fiction
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The Missing Record
It’s curious how our minds work — how some desires are repressed, curtailed by social convention, or what we might call social suppression. But before we dig deeper into that, let me tell you a story. Our story begins in the early 1980s with Heidi Berg, a young singer navigating New York’s folk scene. She…
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You’ll Need to Break Your Habits
The following pages are the first of a series of fragments I received under circumstances I can’t fully explain. I’ve resisted the urge to “fix” them—only a few phrases were clarified where the handwriting dissolved into smudge. What remains is not a finished story, but the beginning of a dialogue already in motion.
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The First Fragment: Conversations with Virgin Mary
If you cannot forgive the child you once were, you will curse the adult you have become. A man who despises his younger self is like a house divided: forever repairing walls, never able to live inside.
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Remaining Seated, I Stood Up. Reflections on Authority, Censorship, and the Rules We Follow
Sometimes I think about the absurdity of customs. We follow them like lambs—not because they make sense, but because someone once told us to. Why sit at the back when the front is empty? Why turkey every Thanksgiving when I don’t even like it? Why drag a tree indoors every December and cover it with…
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My Dad was a Monster and I loved him deeply.
On Christmas Day 2024, my father passed away at the age of 85. He was, in the truest sense of the word, a monster—but not the kind that lurks in shadows with fangs and claws. He was the kind only a father can be: imposing, untouchable, a presence that overshadowed everything around him. And I…
Carlos Fentanes 