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e612f27
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What I've learned is that there is nothing in this life that does not fail to disappoint us, even our own deaths.
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Joe Meno |
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a18aad8
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Beneath all of her thoughts and worries, beneath the complication of conflicting identities and needs, maybe it's as simple as loving the way some other person looks when they're sleeping.
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Joe Meno |
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a49d938
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The city glitters past us with its sharp edges, reminding us of how tiny, how weak, how totally unimportant we are.
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Joe Meno |
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db9a826
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The most important things in your life are almost always impossible to predict.
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Joe Meno |
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2b10a2e
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Where do you go when you die? Ha ha. Go on, go on and tell her, Billy." Billy smiles. "You become a little voice in someone's ear telling them that things will be alright."
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Joe Meno |
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31d739c
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Maybe that's why people have friends at all. Not because they like them so much but because they don't make them feel so much worse.
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Joe Meno |
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4320846
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It is the strain of walking around the world-down the street, riding city buses and elevators, moving from place to place to place-and not knowing who might want to destroy you, who might like to fill your heart with poison, who might rob you and stab you, who might stand above you in the dark with a tarantula.
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Joe Meno |
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88fed7d
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Just because you have blue hair and fucked-up clothes doesn't mean you're better than everyone else. Because you know what? You're just conforming to someone else's code. Even though you don't wear khakis or sweaters or whatever, but to me all you guys look the same. You think you're so individualistic, but you're not. You guys--you and Kim and all the rest--you're like anti-snob snobs. But you're just as mean as the preppy kids. You're all..
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Joe Meno |
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ac34f5c
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In our town there is a secret spot where you can still see the stars at night, believe it or not. It is the only spot like that left, unclouded by the dwindling skyscrapers rising nearby. It is a good place to go to walk and talk in whispers. Following the little hill that rises from the park to a small clearing which overlooks the statue of the armless general on his bronze steed, most of us later remember this spot as the first place we k..
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Joe Meno |
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59c958d
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Being decent is the only thing that matters in a terrible world like this.
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Joe Meno |
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7402983
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When she cries, it is quiet, tearless, almost completely imperceptible: one more unheard prayer.
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Joe Meno |
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1779135
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It is what we see when we imagine what the afterlife must be like: our happiest triumphs, our most sincere moments, stolen from the seam of our lives, a respite just before the onset of imminent tragedy.
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Joe Meno |
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3500805
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The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes. But there is wonder in the attempt, knowing we are all destined to fall short, but forgoing reason and fear time and time again so deliberately.
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Joe Meno |
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dfd363c
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Above the dirt of an unmarked grave and beneath the shadow of the abandoned refinery, the children would play their own made up games: Wild West Accountants! in which they would calculate the loss of a shipment of gold stolen from an imaginary stagecoach, or Recently Divorced Scientists! in which they would build a super-collider out of garbage to try and win back their recently lost loves.
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Joe Meno |
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1c607d5
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Jack: Well, I've never been to New York, but I hear it's for assholes. Odile: It's not. Jack: Well, that's what I heard. Cool people don't live there anymore, They all live here. In Chicago.
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new-york
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Joe Meno |
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d32a4e8
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It will happen soon. Someday you will find yourself surrounded by people with the exact same interests as you, and you will never feel out of place again," I say, already wary of the incredible lie I am telling."
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fitting-in
lonely
interests
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Joe Meno |
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493ec9e
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We have fun acting like this, acting like we are incredibly offended. Really, we are just bored to tears with everything.
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Joe Meno |
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9cbaea8
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We did something very simple," Effie says. "Yes, and what was that?" Effie Mumford stares off the porch into the night sky. The first stars of the evening are quietly arriving, and Billy, following her gaze, listens as the small girl speaks. "We allowed ourselves, for one brief moment, to believe in something we could not see."
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Joe Meno |
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1648cd6
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After school the very next day, El Rey's mobile home was gone. I laid in bed and wondered what happens to people when they go, if they become like shadows, if they fade away when they disappear from your life. The only thing I could see was the broken picket fence. The only sound I could hear was the cry of birds being killed in the night.
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vanishing
shadows
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Joe Meno |
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983e325
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I was a shy kid and I was afraid what i said sounded stupid, so I hardly ever saud anything. I was the third wheel. Fifth wheel? I was the fucking wheel you didn't really need, but I still hung around. I thought maybe my silence would one day impress somebody. As of yet, it hadn't done much for me.
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Joe Meno |
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9aaab02
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I did a bad thing tonight, one of the most terrible things ever: I waited for her to fall asleep, then stole the sheet from under her head. I am missing you or maybe just the idea of you. I have begun seriously thinking about other men. I am afraid I am not strong enough or tough enough for this. I am afraid all the time. I have not slept well in months. When are you coming back, you jerk? We are all trying to be brave without you and doing..
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Joe Meno |
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0e3e1e2
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Apples are kissing other apples. Gray cats are kissing other gray cats. Trees are kissing trees. You and I are not kissing. We work in an office together. We are both married to other people. It is okay because we only have ideas, you and I, about whether we should kiss or not. These ideas are both good and bad, probably. At work, we do not say these words aloud but make elaborate diagrams for one another. You write these words: Kissing yo..
