She was the most delicate girl in town. But looks could be deceptive. Ruth knew he was somewhere in the house. Unfamiliar surroundings would make it difficult for easy location of prey, but that wouldn't delay the inevitable. She was as confident as she could be that no help would come. The old place was too isolated; one of its charms. Ironically, it was what had attracted her to the place. The appeal of sole occupation. Nothing to disturb her work.

Fortunately, she'd made it to the Kitchen and its drawers of sharp, clean, very clean knives. Ms. (note the...

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The daring were punished. They were punished with exactly what they wanted, and found out the paucity of their imagination and desires.

It was near midsummer when the djinn arrived in Baghdad. He promised to each person, exactly what they wanted, the one thing. There were no rules, no catches. This was no monkey paw to wish upon, but a djinn in all his smoking glory, blue fire leaping from his eyes and his ears, red lightning visible from his mouth when he spoke, and a long rumbling thunder when he laughed at those that came to make their wishes....

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The pistol was cocked, ready to go. The grip felt odd in my hand, and the barrel kept dipping down towards the ground. What would happen if I actually fired the damn thing? I was afraid it would fly back and smash my teeth out.
Nevertheless, I wrapped both hands around the grip as I had seen countless times on television and tried to steady the deadly steel. It wavered like my resolve at the sight of my nemesis, sprawled and harmless looking on the couch. But the second he awoke, he would look less like a sleeping kitten and...

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Well, I wasn't prepared for this. Genetic engineering really is only my minor. I majored in Music Education, and do a helluva good job at it, if I do say so myself.

The genetic engineering project was supposed to be more kid friendly. A cockatoo and a persian cat, gene spliced, to for some sort of mutated mix. The math (something I'm freely admitting to be poor at) implied more of a cat's head. I got the bird head. Must have not carried the three.

Anyway.

I'm going to have to raise it now. There's no getting out of that....

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Did you hear what happened to Ol' Morlane? Word got around, I mean, I heard it from Skeets who heard it from Fuller but I checked around with some other people and they all heard the same so it's true I guess. You didn't hear this? I mean, I don't know where you been you didn't hear this. Once Skeets told me I musta heard it nine-ten-twenty times in the past few or four days. You been out somewhere? Somewhere secret? Rustlin' up something good for the rest of us? Don't worry about it. Anyway, before you go in there...

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"So anyway that was what he said yesterday and she wouldn't agree with anything he was...."

The sound drifted away as he continued to stare straight across the carriage. It was the same every morning, she would complain about everything that happened the day before, all the way in on the train, and then again that evening, all the way home.

He, well, he would do the same as always every morning, stare straight ahead at the woman directly across from him. She was beautiful. Here light browne hair rested neatly on her shoulders as she read what seemed to...

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There's nothing like being in a parade to let people abandon their sense of self and do things that make them appear foolish to outsiders.

You may have seen this as a child and thought nothing of it. You may not have even noticed the people, marching lockstep, standing on top of highly embellished vehicles, or pulling desperately to prevent enormous cartoon characters from flying away. You may have just been taken in by the symmetry, music, and good cheer of it all.

Now, as an adult, there you are, dancing like a fool in full view of the entire...

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The daring were punished.

It seemed almost contradictory, but that was how They wanted it. Ever since the capital-t-They had taken over it, a systematic reduction of risk-taking had been put into place, until the daring were trained not to dare, the mavericks removed and replaced with the mundane.

My sister Joan had wanted to be a baker. You would think that was sufficiently uninteresting for Them, but you'd be wrong - I have no idea how They found out, but after a few bottles of wine at my house, she told me her dream of opening her own bakery....

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Find within yourself the path to truth, and you will never steer yourself wrong.

Good Lord, what a load of crap, he thought, sharpening the shovel again.

Rely on my own internal frame of reference to tell me what is the true path? Hell, if I thought my internal compass was true, I'd be in a better place now. Isn't that right, Jenny?

No, I guess you wouldn't have much to say about it, would you?

I never thought we'd be in this position, Jen. I honestly thought we'd make it. But I followed my heart, and that led me...

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When we reached the top, we were so dizzy from the thin air we'd forgotten why we had to climb and headed back down the mountain.

At the bottom, clear-headed, we remembered why we had to climb and headed back up the mountain.

This continued for the rest of our lives.

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