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Fiction
Fiction
The White Guitar
In fourth grade, after the bra-and-girdle notebook affair, we all fell in love with Julia Harris. By “we” I mean the foreign boys in Madame Bouvet’s class, and also Pascal Fourtané, the only French boy we foreigners hung out with.
May 1990Fiction
A Cat Story
Andy was already twelve when I met him. He lived at our local dharma study group center, where we talked about impermanence, suffering, enlightenment, compassion, old age, death, the meaning of self, and in what sense the mind could be said to continue beyond death.
May 1990Fiction
Tales Of Lord Shantih
“I can no more stop the wind than I can stop my unwanted thoughts,” he explained. “So I let them blow through me, and I carry on with my work.”
April 1990Fiction
Gary Blake
I met Gary Blake at the meditation hall. It was a place of silence, but Gary Blake was not a silent man.
April 1990Fiction
Mercedes
What Henry wants to be is an actor, but in the meantime he teaches a course called “Great Plagues.” What I want to do is play for the Lakers, engineering the break while Kareem signals for the lob.
April 1990Fiction
Sunday
Then she is walking across the lawn toward you in her silky blue dress. An old woman now, but more handsome than ever with her pure white hair up in a bun, her smile, the little blue vein in her forehead.
March 1990Fiction
My Eros Is Crucified
During a time of intolerance when even the children killed for righteousness and peace, Eros descended, wandering among his children of the flesh. They knew him not.
March 1990Fiction
Change
Her speech softened and slowed. She learned to say “ain’t,” to let a handshake trail off. She learned to ask about family before business, to work up to her questions, not throw them in a body’s face.
March 1990Fiction
The Black Siamese Twins Meet Queen Victoria
They lived too close for harsh words. It was as if at any given minute a sharp word or careless thought could push them over some terrible edge, tearing them apart.
March 1990Fiction
Sarah Jane
Sarah Jane tried to suppress the fluttery feeling that swept through her at the thought of him riding by just beyond the fence rails, looking at her with a faint hint of a smile, raising his broad-brimmed hat with a nod of his head.
February 1990
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