Wine.
"Wine is the one thing we have left in common," he thought, looking out over the set table before him. She had opted for the house red, as he did. She hadn't drunk much of her glass; no time for it between the business at hand. He had gorged himself of his own glass.

She drew some papers from her bag. Starched, sparkling papers with her lawyer's mark on them.
"Her lawyer's mark on her," he thought.

He motioned the waiter to quickly refill his cup. He emptied it with equal alacrity.

Not words, but papers passed between them....

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'It's the largest ship I've ever seen.'

"It's the only ship you've ever seen."

"This is why I don't watch movies with you."

"Oh, look at her, look at her pandering to the camera - "

"She's an actress, it's her job."

'This is the beginning of such an adventure!'

"This is the beginning of such an awful film. Why are we watching this?"

"Because I like this film, and you're my sister, you're meant to at least try to like things that I like."

"Surely, as your sister, I am meant to pull your hair, steal your clothes, make...

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She found the key on the internet.

It seemed silly, a little, to buy a physical and tangible thing like that to open up a locked trunk in a dream. But it was necessary, she was sure. She'd been trying to get into the trunk in the bedroom of the house of doors - the house she returned to over and over again in her lucid dreams - for years. For as long as she could remember.

The trunk, solid and wooden, banded with brass and locked. It was impenetrable. She'd tried peering through the keyhole, picking the lock, everything....

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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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0900 hrs. Scott was seen leaving his fiance's home by a neighbour who looked up as he slammed the door hard and swore loudly.

0930 hrs. CCTV shows Scott going to pay for gas and coming out with a large bag of sweets, getting back into his car and driving off

1100 hrs. Scott's employer Mick Davis calls the fiancee Deborah McVey to ask if Scott is coming into work.

1300 hrs. Deborah has called the police. Scott is missing. He had been depressed after the tragedy with his family.

1500 hrs. Scotts car found with the driver's door open,...

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Gradually. That's what the doctor tells me. Gradually I will get worse. My liver will gradually fail; my arthritis will gradually turn my hands crooked.

So gradually, you mean, I'm dying? Isn't that bullshit? Could there be something worse for me to hear? So gradually since the age of 13, I've been killing myself. That first drink, to the last, I "gradually" ruined my insides? All because my parents failed to tell me what drinking really does to you? So it's my fault that during summers, parties, college, and beyond, that I "enjoyed" my life while ruining it at the...

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The day had dragged on. Lari looked around the street as she left work. She felt as if she had just ran a marathon with cement shoes on. You wouldn't think that being a marketing assistant would make someone so tired.

The street was full of the regular faces. People that she saw everyday, but never really looked at. Lari sighed as she waited for her bus. I need a vacation, she thought.

A young girl walked by, licking a dripping ice cream cone and holding a large red balloon. The girl didn't care that she had dripped chocolate down...

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He didn't know that yesterday was the last day he would see her. He had no doubts about the marriage, but he knew that his life would change in a way he wasn't sure he was ready for. He couldn't live without her; he knew that. He couldn't go a day without hearing her laugh or seeing her smile-her smile that made her eyes twinkle and her dimples flash. He thought about how much he loved her smell. Whether it was the smell of her herbal shampoo, the smell of her sweet sweat after she got back from running, the...

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The wires passed from hand to hand in the complex trading ritual. THe boy watched raptly, taking his training with the serious concentration of surgeons and chess-masters.

"You wrapped the wrong red and pulled the wrong green," he noted to his papa in mixed Spanish. The wires were then braided into his hair, the auburn hues mixing with the artificial Christmas tones.

"The day your hair grows out of these strands, you will have all there is to desire in this world. On that day, you may cut these colors and move on to the next."

The tea kettle screamed...

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"Peasants," he thought, and stuck his pitchfork into a square of hay.

"What do they know about building a good, angry mob?"

He hoisted the bale onto a workbench and began teasing handfuls of straw out, putting them in neat piles.

He came from a family of mob organizers and leaders. Three generations of good, strong men who knew how to lead a group of frothing townsfolk up mountain passes, across fields and to the front gates of witches, evil doctors and foreign-born ne'r do-wells.

The secret to a good mob was in staying organized. Make sure everybody's got something...

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