Photo by Natalia Trofimova on Unsplash
by Elan Barnehama
Ben’s sister told him he needed to find something—his own thing, anything—and make it his own, and, she added, he would need people, but good ones were hard to come by. A few months later, during his first semester of college, Ben was at a party at a house of people he didn’t know, where a live band played cover songs. During a break in the music, the bass player went and leaned against the side of the house where there was lighting, pulled out a book from his back pocket, and started reading. Ben went over and asked the bass player what he was reading, and without looking up, the bass player turned the book cover so Ben could see that it was Dylan Thomas, who his sister called the other Dylan, even though she taught Ben that it was the other way around. Ben started to move away but stopped when a woman he recognized from one of his classes went up to the bass and asked what he was reading, only this time, without moving the book, the bass player started to read one of the poems to her. The next day Ben began to carry Kerouac’s, ON THE ROAD, in his back pocket.
Elan Barnehama is the author of the novels Escape Route and Finding Bluefield. His flash collection will be published by Poets Wear Prada in January 2026. His short fiction, personal narratives, and essays have been featured in numerous publications.
