A couple redefines their life. “Triptych,” a short story now on Substack.
Two women in line ahead of me ask if boys are all right and the men they will become as they scan their jeans, candles, and a shirt with three states joining hands over a point their borders share, and I tell them I was born in that state, chased a rabbit into a cave in that other, and shouted my love to a woman on the banks of the river running through all three. They look me up and down—my clothes, teeth, my hair, what I’m paying with—and ask if I had a son what I would do in these times, and I tell them keep him away from you.
William Auten – “Triptych”
And Cloudbreak – new story collection available 19 September 2025. “A life inside yourself isn’t a life.”
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