JOAQUIN, Nick

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Identity is the history that has gone into bone and blood and reshaped the flesh. Identity is not what we were but what we have become what we are at this moment.”

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May Day Eve and Other Stories

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But, alas, the heart forgets; the heart is distracted; and Maytime passes; summer ends; the storms break over the rot-ripe orchards and the heart grows old; while the hours, the days, the months, and the years pile up and pile up, till the mind becomes too crowded, too confused: dust gathers in it; cobwebs multiply; the walls darken and fall into ruin and decay; the memory perishes...

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May Day Eve

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And remembering how she had sobbed so piteously; remembering how she had bitten his hand and fled and how he had sung aloud in the dark room and surprised his heart in the instant of falling in love: such a grief tore up his throat and eyes that he felt ashamed before the boy; pushed the boy away; stood up and looked out—-looked out upon the medieval shadows of the foul street where a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage was rattling away upon the cobbles, while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tiled roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wild sky murky with clouds, save where an evil old moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable the window; the bowed old man sobbing so bitterly at the window; the tears streaming down his cheeks and the wind in his hair and one hand pressed to his mouth—while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobbles, and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his voice booming through the night:

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Cave and Shadows

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"Sure. I believe in God the Father of Nonsense, creator of Crap and Nonsense, is now and ever shall be Crap without end. Oh, oh, Jack, how we break our hearts trying to make sense of a world that's pure and utter crap. But if you ever come to where I am now, you'll be surprised and delighted to find out how little anything matters."

"You've begun to sound Christian," said Pocholo.

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The Woman Who Had Two Navels

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- But they were corrupt, Father!

- They were human, my child. And if we were to reject all worldly authority for that reason, we would have to reject everything: marriage and government and society; the family, the state, and the church. We would have to abolish the world. Is that what you propose to do?

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