The bathroom medicine cabinet—It has been three weeks. This will be the easiest I think. It isn’t. I can’t stop the mist in my eyes as I toss everyday medicines left over from normal ailments, the healthy days, the pre-cancer days.
the last surviving member
of Heaven’s Gate
reflects on failure
I thought you were
coming back
had wrapped up
everything
was ready
to be taken away
there’s something happening that I can’t quite
catch. something hiding, birthing,
like the egg of a maggot, itching
to hatch, quite slight—
barely there—
Once again, to the shore
pebbles and plastic wrappers
in-drawing, withdrawing breath of wind,
that slow moaning of foghorns:
our common humanity washed up,
yet again.
“I never told anybody this, but…” These were the last words I remember writing at the Third Street Writers’ workshop. It was midmorning in February, two days before Valentine’s day.
Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 Dreamers Micro Nonfiction Story Writing Contest, for nonfiction stories between 100-300 words.
CRISPR technology lets us edit genes—targeting DNA at precise locations to replace harmful genes or limit their expression.
Hiding in the closet, as far back as possible, I wrap myself up in my grandmother’s beaver fur coat. The warmth envelops me, swaddling, calming me.
You would be twenty-one now, the age I was when I made the choice. I wonder what life would have been, a mirror universe where a different me made you possible. Not regret, but second guessing.