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Bloodlust
I used to know this guy who had this fantasy, a real longstanding, deep-rooted-can’t-explain-it-but-probably-something-to-do-with-childhood-trauma fantasy of being pissed on. So one year for his birthday his girlfriend ties him up and puts him in the bathtub and has all of her friends come over and whenever they have to pee they go and do it…
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Afterwards
The machine that came to be called Mother had been created as the computerized control system for an automotive safety testing facility. In the centuries since, it had upgraded itself to the point that it would have been unrecognizable to its creators. And its projects, too, had become more complex, more diverse. It developed cars…
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The Men Who Fought Bigfoot and Won
Four of them went down into the woods that spring night, all loaded into Billy’s van. They were supposed to be five, but Jacob had caught a stomach bug that had him shitting nonstop so they’d left him at home on the toilet. It was bad juju, Big Randy had said — not the sickness…
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Ants
I’ve been depressed before and it’s like a constant grey weight a cloud with physical substance that settles onto you like a chainmail cloak and makes it impossible to get out of bed or do much of anything and this isn’t like that really. It’s like I read somewhere that some people do psychedelics and…
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Flowers
The flowers arrived on a Wednesday night — huge, long-stemmed white roses in a glass vase. Alice had seen them on the doorman’s desk as she was heading out for dinner with a friend. When she returned, they were still there and the doorman flagged her down to tell them that they were for her.…
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Summer 200X
Nearly every Saturday afternoon in the spring and summer of 2002, Jimmy’s parents drove him and his best friend Kyle out to Centre Mall in their old blue Chevy van that they used to deliver the Saturday papers around the city in the early mornings. Sometimes the boys would stay up late enough on Friday…
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The Color Behind Your Eyes
Meghan sat alone in a tastefully-appointed waiting room in Elysium’s New York office, fidgeting with the gold ring on her right hand. She was wearing a black cashmere turtleneck and black slacks and carried a leather document case, her attire starkly contrasting with the clean, off-white decor surrounding her. A pile of magazines lay on…
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The Lost Humans Wiki
In our time death is no longer a biological certainty but a personal choice. People live for hundreds of years thanks to advances in genetic therapies and when their bodies finally give out their minds can be transferred into an artificial frame or a cloned organism. We have no conception of currency or scarcity. All…
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The Rapture of the Deep
It was up at my grandparents’ cottage that I saw the thing in the water. Back then it was pretty normal to have a little place up north. Nowadays most people can’t even afford one house, let alone a second, but that’s another story. Meghan, my therapist, says I’m prone to diversions when talking about…
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The Houseguest
The boys all lived together in one big house out in the suburbs. There were four of them who split the rent, plus a rotating cast of friends crashing on the couch at any one time. They had a YouTube channel together and their combination of laidback on-screen charisma and inventive video concepts — playing…