Posted on December 22, 1998.
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by Luanne F. Oleas
One moment Jess was laughing beside a tree, the next he was racing through hell with the odor of death all around him. Chunks of frozen earth erupted from the ground and pelted him. Jess’ lungs and legs ached in the bitter cold as he dodged plumes of black smoke. His rucksack bumped wildly against him with every stride while his fingers held a white-knuckle grip on his rifle.
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Posted on December 21, 1998.
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by Luanne F. Oleas
In the year of lost imagination, magnolias forgot to bloom, Congress taxed the wind, and America’s last fiction publisher closed. When the janitor locked the doors on the final day, Vartan Blazer watched from across the street with a bottle in a brown bag. His sheep dog, Ranger, lay by his side, paws crosses, muzzle down.
Two hours later, the young man left the cement bench. Ranger trotted by his side, a walking bag of rags with no eyes and a black nose. Vartan wandered through New York City’s gray streets in his orange trench coat. The wind stole his yellow fedora, sending it higher than the diesel-streaked skyscrapers that pierced the charcoal sky.
Snow hid in his dark, spongy curls and the pockets of his green jeans, soaking through his sandals to his red and purple socks.
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Posted on December 13, 1998.
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by Luanne F. Oleas
When the 1960s ended, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district reverted to high rent, and many hippies moved down the coast to Santa Cruz. They had children and got married, too, though in no particular sequence. But they didn’t name their children Melissa or Brett. People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to their children playing Frisbee with little Time Warp or Spring Fever.
And eventually Moonbeam, Earth, Love, and Precious Promise all ended up in public school.
That’s when the kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand. Every fall, according to tradition, parents bravely apply name tags to their children, kiss them good-bye, and send them off to school on the bus.
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