The girls on his campus were not the ones who made fun of the way he walked, the way he rolled his eyes, of his pathetic attempts to climb ropes in the gymnasium, a task required for some reason of all students in the Education Faculty even those who, like him, expect to teach secondary history and certainly not primary school physical education.
“Is the complaint you are making simply your own account of events or are you taking into consideration the possible extenuating circumstances of the alleged abuser – who of course might view this whole thing rather differently. I mean, is it possible that your own behaviour may have precipitated this extraordinary reaction?”
I’d probably end up as one of those sad-assed ghosts that never accepts death and wanders back and forth on this stupid boulevard full of nail & beauty shops, convenience and dollar stores, black barber shops, fast food, chicken eateries, drive-thrus, bars and bistros, the Middle Eastern Market—
And there are some hard truths. Most Buffalo elders notch their winters with salt, Vicks, and canned trout. They grouse about snowbirds and higher taxes. You can get mugged with ease on Clinton and Sycamore Street. Some folks still wonder why there’s plenty of coloreds around.
The year was 1965, and while the relocation programs had kind of become used up—that is, officially unpopular with program developers—the push now was to somehow develop the existing reservations and keep Indians at home.
Every night the people of the city gather to receive my work. Ardently they pick up the scattered, dog-eared pages from gutters and windshields, studying every note.
Perhaps Gottlieb's body had never been found and is awaiting one of those nostalgic youngsters who join an annual search for the remains that, if found, are reburied with Soviet-era pomp, usually without a name, because only the lucky few are found with their papers, still legible, on them.
“There was a boombox and dancing and guns going off. It got real crazy. I must have blacked out. Next thing I know, it’s the cold light of dawn, and I’m waking up woozy and almost naked and freezing, and Todd is beside me, naked too and passed out.”
“My kids aint gonna be looking at traitor shit out the kitchen window everyday for eight years.” Her voice was hoarse but tough. “Flip your flag back around right, or we’ll find a way to make you, Lithuanian.”
“PRO-T-EN Industries guarantees a place for everyone. We offer vocational conditioning, career planning, health and wellness services. And, we are proven to be the top Corporation when it comes to helping its employees pay off their birth-debt in a timely manner...
last night I saw you plunge from the top of the cliff into the ocean. you were wearing your blond wig, when you emerged from the water not a hair was out of place.
A fairy godmother gives you wishes, you ask for a dress. A fish prince gives you wishes, you ask for a sausage. When someone offers us infinity we can’t imagine what we’d do with it. All we would ask – a walk in the dark.
The other day a woman was pulled from the canal unconscious and not breathing. That’s when I realized I should have done something sooner – hanged myself from a ceiling hook or bitten down on the muzzle of a gun.
Flora choked on her coffee and set the cup back down. “You mean these files we’re going over are about people who haven’t had an accident…yet?”
I set candles for points and poured out a pentagram. There was usually a sacrifice. I had some leftover Popeye’s chicken, so I set the box in the center. In movies, the teenagers who inadvertently summon demons are usually drunk. I hadn’t taken my meds yet. That was the best I could do.
Thomas glared at his wife as she wiped the ketchup from TR’s face. She had been something to look at when Thomas was finishing his MBA, but she had let herself become frumpy and soft since the kids were born. She wore jeans and an oversized sweatshirt while Thomas’ appearance remained immaculate.
A vacant lot was packed with trucks. A sign nearby said: Slow down: Excessive speed could lead to the use of excessive force.
As head cheerleader, Felicity chose and sculpted her people with the meticulous care of a diamond cutter. The Squad represented Norman High’s crème-de-la-crème, gorgeous and stylish, yet loyal and obedient. And Felicity’s boyfriend was a high school demigod – the preternaturally handsome captain of the football team.
Without warning, the truck sped up and drove intentionally a few feet to the right, into the deepest puddles, and the massive tires sent waves crashing over him, pounding him like surf, forcing water into his mouth, eyes, ears, and nose.
