Believing you will receive
fiction by Luke O’Neil
I was sitting on the porch in the dark with a friend who had stopped by to tell me he was getting a divorce. No no no he didn’t want to come inside and disturb the kids he said. Out here is fine he said. I brought out a couple of ice cold cold ones and listened to a story about the collapse of an entire world. I confess I teared up more than he did.
Then again it was sudden news to me. You would figure it had settled in for him by now. Hopefully being one of the first people to know about the slow dissolution of his own marriage.
A person can become accustomed to almost any kind of pain. Novelty is pain’s cruelest device.
We hugged differently than we had ever hugged.
A decent enough man will hug his friends routinely albeit quickly and percussively but there is still a kind of hug we keep in reserve for when it is called for.
Keep us breathing fire!
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