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Tsunami Sequence

The Second Wavewas imminent, I knew, just a matter of trepid hours and speculationto live for. And then I too would end on the seabed with no company;or drown in this hospital bed. No use breaking windows to run farther onto land when the hotelcollapsed like a house of matchsticks. My fever kicked and kicked….

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Echo

Excerpted and adapted from Deep Water: The World in the Ocean by James Bradley. Copyright © 2024 by James Bradley. Reprinted by permission of HarperOne (an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers), Scribe UK, and Penguin Random House Australia.On a gloomy winter afternoon, I step off the back of a boat moored near the outer edge of…

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Walk Her Home

The man threw on his green jacket and looked outside his window. Everyone would be dead soon, but he still wanted to keep warm. He peered back at his empty couch. He could just sit there next to the cushions worn with other people’s shapes, stay inside staring at the TV, watching scientists and preachers argue…

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Dead Living

I wait in predawn gray for a rider.I’ve been home ten months, working for SEONS six, couch surfing and dodging questions about what I was doing back in town the whole time. After days without work, my phone buzzed me awake half an hour ago with a notification from SEONS, declaring I had a client…

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The Gradual Disappearance of John Surly Whittaker

By the time John Surly Whittaker lumbered onto the stage, he was already missing his fingers and toes. The audience didn’t realize he had been vanishing since 1885. Nor did they realize that parts of him were missing under his gloves, shoes, and custom-made suit. Still, they all turned wide-eyed when they saw him, for…

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I Had A Dream About You

I had a dream about you after everything happened. We were five again, playing in the schoolyard. I was aware of your body even then, how sinuous it was compared to mine. In my dream, recess came to an end and you were behind me in line. You weren’t talking because you were starting to…

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Body, In Motion

Fifteen / 1996 / Secret Church Camp Bunk PartyThere was a misunderstanding—it was James who was invited, not Robert James, but he showed up anyway and people liked him enough not to make a fuss as he stood in the corner of the bunkhouse that smelled like cedarwood and cheap vodka. There were only eight of them, including him,…

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