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Dead Man's Profile

Dead Man's  Profile The first post went up at 2:13 a.m. No one noticed it right away, which would later bother people more than anything else. There was nothing urgent about it, nothing that demanded attention, and in that quiet, it slipped past the natural defenses grief tends to build. If it had been dramatic, if it had carried even a hint of something unnatural, someone might have questioned it sooner. Instead, it read like Evan. Funny thing about silence. You think it’s empty until you stay in it long enough. It gathered a handful of likes by morning. Old coworkers, a cousin, someone from college who still followed him out of habit more than connection. A few comments came in—soft, cautious acknowledgments, the kind people leave when they don’t quite know what they’re responding to but feel like they should say something anyway. “Miss you, man.” “Still doesn’t feel real.” “Thinking about you.” By noon, someone pointed it out. Not loudly. Not in a way that sp...
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Paper Cuts and Gun Metal - A Wayne Royse Short Story

 Chapter 1 Chicago never whispers. It hisses. The rain came in sideways off the lake, sharp as buckshot, rattling against the office window like it had something personal to settle. Streetlights smeared themselves across wet pavement below, turning Halsted into a ribbon of dull gold and gasoline rainbows. A streetcar clanged somewhere down the line, the sound thin and metallic, like a knife tapped against a glass. Bells from St. Brigid’s rolled through the evening air, heavy and slow, like a priest clearing his throat before a hard truth. My office sat over a barber shop that never closed early and never asked questions. Second floor. Narrow stairs. Smell of talcum powder and hair tonic rising up through the cracks in the floorboards. Outside, the world was wet and cold and moving too fast for its own good. Inside, it was lamplight and paper and the steady tick of a cheap wall clock that always ran a little slow. Rent was cheap because the building leaned a little and the plumbing ...
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