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What Does the Z stand for?
18th March 2004, 4.24pm

Pia Z. Ehrhardt's stories are concise and beautiful. Here's a taste:

The TV and newspaper wrote stories and took pictures showing Doss and Lillian together. He was 18 and she was 25, but they were treated like a celebrity couple in the small town in New Mexico. At first Lillian would stand behind Doss so her bad arm couldn't be seen. But every day he built her confidence, made her not feel deformed and ruined. She didn't hide her arm from him. He brought checkers to the hospital and they played game after game. She pushed her checker with her stump, scratched her cheek, swatted at imaginary flies to make him laugh. In their most famous photograph, Lillian made an X with her arms over her chest so people could see what had happened. Good limb. Bad limb. She hated their shock and Doss said this would be the quickest way for them to get over it.

—from "A Man" via Reinventing the World

You want more? Easy. Pia's website has links to those of her stories that have been published online. Hie thee hence. Immediate-like.

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