"I saw your light was on," P. said. He had moved into a house across the street, and so he knew when I was home and who came to visit. We had broken up a month before and I was seeing the tactophobe. I didn't want to talk to him, but I didn't want to …
The List Is Understood–But Breast Implants?
L. liked to tell people everything. J. said we should teach her a lesson. We made stories about ourselves and told them to her. She repeated them, and she was livid when she found out the truth. She didn't speak to us for a few weeks. Seven months later, L. said to me, "D's such …
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When Locked Out, Try Screaming
"Excuse me, please. Where's the bathroom?" I asked. The woman was mopping the movie theater lobby. She was the only person in sight. "No," she said. I'd had a few beers and couldn't make it to the end of the movie--The Piano. Maybe my Bulgarian wasn't clear, though it is hard to get toiletna wrong. …
The Photograph Murderer & the Photograph Thief
My step-mother was sitting on the coach my dad had built. In front of her was the kitchen garbage can and beside was a box of photographs. She and my father had been married for for only a few weeks and I'd started public school. My step-mother wasn't Catholic and didn't want to send her …
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True Things and Other Worries
I'm It. Well, I've been tagged anyway--by the ever fascinating and honest Sophie in the Moonlight. Since I can't have a story to tell every night, here are the 10 true things about me that this tag requires. And yes, I will tie it all to writing one way or another no matter how thin …
Shut in the Guest Room with an Over-Active Imagination
"Oh. He's dead," K. said. She announced this after I asked her how her father was. "What?" I asked. The two of them traveled together every summer and this was the summer we'd graduated high school. I'd traveled with them a few years before. She wasn't crying or wavering. "He died in the hotel room. …
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bad and under the pillow
For what it is worth, I've started another blog. Words Are Art has my art and bits of stories. So there.
when you call for help
"She pulled a gun on me," R. said. He was talking about his aunt. He lived with her and his grandmother. "She waved it in my face." His life was like that. I asked him what I could do--me on the other side of the phone, pass orange groves, a country club on the other …
Get Out of the Way
I didn't pay the car much attention until it served off the road. The sun was out and no other cars were to be seen on that mile long stretch. In the 4th grade, I knew next to nothing about cars but this one was red, low to the ground, and filled with high school …
Keep Going in the Dark
I was alone and lost in Budapest at midnight. I'd gotten off at the wrong subway stop and between Cyrillic and English, I could make no sense of the signs. My backpack hurt my shoulders and shoes were wearing thin. The lights of a posh hotel called my attention, I dug out the address I …
Marta Bacon 