11.05.2020

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I had to chuckle when I heard the door open behind me seconds after I had sidled up to the trough-like urinal that ran along the wall of the men's room of the bar I had been killing time in. Maybe it comes with age, but for some reason I knew that I was going to have company, and I really didn't need to look to see who my bathroom companion was.
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10.05.2020

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He looked across again. It was definitely Mrs Jackson - Rhonda - from the house next door. Divorced, kids off at summer camp, and looking red hot in her short summer dress. She looked uncomfortable, too, because the trucker had obviously had too much to drink and was pawing at her. Jerry turned to his friends who were playing pool.
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08.05.2020

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When I saw Mrs. Crowley at the supermarket I had to smile.
The woman who worked down the hall from me looked as good in her recreation clothing as she did in her business attire. That was quite a compliment, because she was always impeccable with her work clothing. Prim and proper, nothing out of place, everything put together quite nicely.
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07.05.2020

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The sound of crickets and cicadas sounded loud in the dark of the woods. An owl hooted and somewhere in the distance, a deer crashed through the bush. It was just past nightfall and Joshua Gardner was on his way home from his grandfather's farm after helping bale and put up hay. He was sweaty and itchy from the grass and hauling bales up into the old barn loft.
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04.05.2020

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Jenni Adams parked her rusted pickup behind the Harper house and killed the engine, sat at the wheel as an east wind brought rain over the steep shingle roof and drove it hard against the windshield. The surf would be big today and she anticipated a fight getting through the waves. She wanted this moment to last, sitting perfectly still, letting the urge to swim build inside, the anticipation almost sexual. For Jenni, a lot of things were almost sexual.
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29.04.2020

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I lived in a town where my mom and dad worked at a small state college; mom was an administrative assistant in the human relations department and dad was a lecturer in history. Laura Hughes worked as a women's tennis coach and women's health counselor at the college. She was a good friend of my mom and had straight, shoulder-length, blonde, hair, large green eyes, and prominent cheek bones. She was in good shape. She was the star forward on an over-30 women's basketball team, aptly called, "The Matures," and my mom played a guard on the team.
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22.04.2020

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Down came the windows, though she knew that the interior would have a fine coating of gravel dust by the time she returned home. It was the first truly warm day of the year. The office had hired a couple of people to reduce her workload. She'd finally come to her senses and returned to single life after a string of two bad relationships.
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13.04.2020

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Donna, Amanda and I have been good friends since we were kids in grade school. We grew next door to each other, Donna on one side and Amanda on the other, and played together after school through our whole grade school years. I caught a lot of flak from some of my other friends, teasing that I was going to get girl cooties if I hung around them, but that didn't stop me. We had fun together and the difference in gender at that age really didn't bother me that much, both of them were pretty tomboyish and we had plenty of fun climbing trees and building snow forts and the like.
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28.03.2020

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Memory triggers.
They come rushing at you when you least suspect them.
You can walk into a house and take in the heady aroma of a cake being baked and you'll be transported back to your grandmother's kitchen. You can smell an empty beer bottle and suddenly there you are playing hide and seek behind a pile of your uncle's empties. Smell is our most powerful sense and we all have a repertoire of aromatic triggers nicely tucked away in that gluggy grey mass we call a brain.
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27.03.2020

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"What are you staring at?" said Julie as she came up silent on slippered feet beside her friend Elaine, who was gazing out of the picture window.
Elaine turned with a smile. "Nothing much. My future, I suppose."
"Future, huh? And what do you see?"
"Loneliness."
"Why? You're still young."
"Forty next birthday, divorced for the second time, and haven't been laid in almost three years."
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