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I need to go back to Portsmouth, UK to where my boys were born. I’d like to visit my neighbors, and hang with them a day or two. We’re good friends and good company. You don’t find that often enough these days. I’d like to take the boys with me too. We could walk along
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“Are you still working? Why don’t you retire?” Everybody wanted to know because of the silver hair and wrinkles. Fred asked at the wrong time. Janice was tired and not in the mood. He thought women were silly. He retired early five years ago. “Why? Do you need someone to take care of you?” Janice
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Drat, dammit, and O hell, my plans to go to the Baltic Sea for vacation had fallen through. I was at the pinnacle of despair, flustered to the very bone. It was the coffee klatches fault. Susan’s husband had put his foot down, he said flat out “No.” He wasn’t about to let her go.
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It’s the little things that make mountains. Kaiden didn’t want to wear his headphones even though they were a requirement for the test. “I know how to read, why do I have to do this?” He was in the sixth grade, and his third grade reading scores indicated that headphones would be more helpful than
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What was I supposed to do, paint illustrations of ghost stories?
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Nobody is watching.
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“I know it’s not much, but I’ve been saving this for the apocalypse,” Traci dumped her bag on the dining room table. A ball of twine, a box of matches, a straight razor, scissors, a bottle of valium, and a loaded pistol. “This isn’t the apocalypse, the pipes are backed up. We have to call
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Betty dreaded opening the package the mailman was about to deliver. She knew what it was when she watched him come up the street. She should just refuse to accept it, turn around and send it back right then. Return to sender. That would be the smart thing to do. She didn’t want to dredge
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Geraldine didn’t appreciate that stray yellow cat that dropped her kitten at the front door. There it was though, eyes open, wobbly legged, barely weaned, and yellow as its mama. She thought of just sweeping it off the porch like trash. What else could it eat besides milk? Shit. She’d have to go to Walmart.
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Snooty Defined
Snooty defined “‘Brook’ sounds too snooty, use ‘creek.’ You’re always putting on airs. Stop trying to be somebody you’re not, use ‘creek.’” said Mr. Barber. Shit, he was mean. I didn’t want him looking at my paper, not after what I’d just heard him do to Cynthia’s. He was right, of course, she was always Read more
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Today I Want…
Today, I want… Summer is a conundrum. I look forward to summer all year long, to be out of school and away from the stench of curriculum. I want to be away from pointing and clicking at things so trite and mindless that it makes me want to lose what little relationship with a creator Read more
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I Need Seven Letters
I looked at the board. “MEDICATE.” My letters covered all but the “C.” Upwords, the word game of all word games, and I scored sixteen points plus a fifty point bonus score. “Eat that!” Nick looked at me with fire in his eyes. Not even his Mama, Express of the Galaxy, Sworn Sorceress of All Read more
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The Teacher
Ode to a Teacher Hammat. John Charles Hammat. Unconventional teacher of the universe died last month. Taught for four years, my four years, enough to get one class through, and quit to clean houses and live however he chose. He’d had enough of public schools. He taught Drama and English, but I only had him Read more
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Didactic
“Didactic,” something that teaches a lesson. I’ve said that “didactic,” was my favorite word for years. and there are people who will verify this. I’ve been a teacher forever, I can only deny so many things. I just looked up a bunch of synonyms for it in Thesaurus.com… Academic, pedantic, homelitic, moralizing, pedagogic, schoolmasterist, why Read more
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I need to go back to Portsmouth, UK to where my boys were born. I’d like to visit my neighbors, and hang with them a day or two. We’re good friends and good company. You don’t find that often enough these days. I’d like to take the boys with me too. We could walk along
-
“Are you still working? Why don’t you retire?” Everybody wanted to know because of the silver hair and wrinkles. Fred asked at the wrong time. Janice was tired and not in the mood. He thought women were silly. He retired early five years ago. “Why? Do you need someone to take care of you?” Janice
-
Drat, dammit, and O hell, my plans to go to the Baltic Sea for vacation had fallen through. I was at the pinnacle of despair, flustered to the very bone. It was the coffee klatches fault. Susan’s husband had put his foot down, he said flat out “No.” He wasn’t about to let her go.
-
It’s the little things that make mountains. Kaiden didn’t want to wear his headphones even though they were a requirement for the test. “I know how to read, why do I have to do this?” He was in the sixth grade, and his third grade reading scores indicated that headphones would be more helpful than
-
What was I supposed to do, paint illustrations of ghost stories?
-
Nobody is watching.
-
“I know it’s not much, but I’ve been saving this for the apocalypse,” Traci dumped her bag on the dining room table. A ball of twine, a box of matches, a straight razor, scissors, a bottle of valium, and a loaded pistol. “This isn’t the apocalypse, the pipes are backed up. We have to call
-
Betty dreaded opening the package the mailman was about to deliver. She knew what it was when she watched him come up the street. She should just refuse to accept it, turn around and send it back right then. Return to sender. That would be the smart thing to do. She didn’t want to dredge
-
Geraldine didn’t appreciate that stray yellow cat that dropped her kitten at the front door. There it was though, eyes open, wobbly legged, barely weaned, and yellow as its mama. She thought of just sweeping it off the porch like trash. What else could it eat besides milk? Shit. She’d have to go to Walmart.
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Lasagne Night
“Do you remember when we had dinner in that old house in the woods on the farm?” Ruby asked as she took the pan of lasagne out of the oven. Alan smiled. “Yeah, you wore your prom dress and I wore my sport coat. Mom made lasagne for us. We took it to that little…
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School’s Out for Summer
Image generated with AI Being home in my forest among my flowers allows me to be me. The old people said “tending violets cures melancholy.” There’s something about digging in dirt to plant my begonias and impatiens that does the same thing. It restores my soul from working all fall and winter. Every morning of…
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Goulash
Image generated with AI. “I’m making goulash for dinner tonight. I’m going to use Mom’s recipe too.” said Janice. Mason hoped she remembered the recipe. Sometimes her memory of her Mom’s dishes were sketchy and turned out awful like the soup. He was skeptical of this goulash stuff. It had a weird name to it…
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Solace
Image generated with AI. In the old stories, when life went sideways, the princess had to go to the haunted forest to find the oracle. Diane thought she might as well give it a shot. It was a hundred degrees outside. The creek was ankle deep, the shade dappled and dark. She’d start looking here.…
Devonne Brown 