My dad’s gun

My dad’s gun

When he was a boy, my dad received a marvelous gift: his father’s own boyhood rifle. It’s a beautiful object. Burnished wood stock, a thundercloud-grey barrel. After my dad died, it was the one thing I really wanted. At this moment – 2:45 a.m., cat stretched beside me...
A sort of/kind of lament

A sort of/kind of lament

I have sort of a pet peeve. Kind of annoying, to be honest. I seem to be obsessing about it more than usual, as I write this, while the summer heat descends. These three phrases – “kind of,” “sort of” and “seem to be” – have become the frayed edge of the...
The apocalypse of the every day

The apocalypse of the every day

A little secret about apocalypse stories: they’re rarely true to the cataclysm you are experiencing in real life. Very few of us get off this Earth without experiencing at least gradual disaster, if only aging bodies. In stories, writers carefully craft the moment...