I knew you’d never go to the pub with the rest of them when the grave diggers started shovel the earth back over him. Murmuring voices withdrew slowly, shadow like, their work was done, a grey black fluid mass that moved towards the pub. That’s why I went to your house. I wanted to see you broken, undone, alone.
This is daylight robbery, I thought grimly. I hated bullying of any kind, and threw the door open: “How dare you kick my door like that? You’ll break it.”
Nora heard Larissa as from a distance. “We are never alone,” she mumbled. “But Larissa, we are. It’s the nature of life, this loneliness. Kurt Cobain, David Foster Wallace, Primo Levi, suicides. All the suicides.”
And now there’s a blur on the sidewalk in front of Robby, peripheral movement that he doesn’t even have time to think of as car door opening, though he knows exactly how much it will hurt if he runs into it. He veers away from the swinging door. His body tenses. The board tilts.
A country where citizens gun each other down in the street, in libraries and concerts and theaters – that’s anarchy. Children are slaughtered? Anarchy. It happens and laws don’t change, minds don’t change, nothing changes? Anarchy.
I don’t think I’m a slut, but I don’t understand the rules. I don’t know who invented them or where they’re written. Probably they’re in the Bible, so they probably come from God or Jesus or whoever—but if so, I’m not sure why they should pertain to me or why they suddenly pertain to everyone else.
Krachan wake up read a nice Joyce. KRAKEN Wake up. rejoice. Keret KENWAKEUPREADGOYCE.
At this point in the convo finnigan aka FINNEGOOM went back to sleep. Slooming into the sweet gloomish oobloovioom.
He turned to Tomomi said, "Put on some water," in a friendly, almost conspiratorial way, although it was an order. She smiled cheerfully, nodded as if she had shared the order and went back inside.
We were allowed to sit in the whirlpool for fifteen minutes. No one knew how long she stayed, but it was estimated she was in there for at least two hours. She’d gone home. That’s where I found her at first thinking she was asleep on the bed. She wasn’t asleep.
"I scheduled you for a 'Wow!' class today at two O’clock. They have new videos on how to interact with the customer and push for more Wow! Cards. We have to educate the customer about the rewards and benefits."
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve never been that person who’d do anything to get ahead. I have principles. Everyone knows I have principles. And I stick to them, even when it’s hard.
Besides, he thinks, changing your name legally to “Spider-Man” is stupid. Spider-Man is a popular character consumed by the masses for no good reason and to no good end. There is nothing special, risky or meaningful about such a move.
His mother let him out of the car and he raced inside. It was time for Yogi Bear. As the sky darkened, he watched Yogi Bear, he watched Pixie and Dixie and he watched Huckleberry Hound. The cartoon characters and their ironic dilemmas confounded him.
“An inmate has escaped. Her name is Medea Stavropoulos. She’s a thirty year old woman of medium height, slight build with very short brown hair. We consider her extremely dangerous. She was sentenced to life without parole in this institution for butchering her husband and a woman while they were still alive and then feeding the body parts to stray dogs in the city.”
Unlikely Stories turned 20 years old on July 1, 2018. The 20th Anniversary Issue was released on July 4, 2018 and included more than a hundred authors and artists.
Hands entangled in Mother’s hair, I had pulled her head back and exposed her throat to the sun. Suddenly many figures emerged in the dream, confrontations in a wooden booth.
Which is why I’ve kept my secret cold. Blank. Unforgiving. When I’m out walking it calls to me. Sounding high and strained. As if a string instrument gone out of tune. Something to reach toward. Frayed yet determined. It eats to my bone working its way beyond.
You’re stretched out over a motel mattress staring up into a chip of neon that streaks the ceiling, its light bleeding in through a gap in the curtains. You hear voices, low and disinterested, which could be coming from the next room, from the t.v. at the foot of the bed.
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