Touching Story

The motion sensor notification buzzed on my phone at 4:17 PM. I tapped the screen, and the camera feed from the farm stand loaded in clear 4K resolution. I watched a young woman commit a crime. My grandfather’s 12-gauge shotgun was sitting in the corner of the living room, clean and loaded. But I didn’t […]

I resigned from my job yesterday. I didn’t hand in a two-week notice, and I didn’t clear out a desk. I simply put down a slice of cake, picked up my purse, and walked out of my daughter’s house. My “employer” was my own daughter, Jessica. And my payment? For the last six years, I

I scrubbed public toilets and floors for 15 years to build a mansion for my family. When I finally came home, my key didn’t work. My mother told me the master bedroom belonged to my unemployed brother because “he is a man with a family, and you are just… you.” They didn’t know the land

I lost $200 that afternoon. I locked my front door during the busiest hour of the week, turned away regular customers, and probably ruined my reputation for being “fast and efficient.” And I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was a Saturday in downtown Chicago. If you know anything about barbershops in the

I watched the woman steal three dozen eggs and a sack of potatoes while my shotgun sat loaded behind the door, untouched. It wasn’t the theft that froze me; it was the way she wiped her eyes before she ran. My father built this farm stand in 1958. It’s nothing more than a weathered oak

The sound of a declined debit card is the loudest noise in the world. It isn’t a bang. It’s a sharp, mechanical buzz-beep that cuts right through the generic pop music playing over the store speakers. It stops time. I was standing in line at a “Super-Mart” just outside of Detroit last Tuesday. It was

My wife just offered me five dollars to leave her bedroom because she’s expecting her husband home any minute. I am her husband. I’ve been sitting in this chair for four hours. I didn’t take the crumpled bill. I just told her I’d wait in the hallway, stepped out of Room 402 at the “Maplewood

I didn’t find drugs in the bathroom stall. I found a child trying to wash shame out of her jeans with cold tap water, trembling so hard the porcelain sink rattled. My name is Martha. I’m 72 years old. I should be retired, sitting on a porch somewhere drinking iced tea. But with the price

I looked at the MRI scan and felt a chill go down my spine that had nothing to do with the hospital air conditioning. It was a death sentence, printed in black and white. They call me a legend in this hospital. I’m Dr. James Miller, retired Chief of Vascular Surgery. I’ve spent forty years

I watched a plastic doorbell scream at a shivering boy in the pouring rain, threatening to terminate his account while the homeowner sat invisible behind closed curtains. It was 6:00 PM on a Tuesday, the kind of gray, miserable evening where the rain doesn’t just fall; it soaks into your bones. I was sitting on