Charles didn't know what to think. The heat on his cheeks hurt too much, but he didn't like it when the flame disappeared. Jenny was the one holding the camera. She told him that they could all share the candle. It was one flame for the entire group. A moppet party, dad called it, because it was not their birthday.

Mom was sick. Charles could only think of that. She'd pale cheeks and skin stretched over her face, and her hair tangled and black and her mouth a gaping, gawping hole. She didn't even recognize any of them when they'd...

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He never had good taste. He was a rough and tumble builder who wore loud tee shirts or football kit and drank nothing but cheap beer. He was a bully and a loudmouth. But still I married him.

I don't even remember why? He wasn't especially good looking. Lately, he'd even been proud of his ever-expanding beer belly and his ever-decreasing hair. He was my children's father though.

I'm mean, I'm getting older too. Bit thicker round the middle an' all. Few wrinkles around the eyes - smile lines. That's what they should be anyway. Mine are more frown lines....

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"Hello."
"What?"
"Hi."
"Who are you? No, wait. Where are you?"
"Look up."
"You're in the sky?"
"We are."
"You're..."
"Butterflies. Yes. Does this bother you?"
"To be honest, less than it should."
"We have been watching you. We saw that you were different. We chose you."
"Chose me for what?"
"The time is coming and we are here to warn you. To warn all of you."
"Warn us? What are you, some sort of prophet."
"We are of God, if that is what you mean."
"Ah."
"We bring you a message from the depths of chaos, the heart of...

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"Knives."

"Yeah. And?"

"Pepper. Salt. Ducks. Ivory, but don't tell anybody."

"Seriously? Knives?"

He handed me the duffle bag. "Knives. And everything you need to know is in there, too."

"Everything?"

"Everything. The molecular structure of Ferrous Oxide. The length of a stick. The speed of light under water."

"What about the temperature of Jupiters core? The average age of a bitch collie in its first heat? Foreign exchange rates for all currencies against Bhutan?"

"All of that. Plus the phone numbers of every Mossad agent, and their email address and blog addresses. Oh, and the starting lineup of the...

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Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.

Mrs. Baer had not picked her for the reading group, but that didn't matter, because it didn't mean she wasn't good enough, it just meant that Mrs. Baer didn't KNOW how well she could read! Mom would say it, loud and clear Emily could hear it in her head, "If you'd just made yourself noticed, Emily, then you would not have been ignored!" This is what Mom always told both of her older sisters when they became too meek.

"You get...

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"Dragonflies are good luck," his grandmother used to say. "They are fairies' horses. Their wings spread wishes and wonder."

He remembered that and not much else about her. They would sit in the grass by the shore of the lake. He used to spend three weeks every summer out at his grandparents house. They picked blueberries and chopped wood, made cookies and walked in the woods.

He was an adult now. They were long dead.

His daughter stood in front of him, frowning, hands onm hips. "That's not true, daddy. Dragonflies are dragonflies, not horses. And fairies don't exist."

He...

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"This dream - it was better than waking."

"That's incredibly flawed. Inherantly flawed. You can't control the dream - for all you know, in the next few moments, you could've... You could've turned up to someone's wedding. Someone you hated. Or worse, someone you loved."

"If that's the kind of dreams you have, I'm not surprised you can't understand how a dream could be better than waking." I made a face. "That's really the best you can come up with? Oooh, a dream wedding." My nose wrinkled. "Is that a pun?"

"A very strained one." She replied, going to make...

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1882 by Qner

When the father arrived home to his squalid, Lower East Side tenement building, he was exhausted. He paused at the door to pose for a Jacob Riis photo, and then trudged though the entryway. The grit of coal from the furnace in the oil refinery still covered his face. This, despite the fact that we worked on the docks hauling fish. His apartment was in the rear of the building: a cramped, filthy space overlooking a pile of rubbish that the realtor had described as a “quaint fixer-upper with a partial city view.” He approached the door, removed a rat...

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Once in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She was hoping to catch a cool breeze as well as a paying customer as the slinky dress billowed behind her. Cigarettes were sexy again, and with lung disease the least of her worries, she inhaled with abandon. Another night, another John...

But tonight was different, because as she bent to tap the ashes from her cigarette, she saw a green cloth protruding from behind the fake potted plant near the doorway. Curiousity getting the better of her, she pulled aside the leaves to find the...

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There was blood on my pillow and when I woke up the right side of my mouth was swollen and swore. I rushed to the bathroom and rinsed the dried blood from my mouth. It came out in thick clumps at first, and then ran quickly as the crimson liquid. I pulled my cheeks wide and saw that three teeth were missing.

I ran back to my room, my jaw aching and throbbing with the intensity of a fire alarm. I lifted the blood stained pillow and saw three dollar bills lying there. They were crumpled and crimped but someone...

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