Tag: XXI Team
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All Guests Must Be Announced – Ch. 4
The felt letter board in the lobby stood three feet tall, bordered by stainless steel. A thin pole and a round base, heavy but not fixed to the marble. It read, all guests must be announced. An important rule for some, a nuisance for others. I dreaded talking to anyone, in person or on the phone, and…
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All Guests Must Be Announced – Ch. 3
534 East 57th street, was a cooperative building, you didn’t own the apartment, but instead you were a shareholder in a corporation. A lovely prewar building designed by famed architect Emery Roth. 21 stories, 60 units, 2 elevators and a full-time doorman. Dogs and cats are allowed. Some ghosts. One stowaway. A modest amount of scandal. Blind eyes…
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All Guests Must Be Announced – Ch. 2
There are very few things about this world that have the ability to make me happy. The bad will find its way into anything and crush the good. I have always had difficulties with processing my emotions. Frustration and disappointment have run rampant within me most of my life. I could be happy momentarily but…
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All Guests Must Be Announced – Ch. 1
“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.” – R. M. Rilke “Wealth is like sea water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true…
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Wash Away Us All – Ch. 32
Glory found sleep without difficulty beside me. As did Pangur Ban. The three of us on the floor, in the confined quarters of a tiny room, in my apartment in Queens. A place just like any other I’m sure. A place where people talked more than they should. What did it matter what anyone thought?…
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Wash Away Us All – Ch. 31
Wide awake on the floor the night light kept the imaginary fire going but it didn’t keep us warm. Pangur Ban snored loudly at my feet. Every little snore reassured me that she was alive. Those audible indications of actual life. Her lungs were barely functioning but managed to find a way to let air…
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Wash Away Us All – Ch. 30
I heard the breathy whispers behind me and I turned to face them, I was taken aback to be in a funeral parlor. I heard what they said. I could read their nasty minds. And maybe they were right and I was a cliche. You were, after all, a bastard, a goddamn son of a…
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Wash Away Us All – Ch. 29
I walked by a dead tree. An apple tree. There were only two apples, bruised and barely attached to a low hanging branch. Who were the apples? What did your tree say about you? I looked behind me, and realized it wasn’t my backyard, it wasn’t even my town, but it seemed to be. It…
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Wash Away Us All – Ch. 28
Glory came back from the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth with my toothbrush, and when she asked me if she could I felt the urge to say I love you. I didn’t because I’m not completely insane. I was in a constant state of fear of ruining things: the night, the moment, my life.…
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Deoxyribonucleic Acid
DNA analysis caught my curiosity immediately, as genealogy always seemed fascinating to me and though I understand most people’s apprehension to home DNA kits, after much consideration I said, fuck it. For me, and I can only speak for myself here, most of my life I had been told things that simply were not true,…
SEAN GABLER 