"I hate him. He could get hit by a car randomly in the street, and it wouldn't matter to me. It would probably make my days better."

Anyway, it happened. It would. And so then the whole school was plunged into mourning of varying depths. Mourning of the grievous type, and mourning of the more celebratory kind.

Let's be honest. He made everyone's life miserable. He never bothered to even sit. His room was the hallway, not a desk.

The administrator who suspended him that day couldn't stop questioning himself: could I have done more? Should I have done it?...

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"What's that you say?" the captain growled into his phone, "Pirates, in our neighborhood?"
He called out to his men, "Raise the flag! Ready your weapons! If they want to be pirates, they can prepare for battle."

The men went about their business, but the usual bounce to their steps were gone. Their captain had spent a wee bit too much time watching Peter Pan as a lad, and they were paying for it
.
"What weapons would you have us use, cap?" asked one soldier.

"We have no cannons and no plank, are you crazy?" muttered another soldier.

The...

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The pidgeon man rolled off the sky-scraper. Thousands of birds flew with the updraft, gaining momentum as they hurled their bodies into his back. The crawling taxis below wailed insistently. Pedestrians opened their umbrellas, one by one. Sunset embalmed the towers in reflective flame.

The pidgeon man did not see what was beneath him. He only and always looked up.

His shadow grew on the pavement. He was seconds away from landing, yet the birds continued their sacrifice.

I don't like this piece at all. It is a depressing photo. :(

Read something else.

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It was the fall that surprised me the most. We worked together for years on the 82nd floor of Tower two, and when I knew we couldn't get to the bottom I knew he'd want to go to the top. I agreed immediately even though I knew he had a plan, he always had a plan. I was too busy not thinking clearly to think clearly, about what this plan would would to do us, how it would end, how we could survive.

For the last minute of his life, the terror was gone. His smile didn't surprise me, I...

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"Dear Mom and Dad,

I made it to Boston. I figured you'd like the postcard I picked out. The dog reminds me of Rex, be sure to hug him for me. I came here with 25 dollars and a full tank of gas. I'm going to make it here someday, I'm telling you. Tell Dad I said thanks for repairing the car, and be sure to tell him I'll pay him back with a brand new car when I make it. I'm spending the night at some run-down hotel tonight, don't worry about me. I'm not coming back home until...

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The waitress came up and said "Hey, want corn flakes?"

"No," says I. I am busy reading my book, which is about masking tape.

But the waitress is having none of it. "I made these corn flakes myself," she says.

"Okay," says I. "Give me some corn flakes."

She gives them to me. They are red, not orange, but I eat 'em anyway. "Yuck," says I. "These don't taste like corn flakes at all."

"They're not," she says. "They're scabs I picked off my elbow."

She shows me her elbow, which is bleeding lots. All kinds of blood is pouring...

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Balanced on the line, he told her again, "Put it down!"
"No!" she screamed, spittle frothing at her lips. She waved the knife menacingly towards the rubber coated power line.
"You don't have to do this," he said. "Let's just be reasonable about things."
"Reasonable? When have you ever been reasonable? What's reasonable about quitting your job and becoming a tightrope walker?! You've wasted all our money chasing this stupid dream!"
Down below the crowd gazed up expectantly, silently. Sweat dripped down from his face, gliding noiselessly past his shirt, pant legs and feet, drifting in the air currents down...

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The waves crashed into the enormous ship and smashed mightily into the sides, reducing them to no more than sodden firewood. Men clung to the sails and mast as the captain yelled, "Abandon ship! Abandon ship! Lord have mercy on us all!"

And the first few men who obeyed their captain were lost forever to the ferocious seas, pulled down by the weight of the ocean, by the fierceness of the waves as they rolled and rocked and never stopped moving. The rest were too afraid to leave the confines of what had been their home for these many long...

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The coldness of the water caught her by surprise, ripping what little breath she had managed to grab hold of from her lungs, leaving her vulnerable and blinded.

Her feet were bound, but her arms were free; she had managed to untangle the untidy and hastily tied knots as she walked from the boat to the end of the plank. Thankfully. Although it was still a struggle, at least she could at least try to save herself.

Pirates and their superstitions. No women on board the ship when it sets sale. Ridiculous. And yet, they said, there were enough incidents...

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"Bitch don't know how to swim. Bitch need to learn how to swim wit da sharks."

"What?" my Grandmother said.

"You see, whatchoo need he'ah is a metafough."

"A what?" she spluttered.

"A metafough!" he insisted.

We weren't in uptown anymore.

"I think what the kind doctor is trying to say is that it helps to use metaphor to explain your condition, Grandma," I said, waxing poetic to his accented jargon.

God love her, but my granny is a racist old bitch. Nobody would be more happy to see her kick that bucket more than me, were it not for...

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