"Last Call" by Richard Larsen

This story begins with a reference to Bristol Palin's campaign appearance on television and unravels this narrator’s obsession with being caught between two places, like being stuck with fear on a bridge. What this narrator has to say about identity and love is astounding, especially young love and passion and confusion. In the best of stories, we look for tension along the lines of what is and what if, love and hate. What is at work here is a remarkable tension between the narrator’s gender, the honesty of love and existential identity, together with the structural device of the broken paragraph. The physical structure enhances the emotional truth of this story, masterful evidence of how a story can be organic. Read it here in Eclectica.