23-year-old roommate: Can we play photo roulette when you guys get back to the room tonight?
Overheard in roommate groupchat
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Nass Recommends: Officeparks
This review started as an obligation. It was the least I could do, really, to thank my friend and congratulate them on their poetic debut. Then, when I finally opened my personal copy of the book, sent to my home address after I’d emailed a certain publisher by the name of Will Ballard with a…
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The House Behind Gladewood Street
“I thought about how I used to sleep on Gladewood Street with the passing trains at night. It reminded me of the boy who lived even closer to the tracks than I did, whose name I couldn’t remember.”
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Current Affairs
Ⅰ. LIFE IS ART This piece was supposed to be called: Reading Kundera in Prague. That is because I started this summer with a plan: to read all of Kundera, in order, in Prague. In an homage to the author — who, I later learned, is not the beacon of Czech literature that I…
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Alyosha
The summer’s heat was known to bring solids to liquids, ice to water, clots to running blood. On that day in August 1904, the Tsarina felt a turning in her stomach. She gripped her womb, and called to her husband and their maids. They whisked her to the nurse’s room, following each other like a…
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A Lunch Date
A green restaurant, any time, really. Cigarettes on the ground outside, Sticky floors and fuzzy black mats. Customers scattered like seeds, Two clumped at the bar. Squeaking seats, a shared Shirley Temple. Salads and sandwiches drifting from Table to table and conversation wafting. A few smiles. Suddenly, She laughs, and It’s like the…
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The Truth Well Expressed
You must believe you have sinned. You don’t go to heaven because you’re good. You go to heaven for a man named Jesus. Ask Jesus to forgive you and he will clean your heart. These fervid phrases coming from the speakers, designed to lure revelers to the apartment’s empty dancefloor, had a curious pertinence…
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STAY IN YO LANE, they tell you— the Defense Against Change mission
Forests are burning, the air is filthying, and Miley Cyrus has gone slutty. The world is changing, things are out of control. As a people, we stand at the ready: Conservation, Preservation – these are our civil duties. To support our mission, we have built something called the DAC: the Defense Against Change. The Defense…
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Ben’s Eschatology
He’s compact, twenty-five, staring at a line of mathematical notation on a whiteboard. He’s in a mostly undecorated, windowless office alone. He rakes his fingers through his hair and rubs the back of his neck. The air is humid and he can hear distant thunder. A beer he hasn’t enjoyed, with a film of condensation…
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Empty Bottles
Sasha awoke too soon for his liking. He felt as if he’d seen the sun rise but an hour ago, when really the waning effects of wine had enabled him to soundly sleep away the past few. It was near eleven now, and he’d forgotten to pull the curtains tight before exhaustion had brought about…
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what do you get a man for his birthday
what do you get a man for his birthday “what is your love language?” father hugged me mother kissed me that is what you say when you don’t know how to love. I never had my room four eyes blinked at the ceiling. was this how I loved? the wings of fireflies and between stolen…
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