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SmokeLong Quarterly

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Seven in the Morning

Story by Max Ruback (Read author interview) March 15, 2007

Sergeant still brings you his leash, secured in his mouth. He waits by your bedside, tail wagging. He only senses something wrong, a whimper when he glances at the prosthetic legs leaning against the wheelchair. A car bomb at dusk in Iraq. This first week home and you refuse to leave the house. It is seven in the morning and your mother walks into your bedroom and smiles, nothing said, grabs the leash and leads Sergeant outside for his morning walk. Good boy, she says. Good boy.

About the Author

Max Ruback’s fiction may be found in Descant(Canada), Zing Magazine, Zone 3, Hobart, Rainbow Curve, Crab Creek Review, Illuminations, Quick Fiction, OysterBoy Review, elsewhere. Nonfiction/Reviews in Thought, The Writer, Turnrow, Carolina Quarterly, and Main Street Rag. He lives in West Palm Beach, Florida and can be reached at MaxRuback@aol.com.

This story appeared in Issue Sixteen of SmokeLong Quarterly.
SmokeLong Quarterly Issue Sixteen
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The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest

Deadline November 15th!

The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest (The Mikey) is now an annual competition celebrating and compensating the best micro fiction and nonfiction online.

The grand prize winner of The Mikey is automatically nominated for Best Small Fictions and any other prize we deem appropriate. In addition, we will pay the grand prize winner $1000. Second place: $500. Third place $300. Finalists: $100. All finalists and placers will be published in the December ’25 issue of SmokeLong.

Previously published as well as previously unpublished work will be considered.