[{"id":3816,"date":"2026-08-31T19:27:01","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T19:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3816"},"modified":"2026-09-03T19:03:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:03:31","slug":"beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"BEGINNING"},"content":{"rendered":"[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”]\n\t\t\t[et_pb_row admin_label=”row”]\n\t\t\t\t[et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]\n

Edward Hopper, Eleven A.M., 1926. Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 inches.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m in the ochre of it, the end of morning. The light is thick, impasto, nearly edible. Across the courtyard I hear a woman singing to someone. What is the song?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I keep looking at my body\u2014how is it possible? That I will sing to someone? I have never sung a note to someone else, not so they could hear. I can\u2019t fasten my garments\u2014it\u2019s early and so subtle that nobody can tell. I have not told George. It is maybe because I know he will be glad; his face will fill with soaring afternoon. But I want to know for certain that it will be alright. The last time the blood was deep as mahogany, red as the inside of my own throat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t dressed. The last of my skirts I tried on, cream orange; I couldn\u2019t cinch it, threw it over the bed. He was due home hours ago; the night shift leaves him gray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside the womb, they tell me, it\u2019s dark as charcoal. I remember in school how charcoal got under our fingers when we drew. The nude models, the women\u2014I remember thinking their bodies looked full of gravity, full of time; they had fed their children with their bodies. Stretched, uneven, complicated shapes. I remember thinking: that won\u2019t be me. In high school, a boy called me slight. But now I want a body full of gravity\u2014one that knows more. The hunger with which I want it frightens me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s singing \u201cMary Had a Little Lamb\u201d; that\u2019s what it is. I try to match her pitch, just quietly. It means nothing much, but it feels tender in my throat, like the melody is a creature I\u2019m trying to hold aloft. I get louder\u2014I might travel across the courtyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The light is high yellow now, warm as toast. I go to it. I want to eat the light; I don\u2019t need any clothes. I feel like velvet. Is that the lock, the sound of his shoes at the threshold? Now. You must tell him when he steps into the room. The day is beginning and beginning.<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column]\n\t\t\t[\/et_pb_row]\n\t\t[\/et_pb_section]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edward Hopper, Eleven A.M., 1926. Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 inches. I\u2019m in the ochre of it, the end of morning. The light is thick, impasto, nearly edible. Across the courtyard I hear a woman singing to someone. What is the song? I keep looking at my body\u2014how is it possible? That I will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":538,"featured_media":3817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

Edward Hopper, Eleven A.M., 1926. Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 inches.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m in the ochre of it, the end of morning. The light is thick, impasto, nearly edible. Across the courtyard I hear a woman singing to someone. What is the song?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I keep looking at my body\u2014how is it possible? That I will sing to someone? I have never sung a note to someone else, not so they could hear. I can\u2019t fasten my garments\u2014it\u2019s early and so subtle that nobody can tell. I have not told George. It is maybe because I know he will be glad; his face will fill with soaring afternoon. But I want to know for certain that it will be alright. The last time the blood was deep as mahogany, red as the inside of my own throat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t dressed. The last of my skirts I tried on, cream orange; I couldn\u2019t cinch it, threw it over the bed. He was due home hours ago; the night shift leaves him gray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside the womb, they tell me, it\u2019s dark as charcoal. I remember in school how charcoal got under our fingers when we drew. The nude models, the women\u2014I remember thinking their bodies looked full of gravity, full of time; they had fed their children with their bodies. Stretched, uneven, complicated shapes. I remember thinking: that won\u2019t be me. In high school, a boy called me slight. But now I want a body full of gravity\u2014one that knows more. The hunger with which I want it frightens me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s singing \u201cMary Had a Little Lamb\u201d; that\u2019s what it is. I try to match her pitch, just quietly. It means nothing much, but it feels tender in my throat, like the melody is a creature I\u2019m trying to hold aloft. I get louder\u2014I might travel across the courtyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The light is high yellow now, warm as toast. I go to it. I want to eat the light; I don\u2019t need any clothes. I feel like velvet. Is that the lock, the sound of his shoes at the threshold? Now. You must tell him when he steps into the room. The day is beginning and beginning.<\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contest-winner","category-micro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/538"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3816"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3827,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3816\/revisions\/3827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":3719,"date":"2026-08-28T18:14:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3719"},"modified":"2026-09-03T19:03:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:03:42","slug":"ekphrastic-hopper-challenge-shortlist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/ekphrastic-hopper-challenge-shortlist\/","title":{"rendered":"Ekphrastic Hopper Challenge Shortlist"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We challenged writers to create new stories of up to 1,000 words based on the artwork of Edward Hopper. We were amazed by the submissions we received and are ecstatic to now present the shortlist!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. People in the Sun<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Beginning<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. House on Heslop Hill<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. The Bridle [Bridal] Path, or, Rooms By the Sea. Alias The Jumping-Off Place.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Free falling \/ Cafe Conversation – Rotterdam, 1946<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Sunday Morning<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. When the Lights Come Up<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Anatta<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. Science Fiction Movie<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. The Four-Minute House<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We challenged writers to create new stories of up to 1,000 words based on the artwork of Edward Hopper. We were amazed by the submissions we received and are ecstatic to now present the shortlist! People in the Sun Beginning House on Heslop Hill The Bridle [Bridal] Path, or, Rooms By the Sea. Alias The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

    We challenged writers to create new stories of up to 1,000 words based on the artwork of Edward Hopper. We were amazed by the submissions we received and are ecstatic to now present the shortlist!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. People in the Sun<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Beginning<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. House on Heslop Hill<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. The Bridle [Bridal] Path, or, Rooms By the Sea. Alias The Jumping-Off Place.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    5. Free falling \/ Cafe Conversation - Rotterdam, 1946<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    6. Sunday Morning<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    7. When the Lights Come Up<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    8. Anatta<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    9. Science Fiction Movie<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    10. The Four-Minute House<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3828,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719\/revisions\/3828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":3774,"date":"2026-08-28T12:43:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T12:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3774"},"modified":"2026-09-03T19:03:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:03:53","slug":"ghost-fable-and-fairy-tales-prize-judged-by-melissa-llanes-brownlee-winners-finalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/ghost-fable-and-fairy-tales-prize-judged-by-melissa-llanes-brownlee-winners-finalists\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghost, Fable, and Fairy Tales Prize Judged by Melissa Llanes Brownlee Winners & Finalists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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      We’re finally back and so excited to announce the three winners of the Ghost, Fable, and Fairy Tales Prize, judged by Melissa Llanes Brownlee!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      First Place: The Changeling Girl by Sarah Nell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Second Place: Dolly Builds her Brother out of Butter in the Room her Mother Grew by Theo Burgoyne<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Third Place: Eulogy for Fa by Elissa Field<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \n
      1. Wooden Wolf by Veronica Fabian<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      2. The Red Balloon by Jack Joslin<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      3. The Cherry Tree by Jacob Harris<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      4. Wildflowers by Lucienne Cummings<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      5. Mute Swan by Jennifer Lee<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      6. Six Different Ways to Lose a Brother by Grace Crouthamel<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      7. Green by Zo\u00e9 Orfanos<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      8. Afterglow by Sally Thomas<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      9. There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly by Deborah Thompson<\/strong> <\/li>\n\n\n\n
      10. Man or Bear by Tracie Renee<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      11. Stay Warm by Sam Berman<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      12. If I Disappear by D\u00e4niel Baltimore<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      13. Hair by Ryan King<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      14. The Bell That Never Rang by Ausi\u00e0s Tsel<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      15. The Queen Can Fly by Leah Brennan <\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      16. Unawakening by Caitlin Moon<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      17. An Ageing Ghost by Sam Stafford<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      18. Her Name by David Calbert<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      19. The Weight of Things That Don\u2019t Leave by angel pe\u00f1a<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      20. Neck by Rita Kasperek<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