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romance
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Joe Meno |
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58e3ac9
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Maybe it was better to just go on believing everything was OK, even when really bad things were just about to happen.
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Joe Meno |
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367d2a4
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Attention, God the Judge, God the Father, who Art in Heaven, give me one miracle, please. If You exist as I know You do, even if no one else in the world believes in You, please give me a brain tumor. Please tear my limbs from their sockets and let the backseat and my older sister be totally covered with blood. Please make me dumb and blind and deaf, please make me a martyr, please, dear heavenly Father. Tear my heart right from my chest. D..
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Joe Meno |
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e13d591
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and realizes how there are all these moments, moments like just this one, there are all these moments, and how everyone lives their lives in these short, all-too-short moments. There are all these moments and what's so interesting, what makes them beautiful, is the fact that none of them last.
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relationships
moments
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Joe Meno |
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adc9683
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His face almost looked the way it did when he was a teenager, when there was the subtle expression of both confidence and mischief in his darkly handsome eyes. When I think of him now, though, I don't picture his face the way it is. What I see is from a memory, from a moment when he must have been eleven or twelve years old and we were both in our backyard and it was summertime and I was drawing in a coloring book and he was there in the gr..
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Joe Meno |
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fe1782a
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I figured Alan wasn't really Alan anymore, that maybe the meds or the disease had made him someone else, someone more timid, someone I actually felt close to. I kept hoping that this would be it, that this would be as bad as it would ever get.
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Joe Meno |
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f335552
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I've been thinking a lot and it's not that anyone did anything wrong. We just didn't know what we wanted. We weren't the people we were supposed to be yet,
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Joe Meno |
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fd683ff
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The last four days where everything has finally made some sense. And why is she so ready to throw this away? Because. Because eventually every relationship she's been in has turned to shit. Eventually she ends up screwing everything up. So maybe it's better to leave now before people's feelings get hurt.
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Joe Meno |
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783a838
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The more you like a girl, the less she likes you. It's like fucking scientific." "What about you and Kim?" "That's what I'm talking about, little dude. If I start being nice and acting cool and saying things and being on time, she starts acting, you know, fucking uninterested. But if I act like a total dick, then she calls me all the fucking time. It's fucking crazy, because I really like her and all, but when I say nice shit to her, she ge..
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Joe Meno |
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3bbcafd
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Madeline decides Jonathan is an immature, selfish asshole and that she is never talking to him again.
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Joe Meno |
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9ff8d05
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People are just greedy animals, after all.
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Joe Meno |
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2f7a2fa
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An apple could make you laugh: You are so charming. On our lunch, we find our way along the crowded boulevard. You stop abruptly and pluck two green apples from someone selling them on the street. You look at them and decide they are in love, these two apples. You make them whisper to one another. You make them dance: The kinds of dances they do are dainty. spontaneous. At the end of the dancing, the apples get marries in a little ceremony...
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Joe Meno |
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404af8f
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Are you ready to return to the outside world, Billy? -No, definitely not, sir. -Well, you can't stay here forever now, can you? -Why not? I'm not bothering anybody, sir. -Because it's not healthy. You're a very special young man, Billy. It's time you found that out on your own, out there. The world may not be as terrible as you think. -I would like to stay here one more month, if I may, sir. -One more month? Why? -Summer will be over, sir. ..
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Joe Meno |
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27d0b48
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Please let there be a heaven for everything that is too pitiful to believe.
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Joe Meno |
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377dae0
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How's life?" "That's the stupidest question I've ever heard." --
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Joe Meno |
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ff793d6
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It's pretty hard not to like her," he says. "Even when you know you shouldn't."
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Joe Meno |
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67d3c1a
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I told you why. If I don't do it now, I never will. I'll just be some office drone ten years from now, wishing I had done something interesting at least once in my life.
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Joe Meno |
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d5ce5bb
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I don't think I'm special. I want you to know that," Odile says sharply. "I don't think I'm better than everybody else."
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Joe Meno |
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18926dd
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the city is just too big and too full of people to be alone.
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Joe Meno |
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30c5f73
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Without death, there is hardly any threat strong enough to truly appreciate human life. He thinks: I am as good as dead--too afraid to live, only waiting, never taking a risk--I am as good as dead already.
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Joe Meno |
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929c7e3
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But why? Why did you do the evil things you did?' Billy asks suddenly. 'Ah, because I could not imagine consequences,' the Professor says. 'To do harm, to live through evil, is to align oneself with chaos. Now it is the same chaos which is slowly destroying me.
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Joe Meno |
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e0ba5c6
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As the liquid paper's fumes quell his brain activity, Jack finds himself staring at her again and what he thinks is this: Wow.
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Joe Meno |
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74fb650
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You scan the cheering bleachers for the strange boy's face: handsome, reserved, with the eye patch, a little dramatic, a little scary. You finally find him sitting there in the middle of the sixth row. He is wearing a dark green army jacket and is staring back at you. He looks sad and beautiful, like a watercolor in a hospital room.
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Joe Meno |