2021 Reprints: Week 4

The feeling of overwhelming dread that you’ve been experiencing for the past three weeks will leave you sleepless. That sleeplessness will leave you irritable. That irritability will leave you anxious. That anxiety that will lead you to happy hour at the faux-Mexican place just around the corner from the museum where you work. After your second margarita, the assemblage of tinder dates and rowdy frat boys that crowd the bar will make you feel like you’re in the galley of a ship, someplace loud, dark, unpredictable. The dread you carry with you is going to make you feel like that ship is sinking. Another margarita might help. [read full story]

This week’s story is “A Beginner’s Guide to Quitting Smoking” by Joaquin Fernandez, originally published in Chaleur Magazine, 7/26/18.