        <\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        We’re finally back and so excited to announce the three winners of the Ghost, Fable, and Fairy Tales Prize, judged by Melissa Llanes Brownlee! First Place: The Changeling Girl by Sarah Nell Second Place: Dolly Builds her Brother out of Butter in the Room her Mother Grew by Theo Burgoyne Third Place: Eulogy for Fa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

        We're finally back and so excited to announce the three winners of the Ghost, Fable, and Fairy Tales Prize, judged by Melissa Llanes Brownlee!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        First Place: The Changeling Girl by Sarah Nell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Second Place: Dolly Builds her Brother out of Butter in the Room her Mother Grew by Theo Burgoyne<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Third Place: Eulogy for Fa by Elissa Field<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

        <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \n
        1. Wooden Wolf by Veronica Fabian<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        2. The Red Balloon by Jack Joslin<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        3. The Cherry Tree by Jacob Harris<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        4. Wildflowers by Lucienne Cummings<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        5. Mute Swan by Jennifer Lee<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        6. Six Different Ways to Lose a Brother by Grace Crouthamel<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        7. Green by Zo\u00e9 Orfanos<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        8. Afterglow by Sally Thomas<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        9. There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly by Deborah Thompson<\/strong> <\/li>\n\n\n\n
        10. Man or Bear by Tracie Renee<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        11. Stay Warm by Sam Berman<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        12. If I Disappear by D\u00e4niel Baltimore<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        13. Hair by Ryan King<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        14. The Bell That Never Rang by Ausi\u00e0s Tsel<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        15. The Queen Can Fly by Leah Brennan <\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        16. Unawakening by Caitlin Moon<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        17. An Ageing Ghost by Sam Stafford<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        18. Her Name by David Calbert<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        19. The Weight of Things That Don\u2019t Leave by angel pe\u00f1a<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        20. Neck by Rita Kasperek<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3774"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3829,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774\/revisions\/3829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":3806,"date":"2026-08-27T12:42:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T12:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3806"},"modified":"2026-09-03T18:36:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:36:29","slug":"science-fiction-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/science-fiction-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Science Fiction Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

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          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The light that glowed through Lisa\u2019s bedroom window was a radiant thing. So radiant, in fact, that Lisa\u2019s mother disappeared within it. There was no sound, no physical indication that her mother was taken. Lisa simply recalls her mother there, and then not there. Another change, besides Lisa\u2019s mother\u2019s disappearance into brilliance, is Lisa\u2019s vision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The girl can no longer see during the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Sometimes she\u2019ll see a blur of some sort, and explains it as a sensation similar to when light flashes by when your eyelids are closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d she tells her Aunt. \u201cThe aliens must have a good reason for this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          They, Lisa and her mother, were watching alien and science fiction movies before the abduction. Lisa thinks they must have caught their attention somehow, perhaps shot out a misplaced brainwave. Lisa\u2019s Aunt doesn\u2019t argue, but Lisa knows she doesn\u2019t like to talk about the aliens. Lisa thinks it scares her. When she\u2019s in her room, she\u2019ll hear her Aunt occasionally speaking to someone. She thinks it\u2019s the police officer who came the day after the abduction, one of her Aunt\u2019s friends. She overhears a man\u2019s name come up often. \u201cHer father.<\/em>\u201d She\u2019s never met her father. Honestly, she believes the aliens most likely abducted him as well before all this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cWe can\u2019t prove anything\u2014\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Her Aunt drinks after the conversations with her friend, the police officer. When she does, she falls asleep deeply, in a way Lisa doesn\u2019t like. But it keeps her from waking up and stopping Lisa from sneaking out at night to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          At night, the world is truly split into two sections: light and dark. The rats that skirted by her feet as she passed an alley could see in both, she thinks. But she could only see in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Underneath a honeyed street lamp, she could see a couple on a bench intertwined like slugs. A man walking home slips into both realities with each step, carved by the streetlights he crosses beneath. A drunk passed out in the park is barely visible in the halo of frail garden lights surrounding him on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The world is diluted into the suggestion of shapes, harsh shadows blurring away the details and territories of an arm, a leg, a torso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          She wonders why the aliens took her vision during the day. That\u2019s when she spends most of her time wondering. She wonders mostly about her vision rather than her mother. She assumes she\u2019ll be taken eventually; perhaps her sight was their attempt, but they only had energy for her mother. She isn\u2019t sure. Maybe it\u2019s how they saw reality, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Her Aunt doesn\u2019t allow her to watch alien movies anymore, so she only does rarely now, at night with the volume muted and closed captions littering the bottom of the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                      Horrible<\/em> Mutilations\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                      Invasive Experimentation\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          But those felt wrong. The aliens, or at least, her <\/em>aliens, were only a blinding light. There was no violence to them, no horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          During her escapes, she always comes home early, stumbles quietly through her window, and locks it tight, just as it was before, but this time is different. She knows it the moment she sees her window from the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The light is on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          She freezes, and before she can make a decision, the front door opens to reveal her Aunt, wrapped in a pink bathrobe. The flickering porch bug zapper attracts fat mosquitoes that sizzle and pop <\/em>as they land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cTiti\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cInside. Now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Her Aunt smells of alcohol as she yells. It makes Lisa scrunch her nose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cI don\u2019t know how many times I have to say this, but it isn\u2019t aliens. You need to get over this, Lisa\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cYou don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Her Aunt walks around her, tugging at her bathrobe this way and that, as Lisa sits on a kitchen chair, hands squeezing the sides until her knuckles turn white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cThat stupid, stupid <\/em>bastard took her, I just know it\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Lisa watches her Aunt pacing, then glances towards the living room window. She imagines the blinding light, her aliens, shining through, coming to get her. We didn\u2019t forget you, <\/em>they\u2019ll say as she\u2019s finally taken. I\u2019ve missed you, <\/em>her mother will say, once she\u2019s part of the light. She blinks. She starts to cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cWhy are you crying?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cI want to be with her,\u201d Lisa cracks. \u201cLet me go be with her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cWho?\u201d her Aunt asks, mean. \u201cYour mother? Where is she? Do you know where she is?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cI do\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          She shakes her head, the loose hair frantically framing her face swaying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cIf you say those aliens again, Lisa, I swear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cYou don\u2019t understand!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cNo,\u201d her Aunt says. \u201cYou<\/em> don\u2019t understand. My sister is gone. Gone\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Lisa stands up from the chair, shoving her Aunt. She sprints for the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cLisa!\u201d her Aunt shouts. \u201cLisa!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Shadows and light blur into streaks as Lisa runs. Her chest heaves as she pants, rushing through the city. The bench with the interlaced couple is empty. The streetlights the man walked under illuminate no one, and the drunk passed out in the garden left an imprint of flattened flowers and an empty bottle. Lisa sobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cLisa,\u201d her Aunt calls from somewhere behind her, distant. \u201cLisa, please\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Above her, dawn starts to soften the night sky into slate, and her vision begins to darken to black.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          The light that glowed through Lisa\u2019s bedroom window was a radiant thing. So radiant, in fact, that Lisa\u2019s mother disappeared within it. There was no sound, no physical indication that her mother was taken. Lisa simply recalls her mother there, and then not there. Another change, besides Lisa\u2019s mother\u2019s disappearance into brilliance, is Lisa\u2019s vision.  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":537,"featured_media":3809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The light that glowed through Lisa\u2019s bedroom window was a radiant thing. So radiant, in fact, that Lisa\u2019s mother disappeared within it. There was no sound, no physical indication that her mother was taken. Lisa simply recalls her mother there, and then not there. Another change, besides Lisa\u2019s mother\u2019s disappearance into brilliance, is Lisa\u2019s vision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The girl can no longer see during the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Sometimes she\u2019ll see a blur of some sort, and explains it as a sensation similar to when light flashes by when your eyelids are closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d she tells her Aunt. \u201cThe aliens must have a good reason for this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          They, Lisa and her mother, were watching alien and science fiction movies before the abduction. Lisa thinks they must have caught their attention somehow, perhaps shot out a misplaced brainwave. Lisa\u2019s Aunt doesn\u2019t argue, but Lisa knows she doesn\u2019t like to talk about the aliens. Lisa thinks it scares her. When she\u2019s in her room, she\u2019ll hear her Aunt occasionally speaking to someone. She thinks it\u2019s the police officer who came the day after the abduction, one of her Aunt\u2019s friends. She overhears a man\u2019s name come up often. \u201cHer father.<\/em>\u201d She\u2019s never met her father. Honestly, she believes the aliens most likely abducted him as well before all this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cWe can\u2019t prove anything\u2014\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Her Aunt drinks after the conversations with her friend, the police officer. When she does, she falls asleep deeply, in a way Lisa doesn\u2019t like. But it keeps her from waking up and stopping Lisa from sneaking out at night to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          At night, the world is truly split into two sections: light and dark. The rats that skirted by her feet as she passed an alley could see in both, she thinks. But she could only see in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Underneath a honeyed street lamp, she could see a couple on a bench intertwined like slugs. A man walking home slips into both realities with each step, carved by the streetlights he crosses beneath. A drunk passed out in the park is barely visible in the halo of frail garden lights surrounding him on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The world is diluted into the suggestion of shapes, harsh shadows blurring away the details and territories of an arm, a leg, a torso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          She wonders why the aliens took her vision during the day. That\u2019s when she spends most of her time wondering. She wonders mostly about her vision rather than her mother. She assumes she\u2019ll be taken eventually; perhaps her sight was their attempt, but they only had energy for her mother. She isn\u2019t sure. Maybe it\u2019s how they saw reality, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Her Aunt doesn\u2019t allow her to watch alien movies anymore, so she only does rarely now, at night with the volume muted and closed captions littering the bottom of the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                      Horrible<\/em> Mutilations\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                      Invasive Experimentation\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          But those felt wrong. The aliens, or at least, her <\/em>aliens, were only a blinding light. There was no violence to them, no horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          During her escapes, she always comes home early, stumbles quietly through her window, and locks it tight, just as it was before, but this time is different. She knows it the moment she sees her window from the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The light is on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          She freezes, and before she can make a decision, the front door opens to reveal her Aunt, wrapped in a pink bathrobe. The flickering porch bug zapper attracts fat mosquitoes that sizzle and pop <\/em>as they land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cTiti\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cInside. Now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Her Aunt smells of alcohol as she yells. It makes Lisa scrunch her nose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cI don\u2019t know how many times I have to say this, but it isn\u2019t aliens. You need to get over this, Lisa\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cYou don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Her Aunt walks around her, tugging at her bathrobe this way and that, as Lisa sits on a kitchen chair, hands squeezing the sides until her knuckles turn white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cThat stupid, stupid <\/em>bastard took her, I just know it\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Lisa watches her Aunt pacing, then glances towards the living room window. She imagines the blinding light, her aliens, shining through, coming to get her. We didn\u2019t forget you, <\/em>they\u2019ll say as she\u2019s finally taken. I\u2019ve missed you, <\/em>her mother will say, once she\u2019s part of the light. She blinks. She starts to cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cWhy are you crying?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cI want to be with her,\u201d Lisa cracks. \u201cLet me go be with her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cWho?\u201d her Aunt asks, mean. \u201cYour mother? Where is she? Do you know where she is?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cI do\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          She shakes her head, the loose hair frantically framing her face swaying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cIf you say those aliens again, Lisa, I swear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cYou don\u2019t understand!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cNo,\u201d her Aunt says. \u201cYou<\/em> don\u2019t understand. My sister is gone. Gone\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Lisa stands up from the chair, shoving her Aunt. She sprints for the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cLisa!\u201d her Aunt shouts. \u201cLisa!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Shadows and light blur into streaks as Lisa runs. Her chest heaves as she pants, rushing through the city. The bench with the interlaced couple is empty. The streetlights the man walked under illuminate no one, and the drunk passed out in the garden left an imprint of flattened flowers and an empty bottle. Lisa sobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \u201cLisa,\u201d her Aunt calls from somewhere behind her, distant. \u201cLisa, please\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Above her, dawn starts to soften the night sky into slate, and her vision begins to darken to black.<\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/537"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3806"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3823,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806\/revisions\/3823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":3802,"date":"2026-08-24T22:17:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T22:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3802"},"modified":"2026-09-03T19:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:03:16","slug":"free-falling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/free-falling\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Falling"},"content":{"rendered":"

