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Nightstands

Story by Cole Meyer (Read author interview) September 19, 2016

Art by Rachel Kuszewski

Every morning I wake with a new woman on my left. Every morning I wake with my wife on the right, and I expect her to be yelling, to be angry, demanding to know why I’ve been unfaithful, but every morning she is only ashes in an urn. Dust collects on the nightstand so I know she hasn’t emerged in the night, hasn’t taken one look at the woman in her place and stormed off. I wonder, now, when this woman will leave. I think about making her pancakes, about sprinkling my wife on top so this woman will become a little more like her. Maybe she will take her hair color, her name. Maybe she will absorb her memories, absorb everything but her breasts and she will be my wife, and healthy. I mark a tally through the dust, one for every night I should’ve slept alone.

About the Author

<span class=”note-text”>Cole Meyer is a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with degrees in creative writing and classical humanities. He is an intern and reader at</span><em><span class=”note-text”> The Masters Review. </span></em><span class=”note-text”>He tweets about writing and baseball @ColeA_Meyer.</span>

About the Artist

Rachel Kuszewski is an art student at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, with no sense of direction.

This story appeared in Issue Fifty-Three of SmokeLong Quarterly.
SmokeLong Quarterly Issue Fifty-Three
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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Previously published as well as previously unpublished work will be considered.