"Mister Cloone?" said the sergeant as he sat down. "You know why we're holding you, right?"

Cloone shrugged and leaned back. "Fascism? Something something smokes?"

Sergeant Miller took off his own glasses. "We're stopping you here at the Richford/Quebec crossing because you were smuggling Cuban cigars into the country. Why would you do that? You didn't even try to hide them."

"It's the Hemingway in me. Cuba. And 'fuck the system'."

"You think that smuggling cigars makes you Hemingway?" asked Miller.

"I think it's a good start," replied Cloone.

"We have the boycott in place for a very good reason....

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She opened the envelope and screamed. Then she opened the next envelope, screamed, set it down. Then the next, screamed, set it down. Next, screamed, down. Next, screamed, down.

A strange ritual. Letting out some kind of pent up anger and frustration. She had drawn a crowd, as one letter after another would be opened, followed by a scream, then the laying down of the envelope. For hours on end she did exactly the same thing. Open, scream, down. Soon, the crowd had grown quite large. The police arrived, and stood for a few minutes, watching this bizarre ritual. One...

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We made a little church of our own when we promised to marry. You asked me when I barely understood how to love you, and I'd been innocent so long that I think the moment you told me you loved me you became ever more desperate to snap me up. Three days after the initial declaration came the proposal. I ran away from you and hid.

You're a terrible boy. Everyone says so. I'd heard the talk since the beginning of time and I'd seen the queue of sobbing girls you left behind you. And yet.... you told me loved...

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He pounded his head on the wall to the rhythm of the heavy bass. Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom.

He'd attempted diplomacy already. Repeated knocks on the door had gone unanswered. No wonder: they probably assumed it was the music.

He'd attempted passive-aggressively turning his own music up to the max. Some good that does on a MacBook.

Nor did calling the neighbors help. The RA he'd summoned had joined the party.

3am on a Tuesday morning, in finals week. Deridda wasn't getting any easier. What would Deridda do? Hey thought. WWDD. Which was about the sound his forehead made...

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"Wait, so he hit you?" Beneath Sean's cool demeanor, rage had begun to bubble over. I fingered the bruise throbbing beneath the skin of my cheek. "Uh-huh." His eyes narrowed. I placed one hand on his arm. "Relax. It's done." i soothed, but there was no suppressing his rage; even i knew that. It was like putting mentos into a coke bottle and shaking it. eventually, it would explode. he kissed my bruise, gently, just a little brush. "I'll be back." he promised. I tightened my fingers on his arm. "Please, don't go looking for him. it'll justs make things...

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'So, what makes you think it is going to flood around here?'
The truck driver chewed gum as he unloaded the bags of cement and several stacks of bricks.
'It's always best to be prepared,' I said, helping to manhandle one of the bags towards the area where my cement mixer stood waiting.
'You got planning permission to build this?' asked the driver, seemingly surprised that I could build this tall concrete construction on the suburban hillside, surrounded as it was with low lying bungalows, elegant lawns and neat gravel drives.
'Not really,' I said, taking out my cheque book...

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It was the quiet way Fron did the simple things - anticipating a glass of water, settling to a joint task, silently prompting something urgently forgotten - that Wilhelm noticed more than anything else. She would just eye smile at him when he, yet again amazed at her casual thoughtfulness, would gratify his mutterings. As if words were not necessary.

It was as bewitching as it was uncanny. He felt she could pluck a dropped desire out of the air, well before its longing weight would shatter it on the hard stone floor of the bakery. Slowly, quickly, her careless...

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"I know what you're after," growled the doctor, gripping her clipboard like it bestowed her the authority of the Pope with his Holy Bible. "All of a sudden it's 'oh, my back aches!', 'Doc, I've got migraines!'

"Migraines. Ha," she sneered. "And you!"-- Possessed white finger shivering in the direction of the wrinkled face before her -- "You think CANCER will get you your hands on that stuff? You're nothing but a common criminal. A druggee. Shame."

I yanked Grandma out of the chair. We'll seek her medical marijuan

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The elephant dragged its feet, following behind the child experiencing the wet sand of a beach for the first time. Its right leg was longer than its left, the result of being constantly tugged along with the 3-year-old wherever he went. The elephant was much loved around its trunk and ears, its belly crisscrossed with patches from old flannel shirts, worn jeans, tattered baby blankets. If not for its owner, the elephant thinks it wouldn’t even be an elephant anymore.

"Come along, Dylan," the man said as he scooped his son up into his arms. They were halfway back on...

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I am breathless. My heart is in my stomach and pounding around like an indoor hockey match. Staring deep into the eye of my accuser I beg: "mercy!"

The clock ticks furiously past the minutes. One, two, suddenly five have passed and I am sure to pass out from the sheer weight of the moment.

Does Miranda find true love in those five minutes?

Oh curse you fickle fate, you demon of home electronics and urban sitcom.

My bladder yearns at attention but suppress its screams I must; the DVR needs repairing. The show must go on.

In streams and,...

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