Waitressing and the Cosmos
At the restaurant where you waitress, you have to close out your shift by “ten-pointing your tables.” This means refilling your sugar caddy while trying not to be repulsed as you remember that middle-aged woman who hoisted five packets of fake sugar (three pink and two yellow) over her single …
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West End Girl
Summer of 1977 was when I first fell in love. That was also the summer of Son of Sam, the killer who was terrorizing New York City. Lurid headlines blazed from the front page of newspapers, and all my friends in tenth grade were cutting their hair because Son of …
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Texting My Dead Dad
June 3rd, 2017 – Four Months Before Do you know the Netflix Password? Most of our text messages were mundane. “Are you at work right now?” he once asked. “Yes. Off at ten,” I texted back. We were quick with each other. We left it there. I don’t remember now …
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Why I Break Stuff
I break stuff. Chronically. I don’t know why. For several years my wife, Leslie, kept a delicate heirloom teacup made of fragile porcelain on her nightstand. One evening, while getting ready for bedtime, I tossed an extra pillow off the bed. As it left my hands, it brushed the teacup …
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Recovery from Simultaneous Stroke and Cardiac Arrest
A health reporter’s non-scientific abstract on what really happened to her boyfriend during the scariest year of her life Background: Fifty-nine-year-old Caucasian male collapses without warning on July 26, 2011 at approximately 7 p.m. Central Time. Incident takes place on public street while patient is walking son’s dog, Joanie (as …
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The Blessing of the Throats
They came for Blaise of Sebaste in the late afternoon, just before supper. Light filtered through the trees on the mountain before it entered the mouth of the cave where he knelt in prayer on a mat of reeds. He had seen patients earlier in the day, but retired to …
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Lucinda’s Bouquet
Lucinda sat very straight on a chair in front of the small window in the tiny living room. She stared out, as though watching a movie screen. A dozen or so onlookers had already gathered outside the window by the time Ana and I arrived, our arms full of flowers. …
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Perfect For The Small Family
One egg. Two cups flour. One cup sugar. One cup shortening. I trace my finger down the ingredient list, hoping that I have everything already. Vanilla. Baking soda. Salt. This recipe promises a cake that is “light, moist, delicious anytime.” It is baked in a nine-by-nine-inch cake pan. It is …
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The Anatomy of Loss
Yet there is no return: rolling up out of chaos, a nine month’s wonder, the city the man, an identity—it can’t be otherwise—an interpenetration, both ways. -W.C. Williams, Paterson I. I was in Spain when I …
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