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Fiction
The Empty Room Inside Each of Us
Crumb is always right, always the one telling the story, always the one who turns the drab, lonesome plains they call home into a world that’s dramatic and necessary.
June 2026
Rise
I wasn’t about to tell Simon what happened. Buddy Sikes was one of the popular kids. Simon wouldn’t understand. Not because of his differences, but because he was still at the age where a clear line separated right from wrong.
May 2026
Four of Cups
Maybe it was a mistake choosing such a solemn and contemplative place. Raising your voice above a whisper feels like an intrusion. The entrance branches into different rooms, leading you through multiple cultures and eras. You can move through time, follow the various paths available to you. You pick a direction and go.
April 2026
The Night I Don't Remember
It doesn’t matter how many AA meetings you go to. As long as you are taking oxycodone and oxymorphone, you’re going to be high, and, as long as you have complex regional pain syndrome, you’re going to be taking something serious for the pain.
March 2026
Butt-Dials
“How are you?” Janice asks her brother, because what do you say to someone you didn’t choose to call except the same thing you say to everyone?
February 2026
I Got You
“I’m your brother,” the man says, then swallows. He is tall and burly with deep-set blue eyes and thinning hair. He wipes his nose on his flannel sleeve and forks some coleslaw from a plastic container.
February 2026
Love in All Directions
Sometimes you had to conjure your own joy. Scratch that. Most of the time you had to conjure your own joy. So you had better suck it up and start chopping onions.
January 2026
Don’t Be Alarmed
After her third glass of wine, Beatrice got up to look at Bert and Martin’s wedding photo, the one with the understated silver frame and the two of them making out like teenagers, Martin’s leg wrapped around Bert’s thigh. It was supposed to be a joke, but they ended up liking it. She stared at it and thought, This was the man I thought I was spending my life with.
December 2025
Her Mother's Suitcase
That night she dreamed about her mother and the darkening spot on her ceiling and the water collecting in a fetid puddle in the middle of her living room carpet.
November 2025
Rude and Raw
If you were around then, you probably blinked and missed Rude and Raw. Not many people noticed when they came on the scene, and even fewer paid attention when they left. They weren’t easily categorized. They weren’t hard rock or power pop, and veered off several exits short of punk. They probably had people telling them they should be more of this or less of that, but if so, they didn’t heed any of it. They seemed caught in this never-ending state of becoming, trying to figure things out as they went, as strange and undefinable to themselves as they were to others.
October 2025
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