I dusted off a short story I wrote about ten years ago, applying some additional polish and grit as I’ve learned a few new tricks over the last decade. Enjoy! Feedback is always welcome.

Moments of Madness
By Phil Partington

“Bet’cha didn’t know your grandmother’s name was Jill.”

Jim hadn’t known. Mama had always called her the crazy witch and he had only been a teenager when she passed, more interested in frying brain cells to the tune of anti-war songs at the hand of head-banded “free thinkers” on their stickered guitars. So much about the family had changed since then—or perhaps nothing had really changed at all. It may have been they had always been this nutty and the craziness was just coming out the older they got.

Father was looking less and less like Father with each passing week: patches of moles had spotted his neck where there hadn’t been any…