Bombs were the last thing on his mind. Being late for work was the first. Now he found himself standing ankle deep in snow waiting for dogs to check the building. Bathrobes are not the most winter appropriate clothing. How long could it take to search 16 stories?
This would be the 7th time he was late this month. Waiting tables is not the most demanding way to make a living but you do have to be present to pull it off.
Ok, there was definitely snow melting into his sneaker. No time for socks.
He had keys, he could...

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General Hutchison stroked his jaw pensively. "So this - what do you call it?"

"SR-33, sir. The soldier robot, 33rd prototype."

"Took you 33 tries to get it right, huh?"

Mr. Raoul ignored the general's attempt at humor. "You'll find that it's just as capable of understanding and carrying out orders as one of your own men, sir, but its reflexes are faster, its senses are sharper, and it isn't afraid of death."

"Sounds like the perfect soldier, son," Hutchison remarked. "So this SR-33, have there been any of them programming glitches with it?"

"No sir, the operating system has...

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There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. He looks like a nice enough fellow, but the last time I saw a stranger in that general location, I was dragged through the back of my closet into a magical world where the whimsy was spread so thick, I developed psychic diabetes.

This time, my uninvited guest seems to be wearing one of those hard hats with the drink holders on either side, and the tube that mixes the two. It has a logo on it, but I can't quite make it out. The room is too dark.

The figure...

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Disappeared into the cityscape,
hiding unintentionally,
friend to only the birds,
for they are the only ones who
will keep this lone soul company.
On days like these, it's easier
for him to just stay in the shadows,
he has, after all, been living as
one. A familiar shadow of his former
life before he had succumbed to
the circumstances that brought
him to this humble time in his life,
whatever they may have been-
drugs, loss of a job, mentally
unstable. But this man was- and still
is- a man. Although it may not seem
like it on this...

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The year was 1986 and she was a high school softball star. So young and full of potential. She was beautiful. She had a beauty that stopped time every time you looked at her. The world was hers for the taking. She loved a lot and loved with all her heart. She held it together for her babies. She tried for so long but the pain chipped away at her slowly everyday. How could she leave? She loved her children more than heartache killed her. What were her dreams? How different would her life be had she not gotten pregnant?...

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Proles. Can't live with them, cant get elected without them. If I had my way, we'd remove them from the process entirely and let the "adults" handle the important stuff. Sure, we'll throw them a bone every once in a while, you know, just to keep up the illusion that they hold some sort of sway, but honestly, who cares what they really think.

The worst are the ones who try to organize. Luckily, all it takes is a well-timed act of violence. Hell, sometimes it doesn't even require anything more than a vague threat. Remember the dairy farmer uprising?...

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We were eating tuna fish sandwiches on the green outside the palace. The sandwiches were soggy but we ate them anyway. The sky and the water were dusk. "It's dusky," I said. "No," she replied.

We ate the soggy sandwiches as we stared at the sky. When you're lost in thought, your sense of taste dims. Staring at the sky and down at the water, I could feel my taste buds run up to my eyes. I could almost taste the sky.

I could tell you I tasted the water, but it just tasted like water. Soggy.

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Dear Sarah

She didn't look at him. That's why I know that she was lying. I know that maybe I ought to say something but how can I hurt my daughter with that kind of news. Joanne has been more like a sister than a best friend so should have known better than to act like that. I am telling you truthfully Sarah, but I feel like killing her. Really.

Lara will be devestated and after the miscarriage it might send her back to the psychiatric hospital, I'll do whatever it takes to stop that happening. Do you remember what...

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There was a comma where a semicolon should have been. This drove her crazy. She thought of actually shooting herself in the head but that would have required a 3-day waiting period; besides, she hated guns. So she kept going through the papers, red slashes here, smiley faces there. But many more slashes than smileys. Soon she just started making slashing smiley faces. Her students wouldn't know the difference, she thought.

After all, they couldn't tell the difference between simple punctuation so how could they get her irony?

John, her favorite student and best writer in her Senior Classics class...

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Looking out my thirteenth floor office window, I marveled at how dark, gritty and simply dirty the air looked. It was so hazy, it looked like dusk even though I knew it was only two pm. I decided to give my brief a break and go eat some lunch, this was the first time in four hours I had looked up, and I noticed the stiffness in my back, the hunger gnawing at me.

"God, look how dark it is! It's like we live in Gotham City!" I said to the secretary. She didn't grin, like I had expected.

"What?"...

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