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          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Lotte sits on the edge of the bed in an ivory vest and pants, made from the same silk as her wedding dress. Her auburn hair is still pinned. It took almost half an hour to get right this morning and maybe she rolled it too tight because she\u2019s had a headache all day that won\u2019t quite shift. She splays her fingers, pushes them through the taut strands at the nape of her neck. There\u2019s a little relief. Her husband \u2013 they were married six hours ago \u2013 is in the bathroom down the hall. She strokes the silk across her breasts, over her hips. Her figure is a little fuller a year after liberation. He seems a good man. He has good hair and good teeth. A good job. Abroad. Which means they\u2019ll be leaving, leaving all this rubble and dust and utter devastation. Lotte gets up from the bed, walks around the small hotel room. Enjoys the feel of the carpet under her feet. Enjoys the feel of silk against her body. Such luxury. Such decadence. The ceremony was small: her aunt, her female cousins, her friend who introduced them. His mother, his two sisters, their three faces pale and pinched. Lotte used all her clothing coupons to buy the silk. When she unwrapped it, she found several grass stains and a streak of mud which she loosened delicately with soap and then hung the material in the warm spring sunshine to dry. Today, there was no sun. She made the dress herself. She measured and cut and spliced, sewed the pieces back together on her aunt\u2019s sewing machine. Henk wore a silt-brown suit made of wool. She thought he\u2019d had it made for the wedding but overheard his mother tell his sisters it was one of two he\u2019d had made for the new job. In a single movement, their three heads turned and caught her eye, defiant. She almost laughed. They think she\u2019s hurt, think she cares. Lotte knows as well as they do that he wouldn\u2019t have been offered the ten-year contract abroad as an unmarried man. But she doesn\u2019t care what Henk was wearing or which occasion it was made for. She doesn\u2019t even particularly care why he married her, only that he did, and that as a married couple, they can leave this hellhole and start again. She hears footsteps, a gentle knock. He\u2019s very polite. Respectful. Handsome, too. Wasn\u2019t she pretty once? Didn\u2019t Mama tell her that when she was a little girl? Henk could\u2019ve married anyone, though. Unlike her. The door opens, closes. At twenty-seven she was old for a single woman. The war had gobbled six years of her life, spat her back out again after. And there were hardly any eligible men. What became of the man in the parachute? Dropped with little more than a balloon of silk to guide him. Is he now safely back in England? \u2018Hello,\u2019 her husband says. \u2018Hello,\u2019 she replies. He stands by the door, arms behind his back, clutching the door handle. She takes a step towards him and he takes a step towards her. He\u2019s been a gentleman throughout their courtship. Not once has he overstepped the line. But they\u2019re married now. He\u2019ll have expectations. She knows a little of what awaits her, from before, but that\u2019s not something she ever thinks about. Her friend and female cousins are unmarried. Only her aunt could\u2019ve told her, but she said nothing. Now they are close enough to feel each other\u2019s body warmth. He presses his thumb against her bottom lip. She wills herself not to flinch. Then, he kisses her. Gently, tentatively, but soon with a thirst and a hunger she\u2019s certain she\u2019ll never be able to sate. His hands grasp her hips, maneuvered her backwards, and he is falling onto her, they are falling together onto the bed and for a brief moment, in between standing and lying down, in between reality and dreaming, she allows herself to fall too. And it\u2019s glorious. As they become a tangle of limbs and sheets, she forgets everything. But then she moves and there is the tug of the pins at her scalp and her headache rushes back. Henk\u2019s body feels too heavy now, too urgent, too everything. She reaches over and turns out the light. In the morning, when she wakes there is a smear of red on her vest. A bullet wound? But how? Was the Englishman shot from the sky in Arnhem or Nijmegen or Eindhoven? Did he bleed onto the silk parachute? She thought she\u2019d checked it so thoroughly. Then she remembers the lipstick. Henk\u2019s thumb on her lips last night. He is still sleeping, his handsome face turned towards the light seeping through the thin curtains. Within the month, Lotte will be aboard a ship sailing to the Dutch East Indies, the vest in her trunk. Before she packed it, she tried to remove the red mark \u2013 with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, soaking it in hot water and cold \u2013 but nothing worked. After a four-week journey at sea, she docks in Indonesia. The amahs unpack and it is months before she finds the vest again. By that point, she is too swollen with child to wear it. As she runs her hands over the silk, over the faint stain, she recalls her wedding day, her wedding night, but more so, the following morning when she woke before her husband and eased open the curtains; when she sat alone on the edge of the bed, on the edge of her future; and a fat slice of sunshine fell into the room, and filled it with light.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Lotte sits on the edge of the bed in an ivory vest and pants, made from the same silk as her wedding dress. Her auburn hair is still pinned. It took almost half an hour to get right this morning and maybe she rolled it too tight because she\u2019s had a headache all day that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":3805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Lotte sits on the edge of the bed in an ivory vest and pants, made from the same silk as her wedding dress. Her auburn hair is still pinned. It took almost half an hour to get right this morning and maybe she rolled it too tight because she\u2019s had a headache all day that won\u2019t quite shift. She splays her fingers, pushes them through the taut strands at the nape of her neck. There\u2019s a little relief. Her husband \u2013 they were married six hours ago \u2013 is in the bathroom down the hall. She strokes the silk across her breasts, over her hips. Her figure is a little fuller a year after liberation. He seems a good man. He has good hair and good teeth. A good job. Abroad. Which means they\u2019ll be leaving, leaving all this rubble and dust and utter devastation. Lotte gets up from the bed, walks around the small hotel room. Enjoys the feel of the carpet under her feet. Enjoys the feel of silk against her body. Such luxury. Such decadence. The ceremony was small: her aunt, her female cousins, her friend who introduced them. His mother, his two sisters, their three faces pale and pinched. Lotte used all her clothing coupons to buy the silk. When she unwrapped it, she found several grass stains and a streak of mud which she loosened delicately with soap and then hung the material in the warm spring sunshine to dry. Today, there was no sun. She made the dress herself. She measured and cut and spliced, sewed the pieces back together on her aunt\u2019s sewing machine. Henk wore a silt-brown suit made of wool. She thought he\u2019d had it made for the wedding but overheard his mother tell his sisters it was one of two he\u2019d had made for the new job. In a single movement, their three heads turned and caught her eye, defiant. She almost laughed. They think she\u2019s hurt, think she cares. Lotte knows as well as they do that he wouldn\u2019t have been offered the ten-year contract abroad as an unmarried man. But she doesn\u2019t care what Henk was wearing or which occasion it was made for. She doesn\u2019t even particularly care why he married her, only that he did, and that as a married couple, they can leave this hellhole and start again. She hears footsteps, a gentle knock. He\u2019s very polite. Respectful. Handsome, too. Wasn\u2019t she pretty once? Didn\u2019t Mama tell her that when she was a little girl? Henk could\u2019ve married anyone, though. Unlike her. The door opens, closes. At twenty-seven she was old for a single woman. The war had gobbled six years of her life, spat her back out again after. And there were hardly any eligible men. What became of the man in the parachute? Dropped with little more than a balloon of silk to guide him. Is he now safely back in England? \u2018Hello,\u2019 her husband says. \u2018Hello,\u2019 she replies. He stands by the door, arms behind his back, clutching the door handle. She takes a step towards him and he takes a step towards her. He\u2019s been a gentleman throughout their courtship. Not once has he overstepped the line. But they\u2019re married now. He\u2019ll have expectations. She knows a little of what awaits her, from before, but that\u2019s not something she ever thinks about. Her friend and female cousins are unmarried. Only her aunt could\u2019ve told her, but she said nothing. Now they are close enough to feel each other\u2019s body warmth. He presses his thumb against her bottom lip. She wills herself not to flinch. Then, he kisses her. Gently, tentatively, but soon with a thirst and a hunger she\u2019s certain she\u2019ll never be able to sate. His hands grasp her hips, maneuvered her backwards, and he is falling onto her, they are falling together onto the bed and for a brief moment, in between standing and lying down, in between reality and dreaming, she allows herself to fall too. And it\u2019s glorious. As they become a tangle of limbs and sheets, she forgets everything. But then she moves and there is the tug of the pins at her scalp and her headache rushes back. Henk\u2019s body feels too heavy now, too urgent, too everything. She reaches over and turns out the light. In the morning, when she wakes there is a smear of red on her vest. A bullet wound? But how? Was the Englishman shot from the sky in Arnhem or Nijmegen or Eindhoven? Did he bleed onto the silk parachute? She thought she\u2019d checked it so thoroughly. Then she remembers the lipstick. Henk\u2019s thumb on her lips last night. He is still sleeping, his handsome face turned towards the light seeping through the thin curtains. Within the month, Lotte will be aboard a ship sailing to the Dutch East Indies, the vest in her trunk. Before she packed it, she tried to remove the red mark \u2013 with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, soaking it in hot water and cold \u2013 but nothing worked. After a four-week journey at sea, she docks in Indonesia. The amahs unpack and it is months before she finds the vest again. By that point, she is too swollen with child to wear it. As she runs her hands over the silk, over the faint stain, she recalls her wedding day, her wedding night, but more so, the following morning when she woke before her husband and eased open the curtains; when she sat alone on the edge of the bed, on the edge of her future; and a fat slice of sunshine fell into the room, and filled it with light.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3802"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3826,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3802\/revisions\/3826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":3798,"date":"2026-08-19T13:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T13:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3798"},"modified":"2026-09-03T18:36:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:36:28","slug":"tomatoes-and-oil-paintings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/tomatoes-and-oil-paintings\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomatoes and Oil Paintings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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          The woman waters the plants in her garden before she leaves for her morning walk. The man sits at his easel, painting, before he leaves for his morning walk. Once outside, both glance at their watches and quicken their pace to avoid being late. When they arrive at their intersection\u2014the one where they first crossed paths organically but now carefully choreograph the serendipitous timing\u2014they pretend to be surprised, but their joy is genuine. He asks how her hydrangeas and tomatoes are faring in this dry weather. She asks if he\u2019s broken through the mental block that has been stalling completion of his current portrait. She shows him photos of the garden, and he shows her photos of the painting\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Before they\u2019d both undergone the partial memory removal procedure, their marriage had been happy and then deteriorated\u2014as so many marriages do\u2014and their divorce had been bitter. Electing to have the surgery that could make them forget was not a quick decision. It took time, tears, arguments, last-minute cold feet, cancellations and rescheduling, and the harrowing guilt of letting go of everything that had once tied them together\u2014the beloved along with the regrets. With all memories of their shared history erased and their slate clean, they unwittingly moved to houses only a few streets away from each other. Now they are strangers who have, over time, become friendly neighbors and maybe something more. When alone, they wonder if the other feels the same way they do. But since they leave their longing unspoken and wait for a grand mutual revelation, they treasure their daily intersection meetings. It\u2019s much easier and more pleasant to look forward rather than back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Ahead is meaningful eye contact, the gentle uncertain touch of a hand on an arm, welcoming and knowing smiles, first embraces and passionate kisses, and long intimate conversations in bed where both pay close attention to each other\u2019s mouths, skin, and bodies without reaching for any screens. Behind them is a love they can no longer remember, old resentments, no infidelity but a gaping frigid distance, and the death of their only child in a fraternity hazing gone wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          By the end of their marriage, she couldn\u2019t look at him when she opened her eyes every morning without smelling the hospital, hearing the words stomach pumped<\/em> and nothing else we can do<\/em>, and seeing the detested alcohol that killed their boy in her husband\u2019s glass night after night. They had coped with the unyielding grief in their own ways, but she couldn\u2019t fathom or forgive his preferred liquid escape. He felt himself losing her along with their son, but he was just trying to erase his agony the old-fashioned way. Now when she looks at him on her morning walks, she sees kind eyes, hears a gruff voice full of laughter, and smells oil paint mixed with cedar and vanilla. In their past life, he used to be bothered and hurt by how much time she spent in her garden away from him\u2014he saw it as her place of avoidance rather than refuge\u2014but now he is charmed and beguiled by her green thumb and the hours she spends there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          She brings him startlingly red plump tomatoes sometimes, and he tells her later about the delicious soups, sandwiches, salads, and quiches he\u2019s made with them. She doesn\u2019t know his current oil painting, the one he\u2019s been struggling with, is an abstract rendering of her and that he plans to give it to her one day. He wonders if she will understand it\u2019s his way of saying, \u201cI love you, I think I always have, and I know I always will.\u201d But how can she be expected to when he still hasn\u2019t yet realized the similar significance of the tomatoes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Today they remain at their intersection slightly longer than usual. But after the tiny yellow bird they\u2019ve been watching and admiring together abruptly takes flight, they too exchange fond farewells and go their separate ways.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          The woman waters the plants in her garden before she leaves for her morning walk. The man sits at his easel, painting, before he leaves for his morning walk. Once outside, both glance at their watches and quicken their pace to avoid being late. When they arrive at their intersection\u2014the one where they first crossed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":536,"featured_media":3799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

