Sobriety*
Sean MurphyWhen I lucked into my first so-called real job I got in the habit of referring to the time—admittedly too long—spent in the service industry as the bad old days.…
Drinking*
I still have hangovers, thank God. Everyone who has known an alcoholic knows that as soon as you stop feeling the pain, it’s because you are no longer feeling the…
Solitude*
Anyone who has lost a parent (or worse, a child) can understand that when this happens it becomes an indelible line of demarcation: your life before and your life after.…
Written and Unread*
A vision: I am reading words written by a dead person. Nothing unusual about this; it’s practically the story of my life. In this case, however, the person who was…
The Problem with the Homeless Problem*
Who was he? I think the same question each time I see him (every day: the same man in the same spot, holding the same sign that tells everyone who…
Please Talk About Me When I’m Gone*
L’amour de l’art fait perdre l’amour vrai. I did not say that. Although that is the sort of thing I might say, since I am the sort who feels obliged…
Whispered Words*
How long will it take? I did not ask, because I wanted to make every second count. It would be over quickly enough; it was already happening entirely too soon.…
Pythagoras*
I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but my grief has made me, against all previous likelihood, into a half-assed mathematician. Numbers were never my bag, and I’ve got the…
Deus ex machina*
Was that as bad for you as it was for me? That's the question I did not ask when Father _____ left our house. On to his next appointment; all in a…
Fairy Tales and Feeding Tubes*
The brief experiment with the feeding tube was sufficiently impractical and unsavory that it seemed a small, if conflicted victory when we agreed to discard the apparatus. “So just call…