Thinking About Macaws The first time I rode in John’s brown minivan was on an afternoon in late August during our freshman year of college. There was a coffee-flavored e-cigarette in the cup holder between the driver’s seat and shotgun. I hardly noticed it at first, since I was too intent on listening to The Smiths, our favorite band. As soon as I got in the car, I took John’s CD case out of his glove compartment and started flipping through it. “Put in Louder Than Bombs,” John said. “It’s their best album.” I did. After “Is It Really So Strange?” started playing, I noticed the e-cigarette for the first time and asked John what it was. He explained, then offered me some. When I refused, John picked it up and began inhaling deeply. My…

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THE SPOT This is my spot. It’s been mine since I was a boy. The water’s choppy and the current’s swift, but I love it. This is where I come when I want to be alone or to think—or to fish, just for the fun of it, or sometimes just to drink my whiskey in peace. Of course, if I come out here and I find some joker’s got it, then I get upset, so I have to keep an eye on it. If someone gets too close when I’m out here, that’s just as bad. This is a mile offshore at Fort Monroe, Virginia, where the James River flows into the Chesapeake Bay and meets the Atlantic Ocean at Hampton Roads. It’s right on the edge of the channel, at the drop off, where…

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White Noise Like the undulating highways in a Texan landscape, —The cacti, lizards, dead soil, dry vegetation and brown hills in a dusty rolling flat plain on a harsh mid-day, providing no immediate relief to weary eyes— Heaving deserts of Sahara and relentless Thar, harbouring skeletons under its shifting dunes. Unending galleries of Palace of Versailles with pieces from past, The long passages that easily tire the tourists with handy cams. The unfathomable dark depths off the Atlantic ocean thrashing about its spiked tail Churning its bed and upsetting weeds And the innards of a labyrinthine Dharavi slums, Sweating and weaving bags and leather goods for the folks Searching for cheap goods that cost five times in nearby malls. Middle-class families remain silent and apart; While eating on the same glass table filled with fruits,…

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They spoke with their hooded eyelids, inches away from the other’s face. There was no need for room, only each other. Only their secrets. Those secrets one assumes only they hold when in fact the person sitting next to them, breathing the same air, is thinking the same false thought. Too many secrets. Too many unanswered questions. Too many unasked questions. Not enough time. They were invested in each other, fully, completely, yet they only knew what the other chose to trust them with. Humans are such untrustworthy creatures, it takes too long to believe someone is undoubtedly who they say they are. Words are a flight risk, but conversations that only involve long, solemn glances and quick, excited stares? Those are difficult to fake. A pendant around one of their necks lightly tapped on…

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Thirteen Ways to Deny an Ending Position your body between the door and his body, then turn to stone. Spread your tears like thin ice beneath her feet, and then turn to glass. Lecture like a doomsday astronomer—warn against the Earth without the sun, the tides without the moon… Counter with a mathematical argument—perhaps something about the number 2 and natural balance, or the number 1 being too odd. Make up an excuse to leave the theater before the final act—if a curtain falls and you are not there to see it, then… Rub raw onion (or any handy irritant) in your eyes, and renew your faith in chemistry. Imagine that you are merely playing tennis and redefine terms like match, break, love… Rewrite history—especially the darker periods—and try to sell the revision as best…

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Bowl of Peaches “So what did she say to you?” Setting: bowl of peaches, napkin holder, salt and pepper shaker, one bottle of Hendricks, filthy glasses, dim light, anger, sadness. Music: Handwritten plays softly in the room over. The gin was poured. “She didn’t say much.” Then: “Well, not anything real important.” Memories washed over his face as rain began to fall, cool wind dancing in through a ratty screen, a threat of a storm on a night where this conversation exists more wonderfully than anything else. Characters: two friends in a near dark room, one girl, one guy. Another girl, way offstage, from another town. “I pulled around the side of her house on the other street. I looked over to her backyard. I saw other people. I assumed that one of them was…

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