I thought the world had been tilted upside down. It would have been preferable to its actual state. Everything looks nicer upside-down. The castle glittered across the water, upside-down. What was above it was only a reflection, of course.
I looked at myself in the water. My reflection looked at me. No, I looked at my reflection. My reflection was the real me.
Nothing's as we thought it was, I thought, amazed at the simplicity of it all.
I could start again! All my mistakes could vanish in this upside down world... Nothing would be the same, but everything would....

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We have been in the bunker for weeks now sharing a room with me and my five brothers. Its hard to imagine our life before the war, in a nice large house with lots of nice food. Its my birthday tomorrow im the youngest , im turning 5. I learnt to read and write when i was 2, i was an advanced child , my parents used to believe i was a prodigy, they tried to make me learn thing like piano and violin, things that take lots of concentration. I failed at violin but i went well with piano...

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He wasn't certain he believed her, or that he'd heard her correctly.

She believed it, though. That much was obvious, from the earnest look in her eyes, from the way she clung to her coffee cup with such a tight grip, as if it was the only thing tethering her. As if it was what was keeping her real, keeping her here.

"How did it happen?" He asked finally.

Althea seemed to relax a little at that, as if she'd overcome a hurdle, as if she was relieved - finally, somebody believed her. "I don't know. If I did, I...

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We are falling, steady. We are falling a little bit. We are falling into a mass dream, an illusion that is as good as reality for now. We are falling so slowly, so gently that it feels like we are floating. We are together and we are kidding ourselves. But it is noble and good and we are falling. What reality is greater than this? What is it we are here for? We are this: we are weight: we are what makes it possible to fall.

We are falling and it is enough.

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i jumped. it was the toaster this time. nerves of steel. i hand the waffle to my daughter. "dad (looking me over)--you are really bad at fashion." that's the tip of the iceberg.

people are circles. the outside circle is our behavior. the next circle is our thoughts. inside that, our feelings. at the center there is supposed to be something else, something more lasting and substantial. a light, our soul, awareness, something. and that's what we really are.

but what if this center goes unused or unnoticed for so long that it disappears. or the outer circles take on...

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Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She was looking at her mother, who cried silently.

This young girl wasn't sure why her mother cried, and she was afraid to find out. The last time she found her mother in an emotional state, she was chastised for interfering.

But, Amy couldn't help but look at her mother as she shed tears. In front of her was a plate with nothing but crumbs, a coffee mug, a notebook, and a vase with flowers. From the looks of things, Amy's mother was enjoying a snack....

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This happened every single time.He stared at the blank piece of paper. It was taunting him. He sharpened his pencil again. He traced the edges of the paper again. He looked out the window. The rain was falling again. Softly. Looking back at the paper, he wondered why he ever tried to write. He put the pencil to the paper, thinking the action would prompt the thought. But it just left a small mark. He smudged it with his finger. If he could just write something. He tried to think about what he was feeling. Nothing. He tried to think...

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Jayne was glad to escape the chemical smell of the dentists surgery. She held her little brothers hand tight as he continued to sob. He hated it more. Their father strode in front, an unusual occurence. Mum hadn't been able to get the time off work so dad had been forced to take the time of drinking and take them.
Now, as mum had promised, they made their way to the Albion Cinema to see bambi. Jaynes stomach was knotted in sheer excitement and little David soon ceased his whining as they neared the entrance.
But soon Dad was arguing...

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Ricky did not realize that Luca Brazzi was a man's name, and so, all confused, he had dumped someone completely different, the wife of an architect named Lucia Brazziana (the wife not the architect), in the Hudson river, and had then sent a coded message to the Corlione family. As for Luca Brazzi, he did not sleep with the fishes; he simply overslept. So one can imagine Titaglia's confusion when he showed up, unannounced, with an icepick in hand, and stabbed it through Titaglia's eyeball.

This was in the era before horse heads and cardinals. When a vague optimism was...

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