The Story Maximalist

Part 1 — The Fall at the Fair She folded at the waist like someone had yanked the plug on daylight. One second the Ferris wheel threw lazy stripes of shadow across the midway; the next, an older woman in a worn leather vest hit the asphalt, her face the color of ash. “AED!” I […]

“Grandpa?” the little girl said, standing in the doorway of the highway diner, cheeks pink from the cold. “Mom says you’re a stranger—but why is the secret photo box full of you?” My fork stopped halfway to my mouth. Christmas morning went silent, like somebody hit pause. Coffee steamed from my chipped mug. The cook

Part 1: The Taillight That Ended My Career I was ordered to tow his bike and call it a night. Instead, I bought gas, taped a paper star, and broke protocol. Rain needles the windshield hard enough to blur the streetlights into smeared halos. It’s 11:57 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and my radio is a metronome

Part 1 – The Key on the Casket “Tell the ushers to stop him at the gate if he shows up in that leather jacket,” I told the church coordinator, tapping the glossy guest list with my polished nail. “This is my father’s funeral, not a parade.” My name is Nora Hale. I argue for

The sanctuary doors slammed wide in the middle of the hymn, and two dozen men in scuffed leather came down the aisle in a tight, silent line—one of them carrying a child-sized helmet plastered with rainbow stickers. Mothers pulled little ones close. A dad stepped sideways, shoulder first, to make himself a wall. The choir

Part 1 — The Oil-Slick Photograph The first crash wasn’t a punch—it was the clatter of an aluminum walker snapping backward on concrete, followed by a small white square spinning through a rainbow sheen of spilled gas. The phone kept recording. The whole parking lot held its breath. I was in the back room of

Part 1 — When the Engines Surrounded the School Thirty-one engines rolled like thunder around Maple Ridge Elementary and the windows on my second-grade classroom trembled in their frames. Lights off. Blinds half-drawn. Twenty-three little chests holding their breath. My phone lit my palm with six words from an unknown number that used to be

Part 1 – Boots at 3 A.M., Oxygen Hissing At 2:59 a.m., boots crossed my hallway, my father’s oxygen hissed, and four helmets turned toward the baby monitor I use to check if he’s still breathing. I grabbed the baseball bat from behind my bedroom door and moved toward the living room, heart punching at

I hit upload on the video exposing my own dad—then watched a squad car roll up and the officer salute him like a flag. I’m sixteen. Our street is a quiet cul-de-sac where people complain about lawn heights and Halloween inflatables on the Nextdoor app. My dad’s motorcycle does not belong here, at least not

Part 1 — Don’t Kill the Engine The kid slammed his palm against my gas tank in 105° heat and whispered through a plastic tube, “If you rev it right now, my grandpa might live ten more minutes.” I’d pulled off at a Chevron outside Riverside Bend because my knee was barking and my tank