“Hey, Buddy,” I called, standing in front of the door. I rapped on it with my knuckles, trying to make the knock audible but non-threatening. “Hey, Buddy, you in there?”         The handle jiggled then

The next morning I woke up to an inhuman howl and a thunderous crash from the living room. I heard billiard balls hitting the floor and rolling into the thin wall of my bedroom. There was another tremendous

Things went downhill for Buddy quickly after that, though it was hard to notice because he spent so much time locked away in his room and I spent so much time trying to avoid him. The only signs that something

The friend’s place was in North Charleston, about twenty minutes away via the interstate. It was a long and somewhat uncomfortable ride, lots of traffic and Buddy was smoking cigarettes the whole way,

Hunter got me a job at the deli by his house on Dewey Street, and after work we would go to his place to barbecue or go to the bar at the end of the street, Faculty Lounge, to drink and play pool. His

Time slowed to a crawl over the next six months. My anxiety had for the most part faded into the background, but in its stead lay an insufferable boredom and a feeling of impatience. The prophetic dreams

Since my story is being seen by more people than I expected, I thought it would be good to give you all an explanation of the what why, and how-- what this story is, why I'm writing it, and how I'm going

Bobby’s place was the second and third floor in the back of a 200-year-old mansion on Rutledge, a couple blocks north of Colonial Lake. The front of the building was flat stone and imposing, coming right

“Wait, wait, wait— I don’t understand at all!” I yelled as I stood up from the couch too, and now everybody in the room except for Sam was standing up like some sort of fight or flight response to the

As soon as I got into town, I drove over to meet everybody at Hunter’s girlfriend’s house. She lived on Mary Street in a carriage house that belonged to a widowed old lady that lived in the front house

It would be several months before I had the financial stability to afford my own apartment and move back to Charleston. In the meantime I started planning a visit, a way of reassuring myself that I was

“I’m going to write you a prescription,” he said. “Something I think might help you a great deal. Have you ever heard of Katharax?”         Of course I had heard of Katharax. Everyone’s heard of Katharax,

I dated Sarah Hawthorne for two years before I left for college, and she was the first girl I ever loved. I had grown up on Hollywood movies and Christianity, and I think the combination of the two led

Dr. Bean's office was on Dante Street right where it met River Road, the same street we’d been driving down when my mom had made the suggestion after the movie. In fact, now that I considered it, she’d

The car ride home was as awkward as you might expect. I’d stayed in the hallway for the entire remainder of the movie, and my parents actually walked out in the last two minutes in order to find me. There

I had long since been a believer in what you might call “collective consciousness,” and I had believed in it so long that I had developed a neurological theory for it. The theory was rooted in the fact

In one particularly vivid dream, I was at my friend Lee’s house in Charleston, and he gave me a tab of acid. After I took it, he told me it was “special acid,” that I would now see everyone in the same

When I graduated from CofC in 2015, I hadn’t ever considered what I would do after college or how I would try to apply my English degree. I had been comfortable there— smoking weed all day, getting drunk

HATE IN AMERICA Study of violence spots rise in lone wolf attacks         The shooting of nine people by a white gunman inside a black church comes amid a recent surge in violent hate groups and incidents,

Have you ever noticed how absurd the news has become? Well, newspapers are no exception. In one glance, you can plainly see that the moral fiber of our country has completely disintegrated, that the standard