          The woman waters the plants in her garden before she leaves for her morning walk. The man sits at his easel, painting, before he leaves for his morning walk. Once outside, both glance at their watches and quicken their pace to avoid being late. When they arrive at their intersection\u2014the one where they first crossed paths organically but now carefully choreograph the serendipitous timing\u2014they pretend to be surprised, but their joy is genuine. He asks how her hydrangeas and tomatoes are faring in this dry weather. She asks if he\u2019s broken through the mental block that has been stalling completion of his current portrait. She shows him photos of the garden, and he shows her photos of the painting\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Before they\u2019d both undergone the partial memory removal procedure, their marriage had been happy and then deteriorated\u2014as so many marriages do\u2014and their divorce had been bitter. Electing to have the surgery that could make them forget was not a quick decision. It took time, tears, arguments, last-minute cold feet, cancellations and rescheduling, and the harrowing guilt of letting go of everything that had once tied them together\u2014the beloved along with the regrets. With all memories of their shared history erased and their slate clean, they unwittingly moved to houses only a few streets away from each other. Now they are strangers who have, over time, become friendly neighbors and maybe something more. When alone, they wonder if the other feels the same way they do. But since they leave their longing unspoken and wait for a grand mutual revelation, they treasure their daily intersection meetings. It\u2019s much easier and more pleasant to look forward rather than back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Ahead is meaningful eye contact, the gentle uncertain touch of a hand on an arm, welcoming and knowing smiles, first embraces and passionate kisses, and long intimate conversations in bed where both pay close attention to each other\u2019s mouths, skin, and bodies without reaching for any screens. Behind them is a love they can no longer remember, old resentments, no infidelity but a gaping frigid distance, and the death of their only child in a fraternity hazing gone wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          By the end of their marriage, she couldn\u2019t look at him when she opened her eyes every morning without smelling the hospital, hearing the words stomach pumped<\/em> and nothing else we can do<\/em>, and seeing the detested alcohol that killed their boy in her husband\u2019s glass night after night. They had coped with the unyielding grief in their own ways, but she couldn\u2019t fathom or forgive his preferred liquid escape. He felt himself losing her along with their son, but he was just trying to erase his agony the old-fashioned way. Now when she looks at him on her morning walks, she sees kind eyes, hears a gruff voice full of laughter, and smells oil paint mixed with cedar and vanilla. In their past life, he used to be bothered and hurt by how much time she spent in her garden away from him\u2014he saw it as her place of avoidance rather than refuge\u2014but now he is charmed and beguiled by her green thumb and the hours she spends there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          She brings him startlingly red plump tomatoes sometimes, and he tells her later about the delicious soups, sandwiches, salads, and quiches he\u2019s made with them. She doesn\u2019t know his current oil painting, the one he\u2019s been struggling with, is an abstract rendering of her and that he plans to give it to her one day. He wonders if she will understand it\u2019s his way of saying, \u201cI love you, I think I always have, and I know I always will.\u201d But how can she be expected to when he still hasn\u2019t yet realized the similar significance of the tomatoes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Today they remain at their intersection slightly longer than usual. But after the tiny yellow bird they\u2019ve been watching and admiring together abruptly takes flight, they too exchange fond farewells and go their separate ways.<\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/536"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3798"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3822,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798\/revisions\/3822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":3785,"date":"2026-08-18T16:16:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3785"},"modified":"2026-09-03T19:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:04:20","slug":"micro-prize-judged-by-steve-almond-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/micro-prize-judged-by-steve-almond-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"Micro Prize Judged by Steve Almond Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"

