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Water Wings “Let go,” he said. He trusted his water wings as much as he trusted me in the deep end under the lifeguard stand. I wasn’t sure I heard him right. There was so much noise around us. Splashing, water falling, kids screaming. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear him right. He was…
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“How are you?” she asked. That’s always a loaded question. Who asks it gets a different version of the truth of it. The answer is most usually the first lie of the day. “Fine.” I’m scared. I’m worried for my life. I am worried for my son’s life. He’s working on his master’s in grad…
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She waited… Margo kept thinking to herself, “I waited, but I don’t think it was long enough, or maybe I was on the wrong track. That must’ve been it. I was on the wrong track. I know I got the trains mixed up.” She wept. She sat on her suitcase on the platform and just…
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“Hello.” I heard it plain as day. I knew right then it was coming back to the house from the storage facility. I took a pickup truckload of stuff to my building, in the rain and brought back a Ouija Board. “Hello,” it said again, louder this time. I knew where it was and…
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“Stop, I lost my shoe,” Bonnie said. She was crying. It was pitch dark and we were in the middle of a flower bed in somebody’s front yard. There were four of us. Bonnie was the tiniest five year old I knew. She looked about three and was just as annoying. None of us wanted…
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The Bad Seed I still can’t watch The Bad Seed without getting the heebie jeebies. The first time I saw it, I was about ten years old, and it was a Saturday after the cartoons had all gone off. Mom was busy doing mom things, the brothers and sisters were gone, maybe everyone was. But…
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I finished it. I finished Norris Lives, a 25K word sequel to Norris Tales, the Adventures of an Awful House Cat. I sent it off to a publisher. Norris draws first blood. He is a jewel thief. He steals the remote as well as little kid’s lunch money. He cheats at cards and loves a…
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Janet stood in front of the mirror and admired herself. The twenty-pound weight loss looked good in the deep red velvet dress she wore. It hugged her waist, plunged at the neck, and flounced from a complete circle to the floor. It was the dress of her dreams, and she was stunning. She twirled in…
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Anxiety be damned
“No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen,” said Alan Watts from the podium, his closing remarks. He got a standing ovation. I was pissed. I didn’t disagree with him, but I was pissed. I hate having reality thrown up in my face. My anxiety is often debilitating. That’s… Read more
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Mary Comforts Eve
“Girl, shit happens. You can’t tell me it doesn’t. Sometimes our choices are part of the grand scheme of the universe. A tale told by someone else. But you’re not the bad guy of the story, you’re free now,” said Mary. Eve sobbed with guilt and grief. The snake around her ankle climbed higher up… Read more
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Public Communications
“I absolutely know what you want me to say,” said Thomas. He’d been with Celia all day and all evening. They’d worked all day together, been to the bar after work to celebrate with the public communications team, and now they were headed home. They were at the crossroads. “I can go right and head… Read more
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The Voice
“Hugh Henry you have the ability to choke the living shit out of every situation like an intergalactic missile,” His mother told him straight up. She was tired of listening to his tirade about why the symphony shouldn’t play next Sunday. He thought it was too frivolous, way too frivolous, to assemble the whole orchestra… Read more
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Everlastingly
“Everlastingly,” Janet hissed the word out as long as she could to give it the onomatopoeia sound of the crashing waves she needed to hear. “Listen! The mighty being is awake and doth with his eternal motion make a sound like thunder, everlastingly.” Janet quoted Wordsworth when she crossed the bridge to Emerald Isle. It… Read more
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Whitewater
So they threw them together into the stream and the two splashes they made were as one. They tossed the rings into the maelstrom of the churning rapidsTheir perfect union ended as it had begun, blessed and honored.Washed downstream in holy water,Their wedding rings lost in the turbulence on the river rocks beneath the white… Read more
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Water Wings “Let go,” he said. He trusted his water wings as much as he trusted me in the deep end under the lifeguard stand. I wasn’t sure I heard him right. There was so much noise around us. Splashing, water falling, kids screaming. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear him right. He was…
-
“How are you?” she asked. That’s always a loaded question. Who asks it gets a different version of the truth of it. The answer is most usually the first lie of the day. “Fine.” I’m scared. I’m worried for my life. I am worried for my son’s life. He’s working on his master’s in grad…
-
She waited… Margo kept thinking to herself, “I waited, but I don’t think it was long enough, or maybe I was on the wrong track. That must’ve been it. I was on the wrong track. I know I got the trains mixed up.” She wept. She sat on her suitcase on the platform and just…
-
“Hello.” I heard it plain as day. I knew right then it was coming back to the house from the storage facility. I took a pickup truckload of stuff to my building, in the rain and brought back a Ouija Board. “Hello,” it said again, louder this time. I knew where it was and…
-
“Stop, I lost my shoe,” Bonnie said. She was crying. It was pitch dark and we were in the middle of a flower bed in somebody’s front yard. There were four of us. Bonnie was the tiniest five year old I knew. She looked about three and was just as annoying. None of us wanted…
-
The Bad Seed I still can’t watch The Bad Seed without getting the heebie jeebies. The first time I saw it, I was about ten years old, and it was a Saturday after the cartoons had all gone off. Mom was busy doing mom things, the brothers and sisters were gone, maybe everyone was. But…
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I finished it. I finished Norris Lives, a 25K word sequel to Norris Tales, the Adventures of an Awful House Cat. I sent it off to a publisher. Norris draws first blood. He is a jewel thief. He steals the remote as well as little kid’s lunch money. He cheats at cards and loves a…
-
Janet stood in front of the mirror and admired herself. The twenty-pound weight loss looked good in the deep red velvet dress she wore. It hugged her waist, plunged at the neck, and flounced from a complete circle to the floor. It was the dress of her dreams, and she was stunning. She twirled in…
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Panty hose: To wear or not to wear?
It’s been said that panty hose are making a comeback. For me, they’d never left. I felt undressed without panty hose on. I need that filter to hide the varicose veins, bruises, and stray hairs that cover my legs no matter how close I thought I shaved. They tend to offer a gentle shaping to…
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My Mother’s Ghost
When I open my mouth, I’m shocked that I hear my mother. I hear her voice, her words, but more than that, her attitude. I hear her cadence in my speech and the philosophy I bucked as a child and an adult. She drove me crazy with her notions of what I should and should…
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My Desperate Zoo
Mothers run a desperate zoo. That’s why we plant flowers. I have a flat and a half of red, fuschia, and orange impatiens on my back porch waiting to dot the ground with their hues. My mom planted flowers, her mom planted flowers, and that’s how she died, weeding her Touch-Me-Nots. Grounds beautification 101, we…
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Ancient Days
“In those days, in those distant days, in those ancient nights stories were told before there were things to tell stories about, Mom,” Sugar said over her shoulder as she walked out the door and slammed it. “I’m sick of your stories, you tell stories like all the damn time like I’m supposed to learn…
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Rocky
“Will you go out with me?” He had the confidence of a lion, and looked like a giraffe in red school boy glasses. Red rimmed uber cool school boy glasses, worn by the king nerd of all nerds. He would never have the ability to wear a straight tie, it wasn’t in his DNA. God…
Devonne Brown 