Category: fiction
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christmas in a laboratory.
Two sub-levels down, the little robot quietly raised his head. He counted the minutes. Kept an eye on the door. On the keypad, its digits a calculus red. Once convinced, he stretched his set of mismatched wheels and went for a walk. As always, he reached his destination within seconds. Ends of his rubber-lined, caterpillar…
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we lasted through winter.
i was sideways, asleep, or thought i was, between them, worried what if i would never feel this way again. morning just starting to peak. wouldn’t make its way through those blinds for a good bit, no use for the future. just an indication seeping in through kitchen windows. catastrophic gold. in love, two times…
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final night.
Once they were certain the security guard was well into his skinny mag, the dolls came to life, met in the middle of the warehouse. Stood in a semicircle under a pool of tar-stained light. Various dresses, shapes, sizes, finger lengths, eye colors, even skin colors, because there had been changes over the past few…
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M0 J0
He wore his sport coat like a cape. Face all the worse for gravity’s ongoing story. Thin red lips stenciled across pancake batter, triplicate chins that spilled over a black bolo tie. Silver shock of greasy hair combed back towards sloping shoulders. Twin thistles arched over eyes with no apparent iris. MoJo would hobble into…
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smile.
I took a moment, on my way to work, to stare at an anthill. Close to 11 in the AM, so my shortcut through the park should have been free from the rampaging sneakers of tireless children; chasing squirrels, undersized soccer balls, or one another. Their interchanging directions switching from one interest to the next.…
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christmas in a laboratory.
Two sub-levels down, the little robot quietly raised his head. He counted the minutes. Kept an eye on the door. On the keypad, its digits a calculus red. Once convinced, he stretched his set of mismatched wheels and went for a walk. As always, he reached his destination within seconds. Ends of his rubber-lined, caterpillar…
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wonderland.
Manny lost his thumb while carving initials into a Sunset Park sycamore on Christmas day. He had run from his house, boots crushing through a fresh snowfall north towards the hill. Streets empty, storefronts shuttered. Occasional fire hydrant peeking out from the drift, curious snouts wondering where the world went. From within his red skully,…
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sometimes they listen.
The evening played out in timestamps. Front lawn embedded with individual flat rocks, leading up to closed eyes, her fingers tensing, slick with grease, firm grip worried that if she didn’t dig in with her thumbnail, the present might pass. She thought about the kitchen, husband rolling his eyes and telling her that thyme was…
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one more time, blood moon.
made a head count tonight, and it turns out i have 75 secrets. only one of them concerns the blood moon. a fitting number, considering what’s waiting for us all this morning. sadly, as the definition for secret goes, this story is not for sale. although, far as circumstances go, i can reveal what’s good…
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Capricorn (cold open)
Almost nonstop until eight in the morning, no turning back, bathed in interstate, because New Orleans had a special place for someone like me. Goodbye Carolina. Down through its southern counterpart, then Georgia. Interstate dipping into the valley of Atlanta, barely beating rush hour traffic as the sun turned the sky a desktop grey.…
notes from a never-was. 