          \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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          \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

          We are finally back to present our long-awaited micro prize winners, picked by Steve Almond! Huge congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who participated!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          First Place: No Voltage on a Quiet Road by Maxwell Orsen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Second Place: Burial at Sea by Eileen Tomarchio<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Third Place: Makbara by Saumya Sharma<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \n
          1. Mothers Bake Pog\u00e1csas by No\u00e9mi Scheiring-Ol\u00e1h<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          2. My Father’s Orange Farm by Gabriella Paradis<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          3. Quiet Survival by Kristina Kasparian<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          4. In the Larchmont House by Daniel Burgess<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          5. Loosed by Edie Chunn<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          6. What It’s Like by Marie Watson<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          7. Inheritance by Abhinav Caleb<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          8. I’ll sew your socks if you stay by Steph Coelho<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          9. Competitive Grieving\u00a0by Tim Collyer<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          10. Color Theory by Amanda Miska<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          11. The Thing With Feathers by Christine Vines<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          12. Lost girl found by Rachel Marston<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          13. Doves by Katie Piper<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          14. Girls Who Use Wheelchairs Don\u2019t Climb Trees by Kara Kahnke<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          15. We Are Mothers by Kellie Kreiss<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          16. katsu. by Mitchell Ny<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          17. Dad in his Elements by Tom Walsh<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            We are finally back to present our long-awaited micro prize winners, picked by Steve Almond! Huge congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who participated! First Place: No Voltage on a Quiet Road by Maxwell Orsen Second Place: Burial at Sea by Eileen Tomarchio Third Place: Makbara by Saumya Sharma Mothers Bake Pog\u00e1csas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

