The girl looked at the crowds of people, like a flow, massive and unbearable, pressing in on her. The car sat in front of her, a dent in it's front bumper. She looked at the red gown hanging over her shoulders and puzzled to herself. I thought this was blue.

There had to be a better place to be. A sweeter smelling place.

Come with me, the voice said.

She looked around, her dark eyes narrowing. Her nostrils twitched, sour, offended. Something made her head pull back and away. Sulfurous.

Come with me, the voice said again.

Against her better...

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I'm with stupid remarked the t-shirt. Very appropriate I thought considering the look on his face as he and his friend harried the younger boy. I wanted to step in but I had always shied away from confrontation. "If it gets and worse I'll step in" I told myself, hoping it wouldn't. In my reverie I never noticed who pulled the knife not that that mattered much, the result was still the same. He must have been stupid to have carried it with him.

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"The sheep were at pasture," Daniel typed into his screen. Monica slinked up behind him, read the screen and mocked, "Wow Dan, that sounds like the beginning to a dirty joke, not a children's story."

"Thanks for the encouragement. Hey, I thought you were on your way to get your nails done?"

"I'm getting ready to go, I got stopped by a phone call from your mother."

"What did she want?"

"Nothing really. She just wanted to know if she could throw a surprise party for her little baby boy's thirtieth."

"Shit. I told you I don't want any of...

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She stared down into the shallow pond from where she stood on the banks, and sighed. There was world just below the broken surface of the water, a world that she longed to understand. The lillypads floating on the surface seemed to hide their world from hers, but she knew better. The world below, it was alive and well. It was something that she could feel, from the tips of her fingers, up her arms and across her heart, and all throughout her entire body.

All she had to do was jump.

Though the pond was only a foot or...

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Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. It wasn't a normal doorway because when I say doorway you think of things like wood and brass nobs and, possibly, hinges.

This had none of those.

And it was hardly a red gown, because you are likely thinking of something you'd take to a ball, or if you're the really twisted sort, and I can tell you are, there's an image of a piece of clothing given out to a somewhat disturbing institution, or asylum, for those less inclined to modern verbiage or intent on...

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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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The anti-grav boots were worth every penny.

Shelly had saved for weeks, mowing lawns, delivering papers, collecting coins from every cushion in the house, to earn enough hard cash to buy them. Her mother had told her not to waste her money, that they were probably just galoshes with springs on the bottom, but the girl refused to be deterred. The magazine ad had proclaimed them anti-grav, and there was a Truth in Advertising law on the books, so they must be the real deal.

And she was right.

But not in the way she thought she would be.

Instead...

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Vanquished.

I was confused. This isn't how I expected the novel to end. Who committed the crime? Where was the last chapter with the explanation, the satisfying ending the reader could ponder on when the final lines had been read?

This book looked identical to the others in the bookshop the next day but twenty pages were missing at the back. I was waiting in line to exchange the book when I had a strong mysterious feeling not to.

Returning home I sat on the battered red leather sofa and opened the last page again.

More words than I expected....

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If given enough time to think of it he would go back into the fire to get it. The moment the Christmas gift was opened, he got up and filled the cup with coffee. Ever since then and with few exceptions it had been used most every day. It was white with Disney's Magic Kingdom logo on it just over the letters D-A-D also in blue. This wasn't his style or desire, but yet this was. He knew the minute he picked it up who the previous owner was, and it was a connection that he would never make in...

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My grandma had this incredible house. Like one of the ones you see in movies. Like, this is going to be a really crazy example, but did you ever see "The Tigger Movie"? Like Winnie the Pooh. There's this part where they're in the attic and I always remember wishing we had an attic with all that cool old stuff to explore in our house. Then I found Grandma's attic and I knew I'd hit something special! There was actually a stand-up mirror covered in a sheet and a few large trunks full of old clothes! So great.

I think...

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