A journal of narrative writing.
Maggie

Listen to Maggie
read by Mark Cox

What an apt, absolutely splendid name, they’ll say, when you answer from behind her bald, sun-block slathered head— the name itself beside the point. It will be perfect, no matter what, just as your baby will be darling, no matter what, and the wife will be lovely, no matter what, and you, no matter what, will be one lucky, lucky man. But when your daughter ODs at 22, brings it all down, cranks the volume on Simple Plan and just blows the whole flimsy house down around you, and it’s a shame, no matter what, and your soused wife’s taken to spiking Tab, and your family name’s been chiseled out of your heart into a granite slab, what good are the niceties now, the affirmational lies, the corners smoothed round for social grace’s sake? Finally, you understand that a wave unrolls onto the beach only once in this life, no matter how much the next wave might resemble it, once is what you get, and there was, no matter what, just one name that could suffice.

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