Boy, it’s been some rough days this year, seemingly for everyone I know – (perhaps everyone who isn’t a billionaire?) Constant stress has continued to destroy my brain and body and nothing seems to be working out. However, amid this bleak landscape, sometimes good news manages to sneak in. For me, it’s seeing my short story, The Moment of Order, published in the latest edition of Euphemism, the literary magazine of Illinois State University.

The seed of this story was born years ago, when someone told me about her father who had a brain tumor and crashed his car into their house when it started to push on his brain. That terrifying notion stuck in my own brain and continued to bounce around until I put it down on paper and let it take on a life of its own. It took many rewrites and tweaks until I had something I was happy with, and that result is now publicly available.

Thank you to everyone at Euphemism who saw value in my work, and that young lady who told me such a striking detail from her life, even though we barely knew one another.

The story, which is just over 3,000 words, is available online.