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Fiction

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The Answering Machine
It was good while it lasted. As if all color had drained out of things. As if music were the bridge to take you elsewhere, and elsewhere turned out to be right where you were, where there was no such thing as music. He was alone in the kitchen, listening to the hum of the ...

How Are You?
Identity is part of the problem, although we have ways of verifying certain persons, putting our finger on them. About this time a year ago there was a war going on halfway around the world, and here in town there was a young man—the step-son of a famous newspaper ...

Halftime
Tuck finished his soup and salad one Sunday afternoon. His wife left to play tennis at a posh club downtown. She was late getting back. He went to the mailbox at halftime. There were sexy girls in bikinis on TV. He liked to look at the girls. But he really wanted to check the ...

Watching the Zamboni
“Why do I love what fades?” —Mark Strand The offices of the University Weekly are socketed within the highest garret of a lonely old hall, once the women’s club, now fallen into ornate disuse above the first floor cinema. One frozen January evening, I ascended the ...

Consumption
Emile was a paralegal. He knew he’d be a lawyer someday, he’d move up and become a lawyer, with his own office and his own work to do. He’d work for himself. But for now he had to pay his dues, he worked with all the other paralegals. A cup of coffee would help. He stood ...

Syzygy
Reuben stared up at the posters. “That’s a strawberry popsicle, right? And what’s that your friend’s got there?” The children silently smiled down. “ … a Nutty Buddy? OK, then, that’ll be 95 cents.” “Out of a dollar … there you are, five cents change. ...

Playing Down
1978 The last burst of photon torpedoes almost got him. If the Imperial destroyer had set the spread a little wider, the torpedo in the innermost orbit would have hit for sure. As it was, Jim’s left shields had been weakened. Now both of them were in wide orbits around Cygnus ...

Uncoupling
“Evan is having an affair.” This is the first of two surprises I’ve brought to my girlfriend’s college from New York. The second is small and circular with a gem the size of my pinkie-nail. I was planning to wait with both until their respectively appropriate ...

Gedney Goes Bohemian
For the first time in weeks, Gedney felt in complete control of his image. He let out another twenty yards, and then tied off. His eyes followed the deep grade of the twine as it arced into the azure Carpathian sky, disappearing some two hundred feet below the orange smudge that ...

The Sage of Bucyrus
The Final Lesson The men standing in the moonlight on that narrow porch represented the best of Bucyrus–the mayor, Colonel Hank Foley, Sr.; the fire chief, Wright Manaport; the young manager of the Pizza Hut, Tom Warble. Even Zilas Gumby, Miss Esther Poolhole’s no-good ...

Dismemberment of Things Past
It happened about a year ago at this time, so I guess I’m kind of thinking of it out of some sense of anniversary, but I really don’t remember much of it, or at least it itself, because I wasn’t there when it happened, and I really didn’t know her well, so I guess I ...

Centrifuge
When Ellie looks in the mirror, she sees only skin. Hers is dry, but also oily. It is pale and burns easily. She is told skin changes every seven years. It is the body’s largest organ, the organ that wears no shield. She thinks of her skin breathing as she breathes, feeding on ...