Where To Go When You Miss Him by Austin Eichelberger

The Applebee’s on Main for lunch, despite the fact that he never bartends on Tuesday afternoons; a quiet café on Landon Street – isn’t it just called Café? – that he frequents after work for a chai latte with extra foam, which is better than it sounds; the loud, smoky pool hall by the Civic Center where the two of you would play poker – in the back on Thursdays – and skee-ball; the Food Lion by Waterfront Road that’s only three blocks from his apartment and has beer for a dollar cheaper than any other grocery in town; the Lowe’s you went to – the one on Corrine Boulevard – to get him a new drill and wrench set for Christmas last year; the voodoo shop on the boardwalk, owned by a woman who really is Creole and will build a doll out of a sock and three stray hairs for thirty dollars; before home, to bed, where the sheets smell faintly of beer and sand, and there’s nothing to remind you of how recently he was there.

Austin Eichelberger completed his MA in Fiction in May 2009. Since then, he has taught English and writing courses at several universities. His fiction has appeared in Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, GoneLawn, Extract(s), Eclectic Flash, and others. He is co-founding editor of the online journal SPACES.