fifty-seven years and, apart from a few minor marital bumps along the way, it had gone pretty well.
May 28, 2024
7 mins
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Before today, I had never picked up a hitchhiker. I guess I never had the courage, but also you don’t see them too often nowadays, at least not in the city or the suburbs.
May 28, 2024
9 mins
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"A rare letter comes from her mother. She’s still angry with Ronnie for leaving the island, for leaving a husband who provided for her. He’s pining for you, she writes. He says he won’t do it again. But Ronnie knows he will do it again, not because he can’t handle his drink, but because he takes after his father who was a wife-basher too"
May 26, 2024
19 mins
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'Unsure what I was admitting, sensing a scary but exciting liberation -- a clarifying shift in my vision of myself and the world -- I stared ahead. It was as if some lens in my mind had clicked into focus: what was blurry was now clear'
May 4, 2024
10 mins
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