Cleanliness was a virtue. They told him that.

"Who are they?" The others would ask. The others didn't believe in they. But they are there. They must be. Or else, why they tell him that?

They also told him of the magical properties of the string. The others didn't believe in the string, but he convinced them.

you must try the ritual of the string, or it will not work it is powered by nonbelievers

The others were intrigued. Still, they did not believe, but, perhaps, what harm is it to see where this leads?

Of course, the ritual of...

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We had been the best of friends all though high school. It was summer after senior year and we would soon be off to our respective colleges. This was going to be one last slumber party; one last tribute to the way we had spent most weekends throughout the last four years.

Mindy had brought the tequilla, which was a recent development. I mean, slumber parties as freshmen didn't include booze. I furnished the barn, or rather my parents did. The night was soft and warm and the air was sweet with mown grass, and if you didn't mind the...

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There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. He just stands there in diffused light - brooding and making no noise.

Oddly enough, he makes no attempt at escaping. Perhaps its because I stapled him to the dresser drawer as he had refused to have his picture taken.
He looks so much better in person anyway...

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Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty. She'd never looked in the mirror and seen what ever it was that society defined as beauty reflected back at her. She had never looked at a picture of herself and thought, "Wow" or even "Not bad".
But as she flicked through the photographs from the night before she found her breath being stolen at the gorgeous creature in front of her.
Nothing was different, not her hair, not her teeth, her eyes or her clothes. And yet, everything was different, miraculously changed, as though a fairy godmother had waved her...

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"No, absolutely not!" Mama Tiger told her cub.

"But Moooooom! All the other cubs get to bring down a gazelle at my age!"

"I don't care what all the other cubs do. I'm not their mother; I'm yours. And the answer is no."

Timothy Tiger wandered off to sulk with his siblings, who were fighting over a piece of dark meat. Watching his brothers fight over a leg, he mumbled, "I bet your mother wasn't overprotective like mine."

He stopped and pondered this a moment. "Oh," he said in sudden realization, shrugged his shoulders and grabbed a leg bone from...

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Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.

Two weeks ago, she had rebelliously boarded a ship from the island of Taiwan, left her grandparents who had raised her, and traveled back to China to find her parents -- who she wouldn't have recognized at all. She had been sent off as a baby during the Civil War; no sane Republican would have wanted their children brought up where intellectuals like her learned mother and her professor father were being publicly humiliated, abused. It is why she, as a baby, was sent away in...

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I'm with stupid.

What an offensive shirt to wear on a first date, I thought as I picked at my salad. As soon as it was socially acceptable, I'd excuse myself to the bathroom, where I'd conveniently get a call from my dog's babysitter.

As we finished dinner, I prepared to make my dash to the bathroom, but he stopped me. "It's the shirt, isn't it?"

"I didn't say anything," I replied.

"I know you didn't, but you definitely noticed it. You'd have to be, well, stupid not to. So here's the story." His voice took on a sad tone....

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The moon would never be the same again.

I could tell as I looked out my window tonight that now that he's so far it just, would never.
They all say "Looking up you are staring at the same stars so he can't be far away", yet still in my deepest fears I've realized tonight happens to be a blue moon and the stars have already begun to change without him by my side.

How could this be happening when we said we'd be strong?
I love him.
But i supposed In essence I killed him.
I encouraged him to...

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Travel light, but take everything with you. Don't check bags in for the flight. Have everything in a small case you can take on the plane. That way there could be no lost luggage. No waiting an hour after the flight had landed for a bag that might have been used as a punchbag by some snotty flight attendant. Despite this, air travel was exhausting.

He should have known it was coming. Fatigue setting in. No doubt due to the lacing of his shoes and rethreading his belt into his trousers for the third time. Collecting of belongings from conveyors...

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Meteorites struck a Russian town today. I wondered what I'd be thinking if they hit the place I live. Probably not worrying about my hair as I am today. Nor whether to meet up with the unsuitable man that I know I shouldn't ever see again. Nor would I procrastinate yet again over finishing paperwork and chores. None of that would matter. Only survival. Family. Are they ok? None of the mindless timewasting unimportant trivia we are all obsessed with would even cross our minds in that situation.

It reminds me of the time I was stuck underground in an...

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