ATTENTION WRITERS AND ARTISTS,

I have been receiving a plethora of lovely submissions from all of you and I am so grateful for your time. I wanted to add a little reminder that submissions should be sent to this link: http://pipedream.submishmash.com/submit.

If submissions are simply emailed to me, there is the possibility of them being accidentally overlooked. 

Thank you,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

THE OTHER SIDE OF DISTANCE

ROY COUGHLIN

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We drove through most of the night, through most of Texas, through eight CDs and a mixtape you made for an ex, but you couldn’t remember which. We drove through hunger, fatigue, amphetamines, fatigue, hunger. We drove through a Carl’s Jr. at 6 AM, it was hot and cheap. We drove over cliffs but they were mirages, the heat making lines on the pavement, we drove over lines. We drove in the light of the day, unbidden in the light of the day, unbridled but broken, harmless but hopeful. On Wednesday we drove 14 hours. On Thursday we drove longer. On Friday, on Saturday. On Sunday we rested by driving in circles in the dirt of a parking lot at the edge of something, it did not matter. Before us we drove the past like cattle, like snow, like dirt, like great piles of the earth we drove it before us, wishing it were air, wishing it would slip and spill and sail away in long, unknowable, unseen waves around us, over us, behind us, through us, from us, beyond us. We drove ourselves crazy. We drove until the ocean.

God damn it, the ocean.

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Roy Coughlin repairs washers and dryers for a living. In his spare time he lies about being a writer. Supposedly, he has contributed flash fiction to Smalldoggies Magazine, PIPE DREAM Magazine, and HOUSEFIRE. He does his best lying at expatdepot.blogspot.com.