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Short Stories
"Certifiable"
This short story is set in a world where a person’s mental health is decided through an application process. It is an exploration of how society defines mental illness.
You have to have permission to go crazy. So I went to my therapist and told her, “Hey, I want to go crazy.” And so she pulls out the paperwork from her cubicle’s filing cabinet to see if I am eligible for insanity and gestures for me to sit in one of her high back leather chairs that really are more uncomfortable than they should be.
Here is a piece of dialogue between the therapist and the main character set in the therapist's office.
The therapist asked. “You don’t have any children, right?”
I say, “No, we don’t have any children.” I don’t think about the office we turned into a nursery and then back into an office again.
She gives me a wink. “That’s good for your case. If you were married with kids, than there is no way I could have given you permission to go crazy.”
"The Beginning, The Middle"
In this piece, Eric is narrating the consequences of his divorce and how the judge split up the couple’s belongings. The belongings start with their house, but then go on to continue the couple’s own memories.
The Judge said “Fair’s fair.” He divided up the house in a sixty-forty split. She kept the house, but Eric got the marble countertops and the stainless steel light fixtures. Eric got the oak floor boards from the master bedroom and one of the windows.
This piece also includes flashbacks to memories that Eric has of meeting his ex-wife for the first time and the beginning of their relationship.
She brought her fingers to her lips and lifted them away, exhaled. Her breath came out as smoke. There were no cigarettes in her hand, but she believed, and for that moment Eric believed as well.
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