Photo by Florian Olivo on Unsplash
by Abby Manzella
Stanley approaches his favorite bar with his arm extended like a man in a desert reaching for an oasis, but his thirst’s satisfaction is deferred. The Final Shot is closed, and not in a to-be-reopened-in-fifteen-minutes-as-the-evening-hours-approach kind of closed, but closed as in condemned. The building and the man stand alone. It is an ending more difficult to swallow than the place’s cheap whiskey, but he accepts symbolism when it is tossed in his face. Brooke, he thinks as his mind clears. He turns toward home, forgetting that long ago he turned it, through his own negligence, into an empty mirage.
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Abby Manzella is the author of Migrating Fictions. She has published with Threepenny Review, Lit Hub, and Superstition Review. She posts at @abbymanzella and @abbymanzella.bsky.social.