            We are finally back to present our long-awaited micro prize winners, picked by Steve Almond! Huge congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who participated!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            First Place: No Voltage on a Quiet Road by Maxwell Orsen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Second Place: Burial at Sea by Eileen Tomarchio<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Third Place: Makbara by Saumya Sharma<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            <\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \n
            1. Mothers Bake Pog\u00e1csas by No\u00e9mi Scheiring-Ol\u00e1h<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            2. My Father's Orange Farm by Gabriella Paradis<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            3. Quiet Survival by Kristina Kasparian<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            4. In the Larchmont House by Daniel Burgess<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            5. Loosed by Edie Chunn<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            6. What It's Like by Marie Watson<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            7. Inheritance by Abhinav Caleb<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            8. I'll sew your socks if you stay by Steph Coelho<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            9. Competitive Grieving\u00a0by Tim Collyer<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            10. Color Theory by Amanda Miska<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            11. The Thing With Feathers by Christine Vines<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            12. Lost girl found by Rachel Marston<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            13. Doves by Katie Piper<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            14. Girls Who Use Wheelchairs Don\u2019t Climb Trees by Kara Kahnke<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            15. We Are Mothers by Kellie Kreiss<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            16. katsu. by Mitchell Ny<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
            17. Dad in his Elements by Tom Walsh<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3785"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3830,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions\/3830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":3795,"date":"2026-08-17T22:21:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T22:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3795"},"modified":"2026-09-03T18:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:36:20","slug":"the-producer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/the-producer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Producer"},"content":{"rendered":"
              \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
              \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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              The 90-year-old producer had a hole in his heart. A shaky, unpatchable hole. He wanted me to fill it with kisses, candy, and jokes. I handed him a travel-sized Mars bar that I got on the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              “Only a monkey,” he said, “would offer this old sack of bones a gift from the red planet.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              He said this because of my newly red hair. He liked to run his skinny fingers through it. I called him ‘The Producer’ because he had always wanted to produce a movie. Sometimes he asked me to write one. Told me to create a character role just for him, and to make him younger, less shaky, without Parkinson\u2019s, less married. That was easy, as I imagined him a younger person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The nickname \u201cMonkey\u201d rubbed off on me. There was a gullible monkey on my shoulder, enjoying the stories he told me about his terrible home life. How his wife carried a loaded pistol around the house, even in her pjs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cShe never puts it away anymore,\u201d he winked. What a horrible person she was, I told myself, kissing his shivery lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cThat blouse is very flattering on you,\u201d the producer said, his face half fallen. It was the same blouse I had worn every other night in the dining room. I wondered if he had had a mini stroke in his sleep. Half of his face looked younger than the other half, less perceptive. He gazed at me as if I alone provided gravity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The hotels we stayed in had very good food. We would eat in the dining rooms and middle-aged businessmen would stare with disgusted expressions as the two of us nibbled appetizers and sipped rhubarb gin. They thought he had to be a great uncle or a grandfather, so why was I wearing such low-cut, decadent blouses? Why were his eyes gripping the rise of my cleavage as if he was pulling himself out of some brackish lake?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              He\u2019s the Producer, and I\u2019m in love with him,<\/em> I wanted to say. Give me a break, I didn\u2019t have a dad! <\/em>I wanted to scream. They would offer me a weak nod, as if to say, if he croaks tonight, I\u2019m around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              My story is filled with love tragedies, and I told the producer all about them. \u201cYou should write a screenplay about them,\u201d he said, and this cheered me up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              My strong young boyfriends would eventually say that they saw our relationship as a weakness. I never knew what they meant. Their muscular legs would take off for runs or bike rides in the early morning. They were running away from me, my mother once said, because often, they didn\u2019t return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              For example, my young husband disappeared after going for a long, mindful ultra-run. \u201cI like the look of that path,\u201d he said, and I never saw him again. I knew there were mountain lions around, but they never found his bones. Thankfully I heard from him a few years later. He wrote me a postcard from Jakarta to say that his knees, hips, and spine had finally given out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cThat\u2019s what unhappiness does,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              By the time I turned 27, I was tired of the young ones, their perfect bodies and deeply unsatisfied souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              When I first met the producer, I arrived at a hotel with my dog. I was still married, but my husband had been missing for a year. When the producer hugged me in the lobby of the hotel, I tried not to cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cYou are tattered and shabby,\u201d he said, or maybe I imagined it. His skin was yellowed, and fragile to the touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cI like your face,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cI like your dog,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              We took the elevator up to his hotel room and he put a Lucinda Williams song on. He had an iPad that he didn\u2019t know how to use. He said the one thing he was confident about was the music app. \u201cSomehow, I can make it sing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The song that plays in my head when I remember the producer is \u201cSomething About What Happens When We Talk.\u201d I felt it was corny the first time he played it for me. But now that he is gone, I miss the talks we had, how much he liked my dog, and how it felt as if he was calling to me from someplace close but very far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The last time I saw him, he perched on the sofa of our hotel room as if he was ready to fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cWe are not the same age,\u201d he said. This seemed like an obvious fact, and one that might have been noted already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cI am not worried about it,\u201d I said. \u201cAre you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              I took his hand, and it was cold. I wanted to say, please don\u2019t fret about nonsense<\/em>. I yanked him off the sofa, and right into my arms. We danced to Lucinda Williams. I felt sad that he had said it and was shivering a bit. He held me tight as a 20-year-old but felt as light as a paper doll. So weightless, I could have carried him home in my arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              <\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***Originally published in The Northwest Review<\/em>.***<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              The 90-year-old producer had a hole in his heart. A shaky, unpatchable hole. He wanted me to fill it with kisses, candy, and jokes. I handed him a travel-sized Mars bar that I got on the plane. “Only a monkey,” he said, “would offer this old sack of bones a gift from the red planet.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":3796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

