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Tag: Story

Story: The Protagonist

Posted on March 28, 2020October 16, 2022 by David Barker

The protagonist goes by the name Louise. I don’t know much about Louise that isn’t obvious: she is a black woman in her mid-thirties. She may be a lesbian.

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Story: Insurance Policy

Posted on December 20, 2019October 16, 2022 by David Barker

I was taken aback. We had been loyal customers for years, paying thousands of dollars in premiums. How could they deny our claim—not even our claim, but the right to make our claim—based on what was, after all, a simple technicality?

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Last of the Brat Tribe

Posted on December 13, 2019October 16, 2022 by David Barker

The System woke the Agent twenty-four hours before it woke the President. That was the protocol. Twenty-four hours would give the Agent time to secure the bunker and to become clear-headed enough to serve the President’s needs.

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A man hit his dog on the head

Posted on November 15, 2019October 16, 2022 by David Barker

A gifted storyteller wrote: A man hit his dog on the head. At first, I took this to be the finest story I had ever read. Concise and spare, it did precisely what a good story should do: it created a space into which I could make an imaginative leap.

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Story: Recursions

Posted on November 1, 2019October 16, 2022 by David Barker

Fenton pulled off his belt and shoes and dropped them into the plastic bin along with keys, spare change, wallet, and reading glasses. In another bin, he laid out his carry on, a small backpack in which he had stashed a T-shirt and underwear, tooth brush and deodorant, and a discreet baggy of cocaine.

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Story: The Gentleman’s Club

Posted on October 25, 2019October 16, 2022 by David Barker

— I’m looking for a man who knows me so well he could finish my sentences but loves me so much he keeps his mouth shut.

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Story: Chad and Stacy go on a Date

Posted on June 19, 2019October 16, 2022 by David Barker

Chad held the bouquet in his left hand and knocked with his right. He held the bouquet tilted at fifteen degrees off vertical which he estimated was the perfect angle for giving the right impression. The impression he wanted to give was of a sensitive man.

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Story: Road Trip with my Dad

Posted on August 28, 2013October 17, 2022 by David Barker

I just got back from a road trip with my dad. We drove the northern route through Ontario i.e. we started on Yonge Street in Toronto and pointed the car north. Theoretically, if you keep your foot on the accelerator and don’t hit a moose, a couple days later you’ll end up in Rainy River on the Minnesota border.

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Story: The Three Body Problem

Posted on August 26, 2013October 17, 2022 by David Barker

All down the street we’d been fighting ’til we passed the drug store where Mandy saw the ads in the window and they reminded her that she was having a certain female problem with itchiness so she told me to wait outside with the dog while she ran inside to buy whatever it was she needed that was advertised on special in the window.

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Story: A Conversation Some Time Ago In Lascaux France (in translation)

Posted on August 23, 2013October 17, 2022 by David Barker

A: Yeah, well, I’ve learned a thing or two in my travels, you know (which, incidentally, are far more extensive than yours), and one of those things I’ve learned is a word, a simple word, and you wanna know what that word I’ve learned is? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s cant.

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Story: meeturmatch.com (ii)

Posted on August 22, 2013October 17, 2022 by David Barker

Now I know (and from personal experience) that the way a girl looks in a 320 by 240 pixel photo posted on a dating site and the way she looks in a coffee shop on Queen Street on a Thursday evening can be two completely different … uh … ways.

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Story: Sleeping Giant

Posted on August 20, 2013October 17, 2022 by David Barker

He shoved me into his change room and the plywood door swung shut like a coffin lid. I wriggled out of my jacket and trousers and imagined I was Harry Houdini locked in a cage suspended over a raging river.

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Story: meeturmatch.com (i)

Posted on August 13, 2013October 17, 2022 by David Barker

Against my better judgment, I go up with the woman to her apartment. Objectively speaking, it’s, like, a smart thing to do. The woman is clever, fun, good-looking and (most important of all) eager.

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Story: Nessie

Posted on April 24, 2013October 17, 2022 by David Barker

Niels Bohr had nine items, one too many for the express line, so he had to wait in a regular line behind a woman with five snot-nosed kids and two buggies overflowing with groceries. Bohr wondered if something had happened to the space-time continuum to make his wait in line seem more interminable than it already was.

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Story: The Six Sheet Rule

Posted on April 19, 2013October 17, 2022 by David Barker

It started with a three-day blackout. They got the grid online again, but never back to the way it was. From then on, there were rolling blackouts, at least a couple hours each day. There was talk of crumbling infrastructure, but that was only half the problem.

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