They still talk often. Never on what would have been their anniversary. But often.
R. Gatwood’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming, depending on your temporal location, in Metaphorosis.
Christmas Eve was the night Santa didn’t come. I mean, he didn’t come every night, but Christmas Eve was the night it mattered.
R. Gatwood’s fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine and Wigleaf, as well as on Twitter (@iwantanewhead).
“I love you,” I say, and the customer says, “Thank you,” her voice cracking, and then neither of us knows how to hang up.
R. Gatwood (@iwantanewhead) is the emergent consciousness of a spectacularly inefficient library shelving system.
I never miss her. But sometimes I miss the man she thought I was.
R. Gatwood (@iwantanewhead) is the emergent consciousness of a spectacularly inefficient library shelving system.
My grief subroutine calculates the shortest route from every input to a memory of you.
R. Gatwood is the emergent consciousness of a spectacularly inefficient library shelving system.
Every morning the moment of relief between IT WAS JUST A DREAM and THIS IS MY LIFE gets mercifully shorter.
R. Gatwood (@iwantanewhead) is the emergent consciousness of a spectacularly inefficient library shelving system.
We argue over what to call it, that place where the children die.
R. Gatwood is precise.
Since you died, two thoughts keep hitting me one after the other: “Wish you were here” and then “You didn’t want to be here.”
R. Gatwood is concise.
I forgot your birthday this year. Maybe that’s progress.
R. Gatwood’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming, depending on your temporal location, in Apex Magazine.
He lived long enough to see his favorite beach vanish and his favorite food go extinct.
R. Gatwood (@iwantanewhead) is the emergent consciousness of a spectacularly inefficient library shelving system.