              The 90-year-old producer had a hole in his heart. A shaky, unpatchable hole. He wanted me to fill it with kisses, candy, and jokes. I handed him a travel-sized Mars bar that I got on the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \"Only a monkey,\" he said, \"would offer this old sack of bones a gift from the red planet.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              He said this because of my newly red hair. He liked to run his skinny fingers through it. I called him 'The Producer' because he had always wanted to produce a movie. Sometimes he asked me to write one. Told me to create a character role just for him, and to make him younger, less shaky, without Parkinson\u2019s, less married. That was easy, as I imagined him a younger person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The nickname \u201cMonkey\u201d rubbed off on me. There was a gullible monkey on my shoulder, enjoying the stories he told me about his terrible home life. How his wife carried a loaded pistol around the house, even in her pjs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cShe never puts it away anymore,\u201d he winked. What a horrible person she was, I told myself, kissing his shivery lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cThat blouse is very flattering on you,\u201d the producer said, his face half fallen. It was the same blouse I had worn every other night in the dining room. I wondered if he had had a mini stroke in his sleep. Half of his face looked younger than the other half, less perceptive. He gazed at me as if I alone provided gravity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The hotels we stayed in had very good food. We would eat in the dining rooms and middle-aged businessmen would stare with disgusted expressions as the two of us nibbled appetizers and sipped rhubarb gin. They thought he had to be a great uncle or a grandfather, so why was I wearing such low-cut, decadent blouses? Why were his eyes gripping the rise of my cleavage as if he was pulling himself out of some brackish lake?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              He\u2019s the Producer, and I\u2019m in love with him,<\/em> I wanted to say. Give me a break, I didn\u2019t have a dad! <\/em>I wanted to scream. They would offer me a weak nod, as if to say, if he croaks tonight, I\u2019m around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              My story is filled with love tragedies, and I told the producer all about them. \u201cYou should write a screenplay about them,\u201d he said, and this cheered me up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              My strong young boyfriends would eventually say that they saw our relationship as a weakness. I never knew what they meant. Their muscular legs would take off for runs or bike rides in the early morning. They were running away from me, my mother once said, because often, they didn\u2019t return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              For example, my young husband disappeared after going for a long, mindful ultra-run. \u201cI like the look of that path,\u201d he said, and I never saw him again. I knew there were mountain lions around, but they never found his bones. Thankfully I heard from him a few years later. He wrote me a postcard from Jakarta to say that his knees, hips, and spine had finally given out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cThat\u2019s what unhappiness does,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              By the time I turned 27, I was tired of the young ones, their perfect bodies and deeply unsatisfied souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              When I first met the producer, I arrived at a hotel with my dog. I was still married, but my husband had been missing for a year. When the producer hugged me in the lobby of the hotel, I tried not to cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cYou are tattered and shabby,\u201d he said, or maybe I imagined it. His skin was yellowed, and fragile to the touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cI like your face,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cI like your dog,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              We took the elevator up to his hotel room and he put a Lucinda Williams song on. He had an iPad that he didn\u2019t know how to use. He said the one thing he was confident about was the music app. \u201cSomehow, I can make it sing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The song that plays in my head when I remember the producer is \u201cSomething About What Happens When We Talk.\u201d I felt it was corny the first time he played it for me. But now that he is gone, I miss the talks we had, how much he liked my dog, and how it felt as if he was calling to me from someplace close but very far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The last time I saw him, he perched on the sofa of our hotel room as if he was ready to fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cWe are not the same age,\u201d he said. This seemed like an obvious fact, and one that might have been noted already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cI am not worried about it,\u201d I said. \u201cAre you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              I took his hand, and it was cold. I wanted to say, please don\u2019t fret about nonsense<\/em>. I yanked him off the sofa, and right into my arms. We danced to Lucinda Williams. I felt sad that he had said it and was shivering a bit. He held me tight as a 20-year-old but felt as light as a paper doll. So weightless, I could have carried him home in my arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              <\/p>\n\n\n\n

              ***Originally published in The Northwest Review<\/em>.***<\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3821,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795\/revisions\/3821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":3792,"date":"2026-08-16T13:24:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T13:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3792"},"modified":"2026-09-03T19:03:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:03:04","slug":"togetherness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/togetherness\/","title":{"rendered":"Togetherness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

              \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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              It was like she\u2019d gotten sober all over again; everything started to make sense after Daniel\u2019s arrest. Like the occasional odd scent on his clothes that she\u2019d always assumed was because of his commute, emerging from the train with the scent of every Bostonian on his shirt collar, as though he\u2019d been having an affair with the city. It turned out that this smell had a name, although there was no way that Claudia was going to remember it; it was like being told the Latin name for a plant that had invaded her garden. She would only ever remember the word accelerant<\/em>, and the way it felt when she\u2019d been informed that Daniel liked to start fires. \u2018<\/em>What do you mean, liked<\/em>?\u2019 she\u2019d asked the detective. Some kind of misunderstanding must have occurred, the wrong Daniel Grady had to have been caught, a zebra mistaken for a tiger. Claudia felt like she was back in speech and debate, dissecting every word and phrase for a possible exodus from other people\u2019s contexts. Words were like traffic circles: you didn\u2019t always enter and exit the same point as someone else. The detective had to have been wrong, and she didn\u2019t appreciate the accusation, and she wanted Daniel to come home. \u2018He does something with advertising,\u2019 she explained. \u2018Or marketing.\u2019 But he had been captured on camera, timestamped, with ample evidence, too. She asked for the dates, and as he reeled off information, she looked at the calendar on her phone. What he divulged, and what she could see in front of her, were like two broken plate halves coming together to form a whole one, complete but scarred. And she thought about what her friend Marcy had told her after recently going through a divorce: that the most devastating thing was being forced to view your partner in a way you never expected. Like seeing them from a distance and they don\u2019t know that you\u2019re watching and you look at them and you think, If you\u2019re not who I think you are, then who are you? By the time Claudia brought herself to visit Daniel, he looked so different from the husband she remembered, now nothing more than jail stubble growing on the face of the stranger talking to her about lawyers and psychologists and court dates. When it was her turn to say something, she asked him, \u2018So who was it I was trying to start a family with?\u2019 He looked down and said, \u2018Me,\u2019 as though he had intoned the name of someone impossible. She drove home, parked her Jeep next to Daniel\u2019s Nissan, and dropped her keys in the teak bowl next to his keys, and the sound of her footsteps echoed back his absence. She walked throughout their house and imagined having to live in it without him, and she stopped at the fireplace, where Daniel had hung the watercolor they\u2019d bought at his insistence on their most recent visit to the Cape. It showed a coastline ablaze at sunset, the outline of the fishing huts and cedar-shingled buildings sizzling in the last rays of the day, the horizon line cutting the shore in two. One half only made sense with the other.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>
              \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>
              \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div> It was like she\u2019d gotten sober all over again; everything started to make sense after Daniel\u2019s arrest. Like the occasional odd scent on his clothes that she\u2019d always assumed was because of his commute, emerging from the train with the scent of every Bostonian on his shirt collar, as though he\u2019d been having an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":535,"featured_media":3793,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

              It was like she\u2019d gotten sober all over again; everything started to make sense after Daniel\u2019s arrest. Like the occasional odd scent on his clothes that she\u2019d always assumed was because of his commute, emerging from the train with the scent of every Bostonian on his shirt collar, as though he\u2019d been having an affair with the city. It turned out that this smell had a name, although there was no way that Claudia was going to remember it; it was like being told the Latin name for a plant that had invaded her garden. She would only ever remember the word accelerant<\/em>, and the way it felt when she\u2019d been informed that Daniel liked to start fires. \u2018<\/em>What do you mean, liked<\/em>?\u2019 she\u2019d asked the detective. Some kind of misunderstanding must have occurred, the wrong Daniel Grady had to have been caught, a zebra mistaken for a tiger. Claudia felt like she was back in speech and debate, dissecting every word and phrase for a possible exodus from other people\u2019s contexts. Words were like traffic circles: you didn\u2019t always enter and exit the same point as someone else. The detective had to have been wrong, and she didn\u2019t appreciate the accusation, and she wanted Daniel to come home. \u2018He does something with advertising,\u2019 she explained. \u2018Or marketing.\u2019 But he had been captured on camera, timestamped, with ample evidence, too. She asked for the dates, and as he reeled off information, she looked at the calendar on her phone. What he divulged, and what she could see in front of her, were like two broken plate halves coming together to form a whole one, complete but scarred. And she thought about what her friend Marcy had told her after recently going through a divorce: that the most devastating thing was being forced to view your partner in a way you never expected. Like seeing them from a distance and they don\u2019t know that you\u2019re watching and you look at them and you think, If you\u2019re not who I think you are, then who are you? By the time Claudia brought herself to visit Daniel, he looked so different from the husband she remembered, now nothing more than jail stubble growing on the face of the stranger talking to her about lawyers and psychologists and court dates. When it was her turn to say something, she asked him, \u2018So who was it I was trying to start a family with?\u2019 He looked down and said, \u2018Me,\u2019 as though he had intoned the name of someone impossible. She drove home, parked her Jeep next to Daniel\u2019s Nissan, and dropped her keys in the teak bowl next to his keys, and the sound of her footsteps echoed back his absence. She walked throughout their house and imagined having to live in it without him, and she stopped at the fireplace, where Daniel had hung the watercolor they\u2019d bought at his insistence on their most recent visit to the Cape. It showed a coastline ablaze at sunset, the outline of the fishing huts and cedar-shingled buildings sizzling in the last rays of the day, the horizon line cutting the shore in two. One half only made sense with the other.<\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/535"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3792"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3825,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3792\/revisions\/3825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":3771,"date":"2026-08-10T12:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/?p=3771"},"modified":"2026-09-08T21:33:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T21:33:50","slug":"hubcap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/hubcap\/","title":{"rendered":"Hubcap"},"content":{"rendered":"

