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Grace

            Grace Lee was graceless, but then she was only 12. It was clear that she was going through that alarming transformation that stretches even the most darling little girls into grotesque caricatures of themselves, if only for a short time. They grow arms and legs that no longer fit well within the core of the body; suffer complexion issues for all but the most fortunate; and develop body parts and functions that border on the terrifying. In Grace’s case, she was far from having been the most darling of little girls. Except for her being terribly skinny, there was no one feature you could point to and say, yes, that’s why she is homely. It was just that all of the parts did not seem to go together very well.              Her father often teased her about her name, which she inherited from her mother’s oldest aunt. He liked to tell her that her name was only one letter away from “grave” a word which had...
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The Curse of Kagoshima

          I do not know how I came to be visited by my great-great grandfather, Takanobu, who died decades ago. Suddenly there was just this waking dream in which he spoke to me. “Je-demi-san, look, see what I have done,” a voice said.            I shook my head to clear my mind, but a vision invaded my brain and I seemed to be in a bar in Japan, watching a bartender: “Hattori-san, is it not time you were getting back to your home? It is almost time for your dinner.”            “Goro, you tend to your bar. I will go home as soon as I have lost the temper that has been raised in me by my foolhardy son, Takahide.”            “What has he done then? Did you catch him with yet another wench?”            “If that were all it was. He can go wenching all he wants as long as he does it here in Kagoshima. No, he says he wants t...
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So This Is Heaven

               I thought I was dead, because my oncologist had only given me one more week at most. Now I not only could breathe without a machine, but I felt a vigor in my limbs and an alertness in my mind. Could I have made a miraculous recovery? It must be so, because I was back in my own bedroom. I was free of all those tubes, bedpans, IVs and the bland hospital food I’d been forcing down my throat for the past month, at least when I had been able to eat at all. Yet, I remembered nothing about feeling better, getting out of the hospital or coming home.                 Looking past my nightstand, I noticed that the room looked very different. Weren’t my walls white and not that pale blue? That pale blue looked vaguely familiar and the walls seemed to glow like there was a light behind them. The dresser looked very familiar and yet not familiar. It looked shinier or smoother, like it did whe...
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