Kenya. She said her name was Kenya.

And then she laughed. I couldn't hear it, not over the music in the bar, not over the shouting of everyone around us. But I saw the laugh, starting in her stomach, and traveling up and out of her mouth.

She leaned closer and said that her parents had grown up with Black Power and Africa awareness, and decided to name her Kenya. That they had grounded her the first time she straightened her hair.

Her voice, the part of her voice I could hear, had a huskiness to it that really appealed...

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I know, I know, there's a million things I need to do. Every day, a million things. Check this, talk to him, to her. Don't forget to fill this out. Drive there, don't forget. Get it right the first time so you don't lose more time doing it twice. Or worse.

Only at the end of the day, is it legal to relax. Only when the world is on half-time, lunch break, dinner break, time out, penalty box.

The sun is one big green light for everyone. You can't stop when the world is go.

If I didn't want to...

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He didn't know what to say. No one did. It had never landed on anyone's finger before. The fabled winged bug, unlike any other on this planet, stayed away from all lifeforms. Of course there were stories about what would happen if it actually did touch someone, and he guessed he was about to find out. Would he die? Would untold riches come his way? Would he become the most famous person on Terra 12?

The bug, which felt lighter than a feather in his hand, looked up at him. He couldn't help but wonder what it thought. Or did...

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The border. He had. To find. The border. He'd made this trip a hundred times before and each time the damn thing moved. When he thought of it - if he thought of it at all - he imagined it as some kind of mystical shimmering veil. Except you couldn't actually see it. Couldn't map it. It might be there with the next step or it could take a thousand more and he never knew which it would be. He was pretty sure he'd been walking straight for it but... had he just been circling? Was he even heading in...

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Peasants. That's what I thought when I looked out the window. Nothing but peasants on the street below. Uneducated people. I watched as one of them gave birth. Immediately, she put her baby in a tree. There was a bees' nest there and the bees stung the baby. Even from up here I could hear the baby scream. The baby fell out of the tree. I think it broke a leg because it didn't move after that. The baby just cried and screamed and ate fig newtons. It bled too. A lot.

Slowly, I ate my Almond Joy bar.

Gweedo,...

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Dispossessed

All he had to his name was this park bench, and not even that.

As he sat and gazed off into the distance, he contemplated his fate. He'd lost his job, then his home, then his family. Nothing was left to him, not even his body that lay six feet under rotting in a pauper's grave. His spirit sat on the bench that the shelter had dedicated to his memory. Suicide had not ended his suffering. Dispossessed of everything he had held dear, he contemplated getting his life back.

His ex-wife stood looking at the bench, at his name...

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Becky hoped Tom saw what she had written before her teacher did.

Mr. Smith was notoriously tidy about the things in his classroom. Desks were wiped down once a day, not by the school janitorial staff but by him personally. In other classes she knew friends who would write on the desks, leaving messages for the students who sat there after them - a sort of school texting service between students without cell phones, but Tom took only this one class after her. Would he see her message? She could pass it off as a doodle and if he said...

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"And they thought that was porn?"

"I don't think they would have called it that. Erotica, maybe. But...yes. There's something so innocent about it, isn't there? I love the kimono on this lady here."

"I can't believe you're looking at the kimino."

"This isn't your late-night shocker, this isn't your gorey pop-up nonsense. This is - I suppose it isn't classy as such, but it's... There's something about it. It's old fashioned. Charming in its way."

"They had very different ideas then."

"The world wasn't sexualised, I suppose. Seeing half a naked woman was shocking enough. We're just looking for...

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They were listening. Annette had no problem reading a report in school to a classroom full of students who were busy catching up on homework, drawing doodles, or discreetly pulling out their cellphones when nobody was looking; but this was different.

This was in front of people who'd come voluntarily. People who /wanted/ to hear what she'd written. People who actually enjoyed talking about math in their free time. Weirdos.

And that's what scared Annette. They were listening. If she'd done poorly, they'd actually care. They had a passion for the subject that she'd hated, despite her natural talent. Why,...

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The bear was furious.
Dr Who had eaten his chocolate again. This time he wsn't going to let the jumped up timelord get away with it.
He turned to the Cyberman and whispered.
The Tombliboos watched with interest as the plan unravelled and Amy Pond let out a scream as the Cyberman picked up the Dr by the throat and threw him into the shoebox.
The bear now turned on the Gruffalo much to the owls amusement. The Gruffalo screamed and ran behind the bookcase where he hid amongst the dust and biscuit crumbs.
The three Daleks (of varying sizes)...

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