              \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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              I hold on so tightly I lose my grip. The hubcap clatters to the floor like a platter thrown during a lovers\u2019 spat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cGo to hell!\u201d I yell, then, \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I didn\u2019t mean it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              I pull on a pair of gray sweats and a dirty white T-shirt. Four red lines bleed through the front of the shirt. I grab my battered leather jacket and huff out the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Streetlights flicker a dozen blocks ahead, but where I walk bullets rule. I know I am taking a chance, but I am angry. And more than lonely. Three nights before, I thought my life had turned a corner when I found the hubcap in the slush of a spring snow squall. I bent down and scooped black snow out of the deeper dents before I tucked it inside my jacket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cYou\u2019re cold,\u201d I said. \u201cMy bed is warm.\u201d The hubcap shivered the whole walk home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Inside, I laid the hubcap on my mattress in the middle of the floor. I layered flannel sheets, a quilt, and a comforter on top. I warmed some soup on the stove, but by the time it was heated, the hubcap had already fallen asleep. I set the soup on the floor and slid slowly, quietly beneath the flannel sheets, quilt, and comforter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              It was the dream I had that night that gave me hope. I had fallen in dreams before, but I had never been caught. This time, I settled into a lover\u2019s palm the way the smoke of burning leaves settles into valleys. The longer I lay there, the more my skin glowed. All night I slept as a pearl held in the palm of a lover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The next morning, I awoke spooned by the hubcap. The day unfolded slowly, naturally. The hubcap thanked me by listening\u2014through the morning, the early afternoon, and into the evening\u2014to all of my problems, all of my stories of failed loves and regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              When the sky began to darken outside my blinded windows, I interrupted my own lengthy history. \u201cYou probably have to go.\u201d I tilted my head toward the window. When the hubcap did not reply, I asked, \u201cAre you sure?\u201d then continued unburdening myself until we both drifted off to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Again, I fell through my dream, and again I landed in the lover\u2019s palm. I knew the dream was telling me I was falling in love. I didn\u2019t want to listen. Who would believe me? It couldn\u2019t be true. How could I explain any of this? A man cannot love a hubcap if he does not first love himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The second day was quiet, almost silent. I had nothing left to explain, and the hubcap never did have any explaining to do. We spoke through touch. I ran my stubby fingers around the hubcap\u2019s rippled rim, caressed its dents, rubbed it until it almost shone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              When I fell again that night, I landed with a bone-jarring jolt in the center of a paw that was cold and rough and sharp at the edges. I struggled to pull away, but honed claws needled into my skin and wouldn\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Pain pricked open my eyes, and I awoke to find the badly bent and dented hubcap clinging to my chest. I wrestled with it over the flannel sheets, quilt, and comforter. When I finally ripped it off, four cuts bled down my stomach. I jumped to my feet and backed away. The hubcap clattered to the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Outside, I light a cigarette and hold it at arm\u2019s length against the sky in the place where the moon should hang. \u201cIt\u2019s not enough,\u201d I say as smoke nooses around my neck. I snuff the butt after only a few puffs, then turn east toward the lights to search my dark and empty street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              **This story was originally published in Beloit Fiction Journal<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              I hold on so tightly I lose my grip. The hubcap clatters to the floor like a platter thrown during a lovers\u2019 spat. \u201cGo to hell!\u201d I yell, then, \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I didn\u2019t mean it.\u201d I pull on a pair of gray sweats and a dirty white T-shirt. Four red lines bleed through the front […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":3772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

              I hold on so tightly I lose my grip. The hubcap clatters to the floor like a platter thrown during a lovers\u2019 spat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cGo to hell!\u201d I yell, then, \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I didn\u2019t mean it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              I pull on a pair of gray sweats and a dirty white T-shirt. Four red lines bleed through the front of the shirt. I grab my battered leather jacket and huff out the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Streetlights flicker a dozen blocks ahead, but where I walk bullets rule. I know I am taking a chance, but I am angry. And more than lonely. Three nights before, I thought my life had turned a corner when I found the hubcap in the slush of a spring snow squall. I bent down and scooped black snow out of the deeper dents before I tucked it inside my jacket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \u201cYou\u2019re cold,\u201d I said. \u201cMy bed is warm.\u201d The hubcap shivered the whole walk home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Inside, I laid the hubcap on my mattress in the middle of the floor. I layered flannel sheets, a quilt, and a comforter on top. I warmed some soup on the stove, but by the time it was heated, the hubcap had already fallen asleep. I set the soup on the floor and slid slowly, quietly beneath the flannel sheets, quilt, and comforter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              It was the dream I had that night that gave me hope. I had fallen in dreams before, but I had never been caught. This time, I settled into a lover\u2019s palm the way the smoke of burning leaves settles into valleys. The longer I lay there, the more my skin glowed. All night I slept as a pearl held in the palm of a lover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The next morning, I awoke spooned by the hubcap. The day unfolded slowly, naturally. The hubcap thanked me by listening\u2014through the morning, the early afternoon, and into the evening\u2014to all of my problems, all of my stories of failed loves and regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              When the sky began to darken outside my blinded windows, I interrupted my own lengthy history. \u201cYou probably have to go.\u201d I tilted my head toward the window. When the hubcap did not reply, I asked, \u201cAre you sure?\u201d then continued unburdening myself until we both drifted off to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Again, I fell through my dream, and again I landed in the lover\u2019s palm. I knew the dream was telling me I was falling in love. I didn\u2019t want to listen. Who would believe me? It couldn\u2019t be true. How could I explain any of this? A man cannot love a hubcap if he does not first love himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The second day was quiet, almost silent. I had nothing left to explain, and the hubcap never did have any explaining to do. We spoke through touch. I ran my stubby fingers around the hubcap\u2019s rippled rim, caressed its dents, rubbed it until it almost shone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              When I fell again that night, I landed with a bone-jarring jolt in the center of a paw that was cold and rough and sharp at the edges. I struggled to pull away, but honed claws needled into my skin and wouldn\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Pain pricked open my eyes, and I awoke to find the badly bent and dented hubcap clinging to my chest. I wrestled with it over the flannel sheets, quilt, and comforter. When I finally ripped it off, four cuts bled down my stomach. I jumped to my feet and backed away. The hubcap clattered to the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Outside, I light a cigarette and hold it at arm\u2019s length against the sky in the place where the moon should hang. \u201cIt\u2019s not enough,\u201d I say as smoke nooses around my neck. I snuff the butt after only a few puffs, then turn east toward the lights to search my dark and empty street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              **This story was originally published in Beloit Fiction Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3771"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3929,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions\/3929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fracturedlit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]