Austin Ross

Austin Ross lives near Philadelphia with his wife and son. His fiction has appeared at Hobart, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere. You can follow him @AustinTRoss and find more at austinrossauthor.com.

THE HEART OF MORALITY by Austin Ross

Daddy’s monster is back. That slightly musky scent of sawgrass wafts in across the Everglades as he slides a single bullet into the revolver. This is what I remember, all these years later. This incident with the revolver is familiar to me, a nightly ritual to cap off our evenings of foil-wrapped TV dinners and, for him, nearly a third of a bottle of whiskey. I have learned by now to keep silent during the ritual. As he examines the revolver in his hands, polishes the silver of the barrel with his sleeve, I think: he isn’t such a bad…

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