His apology was not the thing she'd expected when she checked her phone in the morning. With one eye she stared at the screen and then rolled to her belly and pulled the phone to the tip of her nose as she tried to focus.

"I shouldn't have done any of that, I can't stop thinking about it."

She patted her hands over the bedcovers, fumbling through folds until she found her glasses and pressed them to her face.

"I can't stop thinking about it either," she replied, "But I liked it. It was exactly what I wanted."

His reply...

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“They’ve been sat still for 38 minutes. It’s clear they’ve just dug in to defend their flag. I say…”

“You say…” 117 interrupted his Squad Leader, who couldn’t have looked more pissed.

“John, enough of your shit!” He slid a finger across his throat in what he knew would be a futile gesture. “We’ve got the same tacticals as Red Team. We have the same number of cadets. They're boxed in. I say…”

117 coughed. “You say… er… Sir.” I think he genuinely tried not to sound insubordinate. He failed.

“All right, soon to be ‘ex’ cadet. Out with it.”...

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Your foundation was laid a long time ago. You said it was always the same, just before. His voice offering up your name with a percussive beat, "James," and the sharp hammer blow of "short for nothing." that always followed.

When you left you took ownership of it: patching the walls and putting new paint on it to try and make it different. A thin veneer of you, built on the framework of someone else.

When I moved in you made room for me. You let me fill some of that space, as you did for me. I think she...

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She clicked her camera once more, capturing the images and saving them for all time in the data banks of the portable media device. She absolutely loved this new era. Her collection had grown so expansively since wakening on this plane.
She clicked the device off and placed it, lovingly, in its designated bag and turned her attention to her coffee and bagel. The three men she had just captured milled about, confused. She suppressed a giggle at their momentary befuddlement. Humans always seemed to notice, no matter how many calming spells she wove over them. It was as if...

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He had climbed the steep Acropolis, seeking Athena Parthenos (the virgin), every time work or pleasure or strange fates called him to Athens. Yet today he paused by the Temple of Dionysis, only about a third of the way up the olive treed slope. One of the several custodians, some in plastic and metal cells, others, like this young lady beneath whatever shade the Gods (and strategic umbrellas) could provide. Something about her effortless attention, seeing all who paused or passed, while seemingly merged into a thick hard back, caught his attention.

She sat, regally, letting the Sun and people...

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I slept inside the dream I didn't spin from yarn
this time inside my dream
i didn't spin another lie within the tale
you never sold to me
I look inside this bed I didn't make
the spell i didn't spin
from yarn inside my dream
I couldn't sell this dream to awakened eyes and ears
and dreams never do
sell themselves well outside the walls inside our hearts
I bake for you but do not eat
I draw for you but do not sell
I sing for you but do not sing
The things and songs from stolen dreams...

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Froniga, or Fron (as most of her US friends and relations called her) was a patient sort of soul. More in touch with her forebears than many Americans, perhaps because she was closer to her immigrant roots than most. She'd married into the "Land of the Free" as much as she had been born there, not really considering where she lived as something to define her. Maybe that was the Romany spirit showing through. She couldn't tell. She didn't care.

Of course, her attracted neighbour did present a problem. She was who she was, and it was hardly her fault...

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I used to follow my grandfather up the field, gathering potatoes. He would pull them up and leave them like gold nuggets, glowing on the topsoil. I came behind with a trug that was big enough for my baby brother to sleep in. I struggled when the trug was nearly full, and I'd have to set it down every few yards and watch my grandfather as he worked mechanically ahead of me.
I daydreamed that, one day, there would be a real gold nugget lying on the row. I would take iot to the bank and a big man with...

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Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go...
Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go...

There's a contentment there. I find myself humming that, especially when everything has gone to hell and the day is a loss, and yet there is still the final evening bits to get through.

It's Sha-NA-NA in my head. A sense of contentment settles over me, a sense of belonging - to another time, a younger time - a time before pain. Well. A time before this particular kind of pain, or even the pain of what was coming a few years after that song stopped...

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The colors bleed into brown, red to rust, green to yellow.

The maple leaves will change and fall with a certain grace-- November will begin.

It mourns the soft breeze of summer, the baked earth from the sun, but looks forward eagerly to the cool rain, and rest in dormancy.

I stand next to the gnarled wood of the tree, placing my hand on the jagged surface.

This time, I'll follow the seasons. I 'll rest and let the autumn bleed from me my growth and energy.

Winter will freeze me, it's icy fingers clutching my heart, winding around my...

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