Fiction

Stalking Nicole

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They don’t come together, but arrive outside at the same time, surprised to see each other. Inside, they sit together at a table and a waitress brings them both a beer.

“I didn’t know you were back in the area,” the man says.

“I’m not. I’m just…around for a few days,” she says.

Nodding

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At the Opera House, 2009

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Cobwebbed curtains open at the opera house, and someone has built a bonfire on stage. Behind the fire is the orchestra. I sit in the balcony, trying to listen to the orchestra play Mozart’s Ein Musikalischer Spass. But everyone around me is throwing spitballs or calling each other on cell phones.

Promises

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Seal

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He still hasn’t talked to us yet.  It’s been about two weeks since they dropped him off.  I don’t really see him much, with school and all, I’m only really home to do homework and leave again, but I wonder about him.  Not really worry – no, I don’t tend to worry about anything – but I do wonder.

He has this seal that he drags around with him everywhere and, from the way he looks at it, I wonder if he talks to that little dirty white toy more than he talks to people.

Freeway

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