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Today is the day I say goodbye to Thanksgiving break. Anxiety and depression levels are rising, tonight is a school night after all. No more messing around with cats, movies, music, and road trips. House cleaning and laundry will become more of the chore they were before, and less of a leisure activity, they were…
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I am tempted to begin making my rough puff pastry for Christmas. It’s fully delicious and cheap to make. Yet it is the most labor intensive of all the Christmas delicacies I create, It’s worth every moment it takes for its creation. Butter and flour, rolled, folded, refrigerated and repeated at least five times, it…
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Sherri had her daughter’s heart’s desire. Annie needed a beaded clutch purse to go with her formal dress for the prom, just big enough to hold her lipstick and her glasses. Styles go round and round, and she sure enough saved the pocket book she’d taken to her formal dance years ago. Truth be told,…
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I wouldn’t have been in the grocery store on Thanksgiving morning if I didn’t need to take some dog food and a loaf of bread to my elderly aunt. That’s all she said she needed when I talked to her last night, after I baked her casserole. I would have been at home, binging on…
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He’d been here before and wanted to show her something magnificent.
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“I felt my pulse quicken when lightning lit the sky again, it was far away and showed the line of floating houses”
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John noticed the barrier she’d put between them.
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Lucinda called the suicide hotline.. The counselor’s parting words were to cook something delicious just for herself. The counselor began with, “too hard to be alone, too hard to have a job you hate, too hard to be a senior citizen so far into debt the only way your life insurance would pay off would…
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She Waited
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… Read more
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Halloween Slumber Party
“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… Read more
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Trick or Treat Ghost
“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… Read more
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The Bad Seed
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… Read more
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Norris Lives
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… Read more
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Velvet Heart
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… Read more
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Today is the day I say goodbye to Thanksgiving break. Anxiety and depression levels are rising, tonight is a school night after all. No more messing around with cats, movies, music, and road trips. House cleaning and laundry will become more of the chore they were before, and less of a leisure activity, they were…
-
I am tempted to begin making my rough puff pastry for Christmas. It’s fully delicious and cheap to make. Yet it is the most labor intensive of all the Christmas delicacies I create, It’s worth every moment it takes for its creation. Butter and flour, rolled, folded, refrigerated and repeated at least five times, it…
-
Sherri had her daughter’s heart’s desire. Annie needed a beaded clutch purse to go with her formal dress for the prom, just big enough to hold her lipstick and her glasses. Styles go round and round, and she sure enough saved the pocket book she’d taken to her formal dance years ago. Truth be told,…
-
I wouldn’t have been in the grocery store on Thanksgiving morning if I didn’t need to take some dog food and a loaf of bread to my elderly aunt. That’s all she said she needed when I talked to her last night, after I baked her casserole. I would have been at home, binging on…
-
He’d been here before and wanted to show her something magnificent.
-
“I felt my pulse quicken when lightning lit the sky again, it was far away and showed the line of floating houses”
-
John noticed the barrier she’d put between them.
-
Lucinda called the suicide hotline.. The counselor’s parting words were to cook something delicious just for herself. The counselor began with, “too hard to be alone, too hard to have a job you hate, too hard to be a senior citizen so far into debt the only way your life insurance would pay off would…
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Good King Wenceslas
“I love the way the full moon glistens on the snow when it’s deep and crisp and even like this, not a mark on it,” the good king said. It was St. Stephen’s Day, Boxing Day, the patron saint of stonemasons and bricklayers, the first martyr, stoned to death for blasphemy. He was also the…
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Gilly and the Peashooters
“Gilly and the Peashooters” was first published in Appalachian Fusion, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Contemporary Appalachian Writing, Vol 27
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Creation sans fear
I don’t have to practice transcendental meditation to create masterworks, maybe I do.
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My Angels
On Monday, my twin premature babies will be twenty-six. I shake my head in disbelief. “We were angels before we were born, and we were sent to your tummy for our wings to grow off so we could take care of you.” Big silver two year old eyes looked up at me. He was speaking…
Devonne Brown 